KOLKATA: Five years after
Bob Dylan sang ‘The Times They Are A Changin’, they stepped on to the college campus. They were witness to the most turbulent times in Bengal — CPM had emerged as the single largest party for the first time, but eventually failed to complete its term, the Naxal movement was raising its head with some of the best minds being drawn into it and the college was forced to shut down for over eight months (in two phases). Two years into college, they witnessed the birth of Bangladesh.
Forty-two years after they left college, 50 men and women — all students of
Presidency University
(then Presidency College) between 1969-72 — met at a hall in Rashbehari Avenue on Saturday to relive those days. This was one of the numerous unofficial reunions being organized across the city on the sidelines of the Presidency bicentenary celebrations. Almost all of them are successful in their lives and what binds them together, they claimed on Saturday, was the love and longing for each other and the country.
Thus, while historian
Sekhar Bandyopadhyay
won the
Rabindra Samman
even though he is settled as a top-rung historian in New Zealand, career diplomat Jawar Sircar retired as the CEO of Prasar Bharati. Anup Kumar Sinha, one of the most respected faculty members of IIM-Kolkata, returned home even after securing a PhD from
University of Southern California
.
On Saturday though, the banter was not limited to discussing careers. It was about sharing stories that made their college days special. The gang had reconnected through modern technology, they said. “We owe this reunion to WhatsApp and Facebook. Who knew I will catch up with people whom I last met 43 years ago?”
Sinha recalled the day they bullied Chemistry student Soumen Ghosh, who loved bullying others. “We put him in a double decker bus from college and told the conductor he was mentally unstable and his parents would be waiting for him at the Ballygunge depot. You should have seen the dutiful conductor rebuking Soumen every time he claimed he needed to get off the bus. Those were the days when you could put across a point and friends understood you,” he said.
Start a Conversation
Post comment