a new beginning(cond.)

It was really a heavenly dispensation that I didn't get a supplementary in mathematics,in my +2 exams!It was a regular nightmare which kept me prophecising that i had failed in maths.....I still remember the d-day when the results were declared....GOSH!!!!! I WAS TREMBLING,SWEATING,PALPITATING and what not.....Finally,as the list was put up, one of my batchmates,Chandan came and hugged me----''tu Maths me pass ho gaya...........'' the feeling must have been something close to delivering a baby(as I knew it courtesy internet)....now,the path was paved for my career in real sense of the term...

A NEW BEGINNING...

life at Kolkata was not that easy,specially for a naive guy,hitherto unaccustomed to a metro city, like me.My classmates were amicable and co-operated with me but somewhow the hangover of my erstwhile alma mater remained! Being somewhat shy and unsporty,I was also bullied by some of my mates(they now feel guilty and have also proclaimed that publicly )...I came out with a dilligent result in my boards ,if not extraordinarily good.After this,my life could have taken a different turn had my father and the other so called ''well wishers'' not forcibly driven me into studying Science,as they thought it was below the dignity of a family,academically so resplendant, to have one of its predecessors ending up with an arts degree...(as all my cousins were engineers and doctors from 'tagged' institutes)I had no other option but to subjugate to the imperative statements of my paternal elders...Kaustav,destined to study Shakespeare, Keats and Lawrence had to bear the yoke of that BIG FAT horrible book of Mechanics by C.R.Dasgupta and those endlessly ennuing practical classes with the foul odour of SO2 choking my nasal passage!!!!

exodus...

The exodus from my native land to Kolkata,was agonising! I was caught off guard when my parents suddenly decided to leave north-east because of the ever increasing terrorist activities-as baba used to be on official tours,maa was perturbed as to how she would handle precarious situations....moreover my maternal uncles and aunts insisted that we shift because I wasn't getting ample scope to learn music properly.It was June, 1992----I was sent to Kolkata with two of my mesho's office employees(that was even more painful,which I understood much later)as my session had already commenced.I was denied the opportunity of meeting my school mates,even......... I remember I didn't eat throughout the journey---and fleeting memories of my teachers,friends, the beloved musanda plant,bleeding heart,'raggy'-the pet dog of our landlord,and school bus no-7 ....kept invading me!

My School Days(contd.)

Though i was not brilliant in studies,but was diligent enough to be in the ''good books'' of the teachers----Mathematics was my phobea(and believe me,i still have nightmares of having got plucked in Higher Secondary Exams!!!!!) most of the teachers loved me,barring a devil incarnate,''BABU SIR'' who used to perambulate the premises to locate if there was anyone around without a badge or the tie properly placed.Once when i was in class vi, i was beaten up because i had forgotten to take my diary to school-----pat came a slap!!!! ouchhh........my class teacher had consoled me as i broke into tears!never before or after had i been punished at school!

my school days

I studied at South Point High School and have spent some of the glorious days of my life there,the innocence,naivete,of those days are like pearls in an oyster in the timeless depths of the ocean---to be cherished over and over again.I was fortunate enough to have cultivated my passion for music with inspiration from my teachers.Be it any inter school fest or any state-level competition,i was the first one to be summoned to the principal's room---i remember an anecdote:Spic Macay was organising a nation wide classical vocal contest,and the authorities had come down to our school for participants.When I went to BIG MAM'S(that's what we used to call her)room,shrunken,apprehending as to why I was called,she introduced me to a gentleman from Spic Macay saying that:''he is the pride of my school''....I will remember this,for the rest of my life.Though I was underaged for the contest, they listened to a bandish (most probably it was in rag yaman)and allowed me to participate with the university students.I had sung raag Maalkauns and had bagged the 2 nd prize.......I still have the memento which says,'Look Beyond Yourself'!

my childhood days were spent in Guwahati and Shillong----the latter was a paradise for me;though my aesthetic sensibilities were in the primitive stages,i could feel an impulse within, the moment the bus used to cross 'Barapani' and take turns through the meandering roads lined with pines and eucalyptuses.Now at this age when i read 'shesher kobita',i can feel what a magnetic force must have propelled Tagore to write,''udhhoto shob shakhay shakhay rhododendron guchho''!! our ancestral home was located at laitumkhrah,supposedly one of the most posh areas of the hill-town.My initiation into music must have happened there as i have remembrances of staring at the esraj,sitar,tanpuras,swaramandal for long hours played by my illustrious grandfather,while my cousin and her friends would give up after persuading me to accompany them.My granpa's room resembled Ray's ''jalsaghar'......as far as my memory has got it recorded there were portraits of Tagore and Pandit RaviShankar,the strings of the esraj were torn,and a layer of dust always remained settled on the covered sitar.

NoStAlGiA

I am a native from the state of the seven sisters,Assam---the enchantress,seducing all with her natural bounty.Surrounded by hills and hillocks,and gifted with the ''Old Man River'',Brahmaputra,Assam has seen me grow up amidst the aroma of the tea gardens of Tezpur,the frozen twilight of Shillong, and the dense forests of Manas.
Born in 1980 at Guwahati Medical College,I have an eventful story to narrate about my seeing the light of the world from the secret chambers of my mother's womb.My mom was diagnosed with chicken pox right before my birth ,and as a consequence,she was refused admission in nursing homes and hospitals of the city.So,how do I come ?? Dr.Aloka Goswami,a reputed gyanecologist was sent as a samaritan for my mom and in a curtained corner of medical college's verandah,i cried out for the first time!!