Sukalpa Dhar, Kolkata: I was studying at Guru Nanak Senior Secondry School, Guwahati when my father got transferred to Udaipur, Tripura from Guwahati. My father was working at the State Bank of India, Udaipur in 2002 and for my studies I along with my mother had to stay back in Guwahati. In my summer vacation we had visited Udaipur and Agartala. My parents had already planned that after my final examination of class III we will shift to Udaipur but in the middle of that my father again got transferred to Kolkata in 2003. So my parents decided not to break my studies in the middle of another session so I continued my IVth standard too in the same school. I never wanted to leave my school as I had many friends in my class.
During that time our school didn’t have the higher secondary section. It started from Preparatory A and upto class X. But naturally, as we all have to leave past things and events behind and move forward in our lives I too had to leave my dear friends and fly to Kolkata.
It was the summer of 2007 when we shifted to Kolkata. I along with my parents was staying in Regent Park, Ranikuthi, Tollygunge area at Kolkata. We started staying in a rented house there. It was a three storied building and each floor had high ceilings and the walls of the rooms were very thick. Each floor had a balcony.
The house belonged to Mrs. Dipti Misra. She rented the ground floor to us. She lived in the first floor and in the second floor lived her daughter and son-in-law. Very near our house there was a park. Actually the name of that park was Regent Park near Ranikuthi and the government made housing complex surrounding that park so it was named as Regent Park Government Housing Estate. Later the state government sold some of the vacant plots to private owners. Regent Park was a very beautiful area. Our house had a trouble of termites otherwise it was very spacious and comfortable. The termites had increased their knowledge by literally digesting many of our books. They had also consumed some of the carton parts and made holes in our wooden bookshelf. Whenever we used to demolish the cavities of the termites they could easily found out some other area of the rooms and make their ways. My father used to inject dettol antiseptic liquid in the termite cavities.
That definitely reduced the rate of speed of spreading the termite cavities a bit but it could never restrict and stop them from spreading.
I had many friends in my neighbourhood. During the late-afternoon hours from 4pm to 6pm we played a lot in the park. We played cricket and football. The house just opposite ours was owned by a person fondly called as Alo da (elder brother) by the neighbours. He would lease out the ground floor of his house to various films and television serial shooting parties. Every now and then numerous shooting parties used to come there and held their shooting sessions. We were accustomed to listen to some of the jargons related to shooting such as CU (Close-Up), LS (Long Shot), ECU (Extreme Close Up), MLS (Medium Long Shot) so on and so forth. They used the road which passed between Alo Uncle’s house and ours, and at times, and they also used the park for outdoor shooting too. I was least interested to go and see the shootings because I felt bored of continuous takes and retakes of same scenes. Suddenly, one evening I heard the sound of rain and came out running in our veranda and to my surprise I found that it was raining only in one particular area just in front of our house. It was an artificial rain created for shooting a particular scene of a production. During the lunch hours the members of a production house would sit and eat together. One day I came out in our balcony and as usual a shooting was going on.
Suddenly to my utter surprise I saw a known face of mine. A face which I had seen in a recently released Bengali film named ‘Kailashey Kelenkari’ (2007). He was none other than the popular actor (now turned director) Parambrata Chatterjee, the Topshe of the Indian Bengali thriller film ‘Kailashey Kelenkari’(2007) directed by Sandip Ray. Sandip Ray is an eminent film director and music director and the son of Bharat Ratna and Academy Honorary Award winner, popularly known as the Oscar, Satyajit Ray. Parambrata Chatterjee also acted in Sandip Ray’s film ‘Bombaiyer Bombete’ (2003). It got released in December 2003. I had watched both the films and liked Parambrata Chatterjee’s acting as Topshe in both the films. I was very exuberant seeing him from my balcony. I called out his name excitedly.
He was astonished and was looking here and there trying to make out from where the sound had come. I came out from my balcony and quickly introduced myself. I had told him that I had seen ‘Kailashey Kelenkari’ (2007) recently and I also told him that I liked his acting very much there. He nodded and smiled with acknowledgement. I requested him to play cricket with me. He readily complied with my request. He said that he can easily play as they had a break. I went home to fetch my cricket bat and tennis ball and called my mother to get her introduced with him. She came and talked with him and she also clicked a photograph of us. I too clicked another photograph of Parambrata Chatterjee with my mother.
We started playing in the road which passed between our house and Alo Uncle’s house. At first there were only two of us. Then gradually as time went by one after another the entire cast and crew who were involved in the shooting came and joined us. I was enjoying to the fullest. Turn after turn Parambrata dada (brother) got the chance to bat. I was bowling and in my third ball he played a pull shot and unfortunately it went high up and hit straight to our neighbour’s windowpane.
But fortunately it didn’t break off. I fled off the area in embarrassment. It was a holiday so the owners of the house were there and they called up Alo uncle and lodged a complaint. Alo uncle immediately ordered to stop the cricket match. Later, I thanked Parambrata dada to play with me. I shall always remember this fond incident which happened with me once.