Green Gate, Punya Maali and Gautam Ghose

I returned home from office around seven in the evening. I saw my daughter and son were glued to the small t.v.set. Those days we had a black and white one,  and one of them shouted “Dad join us, this is a good tele-film, about a village doctor.. its by Gautam Ghose” . I just glanced and said appreciatively “oh it is by Gautam… my personal friend !” To this both of them gazed at me for a while and then together they burst into a loud laughter ! “Dad, what is a ‘personal friend’….”. I lost my words trying to utter something “ well… it is like…. I mean”. At this juncture my wife came to my rescue and said “why not come to the dining room …. I will get you a hot cup of tea “. I simply followed her and almost ran out from the spot.

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We were studying at a missionary school in south Calcutta. It was quite an old school run by the Anglican Missionary, located on a main street complete with quite a big church. We had two entrance gates…. Green ornamentaly iron-cast. The one leading to the church portico was the main entrance. This was managed by Punya Mali. As the name suggests, Punya was basically a gardener… the school  indeed had some scattered garden….. but he also doubled as the gate-keeper. We also had another identically designed large gate at another side of the school, behind the church, beside the small grave-yard. Yes, this too was coloured green. This gate was always kept locked… and it was at a secluded place.

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That day four of us assembled behind the church. Ataul explained that he will stand just at the corner end of the church, I am to stand a bit far on the passage… my job was to warn if anyone is seen coming this way. The mission was to arrange a safe passage to Niloo and Gautam, so that they can scale the tall green gate .. jump and escape…. . As

Thanks to Facebook ! I found the exact spot, after so many decades ! I was behind the bush !

planned both Niloo and Gautam reached near the gate. Niloo first climbed the gate. Half-way through he threw the leather sandals onto the road outside. And then he jumped on the road with ease . It was then the turn of Gautam.  Gautam always wore black heavy shoes-  he was almost on top of the gate. And then the inevitable happened ! I saw Punya Mali coming to this side. I got nervous and signaled  “Ata… Punya !” On his turn Ata warned the duo about ensuing Punya’s arrival on the site !. But, Punya suddenly halted and made an about turn . And vanished  into some class room somewhere !

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There was a popular cinema hall in Colootola named Moonlight. It was popular among student film-lovers because of its convenient show timings…. it had a noon show…. From 12 noon to 2.30 p.m. Which meant that students could attend school , mark their attendance around 10, and , even  go through an entire 45 minutes first period. And could still watch a movie and return home, at times even return back to the school to attend the last period !

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We were about 7 or 8 of us, most of us studying  in the eighth standard. It was tiffin break and we would all assemble at the dark class room near the stair case. Niloo and Gautam would tell us about the film they watched the previous day. It was normally a narration on rotation. Both of them were good story tellers. It was in one of those sessions we heard the entire story of of Devdas – complete with Gautam’s role play of Dilip Kumar’s last scene…. I can still remember him showing how to tremble the lips.. and almost whisper “Paro” .

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It was on a session like this that we heard the story of  Hum Dono – complete with  the song  “Mai Zindagi Ka Saath Nibhataa Chala Gaya” rendered by Gautam. Gautam had a deep voice with good resonance. He was a perfectionist who would get upset if you pronounced “Zindagi” as “Jindagi”…. And often he would reprimand Niloo about his awful  hindi or urdu pronunciation, on narrating a film dialogue !

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When we reached at the crossing of Rustamjee Street it was evening . The occasion was a cultural show.  A stage was built, even if it was an open air show. Chairs were laid on all three sides of the narrow street junction. (It is the lane next to Mukti World now, near Ballygunge Phari) . Soon the play “Thana Theke Aschi” started. As usual Gautam and Niloo were in the lead roles. Niloo looked awful  wearing an over sized attire of a polce inspector. It was a good show, both of them acted well, full house… and the audience often applauded with clap.  So, this can be termed as Gautam’s first public directorial venture !

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I was intently watching the meat seller so that he should not  fool me on the correctness of the weight of the meat when there was a heavy pounding on my shoulder “Hi, I did not know you come to this Park Circus meat market too”! It was Niloo. Both of us were now with changed looks.  After we hugged for a while Niloo said “Guess who was at my home last week ?  Ha, ha.. it was Gautam” ! What he explained was like this. Niloo has married a Christian girl. He has two daughters. They are quite grown up…. college goers.  As usual Niloo used to tell his children about the good old school days. And somehow  had mentioned to them that Gautam was his close friend. His daughters never believed him .And then suddenly one Sunday Gautam appeared in flesh at their home and spent the whole day- including having a family lunch ! .

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I hurriedly returned from the market and narrated the whole story of meeting Niloo to my Children. Both of them smiled and started pulling my leg “So the moral of the story is ‘mera number kab ayega’ !

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“Gautam, izzat bacha le yaar, kabhi toh mera bhi ghar aya kar …..”