I was fiddling in the front seat with Dadabhai's cane, when we first came to our first stop - Kotshila a small town even more western than Purulia (at this point the Jharkand and West Bengal border is less than 30 km away). Kotshila was the place where Baba had spent his early years before he went to boarding school, and the first major posting of Dadabhai after his marriage. He was posted as one of the two medical doctors (or attendings) in the Muralhar Kotshila Rural Hospital.
As soon as the car stopped, a small group started to gather and soon enough the cries rang out - Doctor-Da is here! A man just simply broke down, and started crying at Dadabhai's feet. The people in the back of the crowd started to realize who was there, and started to come forward to pay their respects to him. To be honest, it was pretty bewildering and frankly a bit awkward because I had no idea who these people are, and why the sudden outpouring of emotion. Little did I know that this was only the tip of the iceberg.
Dadabhai was also became awkward as well, yet he still talked with all the folks who came up to him; personally asking them how they have been, and what they have been up to. One person was completely insistent, that both Dadabhai come visit his new house that he has built and see his wife in a nearby village (gram as we say in Bengali).
Trying to separate Dadabhai from this crowd was trying to separate two magnets stuck to each other; I felt extremely awkward and out of place so I climbed back in the car and just watched from the back window - another person started talking to both Thami and Dadabhai about his recent struggles with teenage daughter, and how his current job and life is going on! In the back of my mind, I had already started to suffer an existential crisis - who is this man??
Thankfully, we were able to leave - turns out we had simply stopped in a small junction to find the right path to another village called Khatanga. I was completely zoned out on the ride over there, the jet lag had hit hard, and I was frankly too busy trying to put things together. The dirt road was barely wide enough to contain the car, and the rice paddies (converted to wheat fields in the winter), had workers harvesting the wheat. I had always felt out of place in normal Purulia, at this point in this even more rural area, I was completely out of my element - it felt that like 1960-1980s India had come out of nowhere. Goats and chickens were freely roaming around, street dogs were seeking shade from the afternoon sun.
We stopped at Khatanga in front of a house, and I wasn't sure why we were here. Again another small crowd had started to form - partly due to the size of the car, and the resulting commotion from unloading everyone. The cement house was actually a complex of several houses, with a major open courtyard in the middle. As I entered the house, I saw several people reaching out and just surrounding Dadabhai, practically holding his hand and just supporting him as he walked into the house. (Although I did support him getting in and out of chairs at home in Purulia, I suspect his sudden inability to walk into the house was a bit of play-acting involved as he walks pretty well!). Again, someone showed up and asked whether Doctor-Da is here, but this time I heard someone say Choto (Younger) Doctor-Da is here. And at this point I was convinced that I had lost sense of time, because how does anyone think my 81 year old Dadabhai is young! (Choto has more connotations of a young child in Bengali).
I was very confused what was going on - until I saw my great uncle - Mej Dadabhai - the younger brother of Dadabhai in the house. His big white mustache and thin wiry frame that hides tremendous strength was a frankly a great feeling of familiarity. Mej Dadabhai has been around forever, and when I was younger, instead of playing "got your nose" - he would pop random joints in my body - it ranged from knuckles to popping my arm. He would even arm wrestle with me, and every time I came to Purulia, I always looked forward to his presence. Compared to my more serious Dadabhai, Mej Dadabhai is more banterous as well. He has a very quiet voice, that barely raises above whispering, and has an intense personality that simply resonates warmth and caring.
I asked him what is he doing here in Khatanga, and he replied that he is currently supervising the wheat harvesting in the villages surrounding Kotshila - for context, he works as a laborer and engineer (graduated with a Mech E degree), hence the source of his tremendous strength. I have only seen Mej Dadabhai stay with other family members so it started to clue me in that the folks here in Khatanga were essentially distant cousins. The uncles, aunts, and great aunts were cousins on Dadabhai's side.
Over lunch, I should say feast, because apparently there is a collective loss of sense of scale whenever visitors come to visit in Indian grams, I started to realize that the these cousins was the extended family of the other doctor posted in the Kotshila Hospital. Dadabhai was the younger of the two, so he became known as the Choto Doctor, and that name had stuck. The Boro (older) Doctor, Dr. Nityananda Singha, was not in Khatanga, but was in Kolkata. I thought this would clear up confusion, but it only made me more confused - so Dadabhai was leading the hospital with his cousin? and how in the world were they even cousins to begin with? and why Kotshila of all places?
But I didn't get long to ponder because I was getting whisked out to go see the surrounding rural beauty, and someone from Khatanga had called Dadabhai, saying that he is currently ill or knows someone who is ill, and had asked Dadabhai to come visit him before he left.
On the car ride to see the mountains, I also picked up that Dadabhai and the other doctor had been also sort of de-facto government in the Kotshila and surrounding areas of Jhalda. They were not directly involved in the local villagers and landowner conflicts (apparently there had been a violent murder of Tiwari, main landowner, at one point by the local villagers because they were fed up with his "shenanigans", and shenanigans is understated here), but were directly in the know of the villagers lives and their concerns. They were responsible for distribution of wheat and other goods that came from international and governmental aid, healthcare education, sanity, epidemiology, and family planning. As the only representatives of the state government, and the fact that they provided refuge and care for so much of the underserved population. They weren't just doctors, they were literal heroes and gods in their eyes. Jumping the shark here, but I found out later that they were literally prayed to as well like the Hindu gods were.
It was getting to be late afternoon after we had returned from our little excursion into the rural countryside, and Dadabhai I could see was starting to get a little bit restless - I thought it was because he was getting bored, but no - he was worried about the patient that had called him, and it had been over an hour and a half since he said he would try to be there. This time around, he could suddenly walk really well, and got in the car quickly. When we reached the place that the patient said he would be there, I again saw Dadabhai get literally mobbed with another crowd of folks, but this time around I saw him start asking folks for where the patient is, because patient was no longer there. Not satisfied, he started walking around and started knocking on doors and started asking where his patient was. Alas, the patient had left because it had taken too long for Dadabhai to arrive.
But we didn't have much time to wait, because remember the person who wanted to show Dadabhai and Thami his house and wife?, well we we were on our way to go to his house in another remote village. I found out the story - apparently, a group of 4 brothers had become orphaned when their parents had died within days of each other due to dysentery in the hospital. Dadabhai and Thami had taken on role of surrogate parents a bit and helped them out personally, including nursing one of the brothers who had fell ill back to health in their own home. One of the brothers was the one who was taking us to his house.
When we did get there, I saw how excited the brother was - he seemed like a proud kid showing his parents his accomplishment. The house was a huge one compared to others in the village, with large rooms, and multilayers. Maybe it was me or it was the setting sun that reflected off Dadabhai's eyes, I felt that I saw the hint of how proud and happy he was about the brother's success.
But that wasn't the last stop of the day, we had one more and it was getting dark, and within the rural areas, the darkness sets like a heavy blanket. We had to go, and we had one more stop on the road of Dadabhai's past, and perhaps the story of where it all began.