Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury
Brief Introduction
- Birth – January 18, 1955
- Education – MBBS (IMS/BHU)
- Publications – 4 books (2 in Hindi, 1 each in English and Bengali) and two are yet to come.
- Translations – Books and articles are translated in English, Odiya, Marathi and Gujarati.
- Awards – CBT awarded stories and novel, “Kamaleshwar Smriti Katha Award (2013, 2017 and 2019)” by Kathabimb.
- Honour – “Hindi Sevi Samman” by Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwa Vidyalaya, Wardha (December 2016).
☆ Juvenile Fiction ☆ The Tide of will – Part-1 ☆ Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury ☆
The Headmaster Reads His News Paper
In a faraway corner of Kerala is a small scenic village, named Haripadam. Five little girls were playing there, in a courtyard. They had drawn a few squares on the soil with a piece of stone. Each girl was leaping, when it was her turn, on one of her legs only, from one square to the other. Gayatri, a girl of seven, pulled her ‘puntu’, a ghagra or skirt type dress worn by the girls in Kerala, up a little and giggled, ‘Look Savitha, here I score four points!’
‘No ma’am, you couldn’t reach the next square.’ Her friend Savitha protested.
They started running one after the other.
‘Huh! You couldn’t touch me.’ One girl said to other.
Their giggles floated in the morning air and drifted like a breeze all over the village.
Gayatri’s grandpa Mr. Haripadam Sasidharan Narayanan had built this house. He was the headmaster of the boys’ school over there. After spending his whole life teaching over there, he was retired. He was an administrator of repute as well. However, he was not a stickler for rules. After retirement, he had been spending his days in complete peace. Busy in his daily rituals.
‘Gayatri, come and take the coffee to your appupan (grandpa).’ called out her mother Ananthi, from the house. Gayatri came running. The mother cautioned her, ‘Hold it with care. Don’t spill it. It’s hot.’
Sitting in an easy chair, Narayanan was waiting there in the courtyard.
‘Appupan, here’s your coffee.’Gayatri handed the glass over to her grandpa and ran immediately back to join her friends.
Narayanan blew off the spiralling smoke from the glass to cool it a bit and sipped the coffee. ‘Ah, the tonic of my life!’ pleasurably he exclaimed. Nearby, the banana trees were waving their long green leaves in the breeze. Suddenly he was startled by a thud.
The morning newspaper came flying and crashed near his feet. In his mind he praised the aim of the newspaper boy. The boy was not visible. He had already sailed away riding on his cycle. Narayanan smiled and picked up the paper. As he was turning the pages and browsing through them his brows were knitted. He frowned to himself, ‘Oh, every day the same old news! Accidents, theft, corruption, A kills B and C kills A, and what not!’ He stopped at the editorial page. He was much more interested to know about the birds, the tigers, the colourful insects and the newly discovered species of animals or flowers or something like that. He would think why we can’t protect our precious flora and fauna? Why our holy rivers are dying? Suddenly his eyes were struck by a piece of news on the sports page. His face started glowing in eagerness.
The heading read – ‘Super Beti from Chandannagar!’ It was the story of a twenty-eight-year-old school teacher from West Bengal. She was Piyali Basak. The daughter of a poor man. But her dreams were not poor at all. Since her teen age she had been fascinated by the stories of the snow-covered peaks of Everest. From her very childhood she had been nurturing the dream of going to the village of Khumbu in Nepal, the birthplace of Tenzing Norgay. He was the Sherpa who accompanied Edmund Hillary in his climb to Mount Everest. They were the first in the world to reach the summit.
The report said that Piyali had undergone intensive training in different mountaineering courses at Darjeeling. The latest feather to her cap was to scale the eighth highest peak in the world, Manasalu, at 8163 metres height, with other girls. Once she had even flew her home and went to Nepal. Worked there as a porter but because of political turmoil in that country she couldn’t fulfil her dream of visiting Khumbu.
The headmaster’s chest was full of pride when he came to know that it was Piyali’s teacher, some Apoorva Chakraborty, who helped her a lot financially. The dare devil girl was in Kedarnath with others when that infamous cloud burst took place there. They had to spend five days in a cave during that torrential rain and snow fall without any food or anything. Even with a tumour in her abdomen she was doing all these. Her next aim was to scale the Mount Everest. For which she needed a big amount of money. Narayanan thought of contributing to her cause.
In spite of this, a cloud of sadness started hovering in his mind. He pushed his glasses above his forehead and leant back in the chair. Looking at the distant mountain peaks he was lost in his thoughts. After the span of the paddy fields, the line of tall toddy trees were forever trying to touch the blue sky in the horizon.
He thought – ours is such a vast country. But except for cricket who is interested in other sports? Who knows the name of the sports persons in other fields? Cricket is the queen of all sports but what about the rest? Are they simply back benchers of the class? Of course, P.V.Sindhu and Saina Nehwal are famous in badminton but who else?
Suddenly his eyes fell upon his kuchumol (granddaughter).
One…..two…..three….four….. Jumping from one square to other they were counting their points.
Eyeing her, Narayanan was lost in his thoughts, ‘What’s stored there in the future of this girl? Will she too remain confined to the four walls of kitchen? What does the future keep in store for the girls of this country? Can’t we have one more produnova girl like Dipa Karmakar, the famous gymnast from Tripura?’
Narayanan went on thinking, ‘Can’t Gayatri become an athlete or something? But what -? How to help her grow into a sportswoman?’
Contd…
© Dr. Amitabh Shanker Roy Choudhury
Contact: C, 26/35-40. Ramkatora. Varanasi. 221001. Mo. (0) 9455168359, (0) 9140214489 Tel. (0542) 2204504.
Email: [email protected]
© डॉ. अमिताभ शंकर राय चौधरी
C0ntact: Care Dr. Alok Kumar Mukherjee, 104/93, Vijay Path, मानसरोवर, जयपुर, Rajasthan 302020
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≈ Editor – Shri Hemant Bawankar/Editor (English) – Captain Pravin Raghuvanshi, NM ≈
