My father in law, Gautam Roy, was born on October 6th, 1944. He was the third of five children born to his parents. He was born and brought up in Kolkata. He married my mother in law, Koely, in 1971. They had two daughters, Trinayani (born in 1971, and married to Soumya Goswami in 1998) and Kamalini (born in 1974, and my wife since 2011).
He passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly on December 3rd, 2004, soon after he turned 60. That was 6 years before I first met my wife, so I never had the chance to meet him. And yet I feel like I know him, because my wife, my sister in law, my mother in law, my wife's other relatives and my wife's family friends constantly talk about him. Every one has a handful of stories to narrate about him. He must have been quite a remarkable man, because more than 15 years after he has gone, his memory has been kept so alive by those close to him. I know so many of his stories, his personality traits and his eccentricities. I do wish I had had the chance of spending some time with him.
He was a very good singer and regularly sang English and Bangla songs. Singers like Dean Martin were his favourites and he did a great job of singing their songs. He had a great collection of LPs from the 1950s and 1960s, and his music collection was regularly played at home. That played a big role in my wife becoming a good western music singer, because she was exposed to western music from an early age. He was also a great dancer, and was adept at different forms of ball room dancing.
He had a large circle of friends who were very devoted to him. They would meet along with their respective wives almost every weekend. They would either play cards, or socialize at someone's house and enjoy their drinks and dinners. Then there were those occasional visits to Kolkata's famed clubs.
He was an extremely funny man, but he didn't necessarily know it. Things he did in all seriousness were found to be hilarious by his near and dear ones. He was known for his impatience. Friends who were still smoking had ash trays put under their noses to stub out their cigarettes even before they had finished smoking! If you were talking to him and he suddenly remembered something, he would vanish from the room and go and complete whatever it was that he had remembered. If you reacted with anger or a sense of hurt because you had been abandoned in the middle of your sentence, he would say "But I can hear you from this other room!"
He was as frank as they came, sometimes much to the embarrassment of the family. If guests ever came and announced that they had to leave at a particular time, he would be like an alarm clock and remind them that they had to leave at exactly the time that they had mentioned. It didn't matter if they were still in the middle of their drink! After all, he was just trying to be helpful! One such incident happened with the future parents in law of his elder daughter.
He took great pride in keeping fit. He would work out and build his muscles. He would look his daughters' male friends up and down, and if their muscles didn't measure up, he would say "Patha", which means "goat" when literally translated from Bangla, but it signifies someone who is a bit of a wimp, a bit of a clown! Given the state of my biceps, I would have certainly qualified for that term of endearment!
Everything had to be done the proper way. Perhaps that was influenced by his days in England. One evening, a male friend of my wife's was taking her out for dinner. He came to my wife's place to pick her up. My father in law had one look at him and said "You're going out like that?" The young man had made the mistake of wearing a round necked t shirt instead of a proper shirt, and was immediately categorized as a "Patha".
He took great pride in grooming himself, and always had special after-shave for special occasions. Once a male friend of my wife's came home and he wanted to use my father in law's exotic after-shave. My father in law's facial expression said it all - "Go home and use your own!" But he himself carefully sprayed out two drops on the young man's hands, and shut the bottle before he could ask for more!
He loved watching sports on TV. It didn't matter which sport it was. He was fond of cricket, tennis, football, and just about any other sport you can mention. If there was a very close nail-biting match, he couldn't take the pressure and he would switch off the TV and just sit there blankly in front of the TV doing nothing else until someone told him about the outcome of the match!
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My Father In Law
in Kolkata in his Youth |
Despite his macho exterior, he was like jelly when it came to his daughters. There had to be just a mention of his daughters getting married and leaving home, and tears would start rolling down his cheeks. Also, when my wife went away to JNU in Delhi, and then to the University of Cambridge to study, he would sit with tears in his eyes practically every day.
He was a very intelligent man. He had a double degree in Engineering from England. Despite that, he never quite rose to the top of his career but there were reasons for it. In one particular job, one day he received a big bribe to get a job done. He returned the bribe and resigned the very next day, because bribes were a way of life in that company. His habit of being brutally honest and calling a spade a spade didn't always go down well with his bosses. These were things that got in the way of his rising to the top of his career, but his values were more important to him.
He was straight-forward, brutally honest and direct. No one ever had any doubt about where they stood with him, because tact and diplomacy weren't things he was known for. He was quick at writing off people if they didn't come up to his desired level of values on parameters like honesty and integrity.
He enjoyed his daily two pegs of Whiskey. People who didn't drink were dismissed as being Pathas! When my sister in law got married, relations were initially quite formal with her in laws. Her father in law never used to drink. Within a few years, my father in law converted him into a regular drinker, and they became close buddies!
Whiskey was close to his heart, but he enjoyed having beer too. Every now and then, his friends used to come over for beer drinking sessions. The understanding was that they had to bring their own beer bottles if they came unannounced because he didn't ever want to fall short of the beer he had planned to drink himself. Once in a while, they came unannounced without carrying their own beer, and he certainly didn't approve of that. To tease him, they used to occasionally hide their beer bottles and pretend that they had come empty handed. He would peep out from the window, and not seeing any beer bottles, he would refuse to open the door! Those friends remember him with so much warmth and affection, and miss him terribly.
He had an extremely caring side, and he would go that extra mile to do things for his family. When my sister in law was pregnant with her first child, Rhea (born in 1999), she and her husband were living in Jaipur. A decision was taken that the delivery would take place in Kolkata. My sister in law couldn't fly because she was in an advanced state of pregnancy, so my father in law took a train from Kolkata to Jaipur just to pick her up and take her back to Kolkata by train the same day!
My mother in law was once invited by the US government to visit the US for a series of conferences. She was there for a full month. At the end of the conferences, she was taken around to the main tourist attractions across the US on an all-paid guided tour. She had been told that her husband could join for this leg of her trip. He, however, refused to join her. How could he leave their two daughters behind in Kolkata? Well, they had their grandmother, uncle and aunt living not just in Kolkata, but in their large family home in New Alipore, and they were a close extended family, but even then he couldn't think of going without the girls!
When my sister in law had her second child, Romir (born in 2001), he was very fond of his little grandson. When the little boy used to eat candy, he would want to take it out of his mouth and give it to his grandfather as a sign of affection towards him. Most people would have been quite grossed out, but my father in law would always oblige and put the chewed-up candy in his mouth, because he didn't want to hurt the little boy's feelings!
The day he passed away, it was almost as if he had some kind of a premonition. He hardly ever used to make calls from his mobile phone. And god knows he was quite challenged when it came to using this new technology! On that fateful day, he was travelling back by train from Bangalore to Kolkata. During that journey, he made it a point to ring up and talk individually to the entire family. Later that night, while he was still on the train, he had a heart attack and passed away. He was just 60, and he was healthy (though he had had some heart trouble for the past few years). A sudden and sad end to a life that brought a lot of smiles on the faces of those around him.
I never met him, and it's a pity that our son Rehaan (born in 2014) never saw his grandfather, but his strong persona has been kept so vividly alive that I do feel I know him! I hope you're reading this from up there my dear Father In law! You are missed and remembered fondly by your family and friends even after so many years!
