The piercing dawn sun beams through the gaps of the curtains broke my sleep, and I got up wearily. The jet lag was taking hold, and the hectic schedule of the days didn't particularly help. The third floor bedroom was cold in the morning, and despite the space heater, and the double heavy blankets, my breath was slightly visible. True to his name, the Rebel without a Cause, my dad was no where to be seen - Apparently, he had already taken off in the morning for a run around Purulia, and the biting cold was more of an invitation than a stark warning.
I walked down the stairs to the second floor, and sat down in the living room in the second floor - the room was originally a bedroom, when my grandparents were living downstairs. I'd be hard-pressed to call it a true living room; the space was greatly taken up by a series of great wooden closets. These wooden closets were perhaps one of the great constants in the house (I always wondered was it built into the walls or something?!) - the same wooden closets used to house my great-grandmother's white saris, and I remember her small figure fiddling around in the closets for god knows what. Now they house my grandfather's numerous crisply folded shirts, pants, and ties with Windsor Knots.
I sat down and called my mom to say good-night to her, and check upon what Yashin and Kafka, my two cats were doing. In the middle of the call, my grandfather walked in, nay shuffled in through the curtains - his hunched frame belied by the series of grey sweaters he wore, topped with a red cap that made him look unfortunately like a Turkish Ice Cream Vendor, a white pyjama that was starting to get too big for him was somewhat loosely bound around his frame. His straight white hair peaked around his cap, and the faint white stubble of his unshaven face perhaps accentuated his still strikingly handsome features. A far cry from the tall imposing figure from my childhood. Dadabhai, as I called him, was a man of relative nonsense, who would call me a Mischievous Monkey.
He came in, and stopped, with his hands clutched behind his back. I saw his gaze go towards the red washing machine in the corner, and he curiously stood there transfixed. I started laughing, and showed Ma - "look Dadabhai is simply staring at the washing machine!" She started laughing - "why is he doing that?" I answered back - "I have no clue." Meanwhile, Dadabhai was completely unbothered, and still shuffled closer to the washing machine without breaking his gaze.
"I have no clue" is pretty prescient of Dadabhai's actions and moods to me. If my father, the Rebel Without a Cause, is hard to understand, Dadabhai is an entire freaking enigma. Everything I have known about him came from others, chiefly my grandmother and father being the "Dadabhai Translators."
I don't particularly remember him being particularly talkative when I was younger, and at 81 years of age, he talks even less! My interactions were mainly finding ways to elicit reactions from him, from flicking his nose, locking him in the bathroom, caricaturing him (particularly his way of using his inhaler), or causing havoc while I would ride on the back of his signature blue Atalanta Scooter. Unfortunately, the blue scooter was gone when I came this time to Purulia, his double knee replacement surgeries sealed the final nail in the coffin on his ability to control the scooter (after nearly 30 years!!).
I don't think anyone has annoyed him to the extents that I have; and somewhat may be experiencing a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to me, because he would always come back to be annoyed or pranked again. Being completely unsatisfied with my younger self's attempts to elicit a heart to heart conversation from him, I asked my grandmother Thami earlier in the year that I wanted to know everything there is to know about Dadabhai, including where he was born, and where he worked, where his parents are from, etc.. I wanted to know my mysterious Dadabhai, and heaven forbid if I didn't get to find out before I left Purulia. And so, Thami, the name I call my grandmother, had kindly booked an entire day of traveling and we would go to the places of Dadabhai, and I would get to for the first time experience the stories that I have heard from my childhood about my Dadabhai. Even Dadabhai was surprisingly excited, he had been practicing taking motion sickness pills for the entire day of travel.
Dr. Kiriti Bhusan Sinha, MBBS , ex-CMOH Purulia (Chief Medical Officer of Health) or Dr. K.B. Sinha is Dadabhai. At this point, all the stuff I have heard about his reputation was approaching myth status - for example, every morning he still has patients who come to visit him, sometimes traveling over 100 km from the villages in the entire Purulia District. His name colloquially was Doctor-Da (pronounced as Dactar-Da with short a sound), the -Da at the end is a Bengali honorific way to sign respect to someone who is older. In Purulia, my father and I were not known by our names, but rather than Doctor-Da's son and grandson. His last name is not even mentioned, because everyone knows who he is, despite being retired for more than 20 years now.
After a heavy breakfast, while Baba helped Thami and Dadabhai get ready, I went to the newest local sweet shop, Prabhat Sweets (not Mohan's to my surprise!) got 120 Nolen Gur (Date Molasses) roshogollas. Baba and Thami had calculated that 100 roshogollas would be enough, Dadabhai had stayed quiet during the entire calculation, and instead pulled me aside as I was leaving and whispered me to get 20 more.
Driver Uncle and I were late coming back from the trip due to traffic at the sweet shop, and I saw Baba and Thami were "talking" (read loudly arguing) about car seating arrangements and about hurrying up, while Dadabhai stood silently with his cane. This scene is surprisingly what day to day life looks like when Baba goes to visit Purulia - Thami and Baba "talk" while Dadabhai simply sits or stands quietly to the side (to be fair, in the midst of the "talking", he really doesn't get a chance to add to the conversation).
Funny enough, the similarities are striking to my own relationship with Ma and Baba. I call Ma and Baba everyday, or to be more accurate, I Facetime Ma while Baba is somewhere in the background. Inevitably at some point during our call, Ma and I start "talking", and when Ma accuses of Baba not saying much during the conversation, he protests - "I have no chance, you and Piku just argue the entire time!"
And after packing everyone in, and Baba and Thami had finished talking, we made a stop at a roadside temple to pay our respects and obtain blessings we were on our way to the road of Dadabhai's past.