Midnapore is a small town 3 hours away from Calcutta. But it will always remain part of me.

Just about a month following my birth in Calcutta, my parents returned with their baby (that’s me) to Midnapore.

I cherish my days spent in this town, where my dad was posted as a Divisional Forest Officer (DFO). I lived in there for no less than six and a half years and I can only look back and smile.

We lived in a rather spacious bungalow with numerous orderlies at our beck and call. Shaktida and Nimaida, among others, were always there to tend to our needs.

Here, I must mention that the verandah of the bungalow was so long that I got to cycle freely in it!

I did my nursery and kindergarten schooling there at Vidyasagar Shishu Niketan, the only English medium school in town then (and, probably still).

I still remember how I used to monkey around during the tiffin-break. During the break, more often than not, I could be found hanging by the window railing, shouting “Spiderman…Spiderman” at the top of my voice. Mrs. Brown, the class teacher, once presented me a black Zorro-type mask, saying “This is for Spiderman!”

I used to experiment a lot with my Leggo toys coming up with all sorts of set-ups. But I was pretty careless with the Leggo toys as I gave away (by throwing down from the verandah) almost half of them to the poor street urchins who accepted them with glee. As for the other half- it got misplaced as we shifted from Midnapore .

As I kid, I had my share of innocent-statements-to-be-remembered incidents. Once, at a party hosted by my parents, I found a doctor smoking away to glory. I went up to the ENT specialist and said to him in Bengali, “Tumi daktar. Tobuo smoke korchho.” (You are doctor. Despite this, you are smoking.) Everybody at the party found this utterly hilarious. Not that I would blame them.

Another time, we were at the Ahemed’s. Mr. Sufi Ahemed was the city SP but to me, he was just another uncle. I don’t know for what reason, he happened to point at the trunk of an elephant (a small table-top decorative piece) and say to me, “Yeh to elephant ki poonch hai.” I was quick to correct him (in Bengali), “Arre boka, laij to eta.” (Hey idiot. That is the tail.) Everybody, including Basheera aunty, Mr. Ahemed’s wife, had a really long laugh.

I recently visited Midnapore and had a walk down memory lane.