the time. But in reality, he was nineteen. He wasn’t keen on discussing his father’s death, only saying that it was of “old age.”
“When he died, his body was being taken for cremation,” Shyamal said. “Hindu representative, Muslim representative, Christian representative—they all held his body on their shoulders for a long procession. He helped people so much free of charge. Hindus. Muslims. Christians. Everybody treated him as a second god.”
“Do you wish you were closer with him?” I asked. It was a reasonable question, given how laudatory Shyamal was toward his father.
“No,” Shyamal said, without skipping a beat. “I have a different personality, believe me. I will not hesitate to say that I think I have some superiority complex.”
At least he was self-aware. He said this stemmed from being the son of a well-known community figure. As an example, he cited being a goalie when he played soccer. Sometimes his team would win needing very little from him, yet it was his name that was listed at the top in postgame accolades. He excelled in school and would routinely hear comments like, “He’s Sachindra Deb’s son! Of course he’ll be first!” He was used to receiving attention, even more so than his siblings. It went to his head, he admitted.
“Did you feel your father knew you beyond your professional accomplishments? Do you feel he knew you personally?” I asked. Shyamal didn’t understand the question at first. He shook his head. The age difference played a role, he noted. Sachindra was almost fifty-five years old when Shyamal was born.
“He had very high expectations for me,” Shyamal said, still not comprehending what I meant. It was like asking a goldfish if it likes cheeseburgers.
I told him that there’s a professional side of us as humans and a personal side. “I’m a New York Times reporter, and then I have a personal side,” I said. “I like music and I like watching sports, you know, there are things that interest me outside of my résumé. Did he only view you in terms of how good your résumé was?”
“He never looked at his children like that,” Shyamal said. “In those days, father means protecting the family, give them best education, raise them the best you can. That’s it. Those concepts are gone. Even in our time, when I was your age, much younger, we grew up under the shadow of the guardian.”
Shyamal said that his father told him to go to engineering school, so he went to engineering school. Every decision ran through Sachindra before he died.
“What if you didn’t want to be an engineer? You’re a musical person. What if you wanted to do that professionally? What would your father have said?” I asked.
“Good question you ask,” Shyamal said. “I wanted to always become an accordion player and work in the movie industry. That is my passion, besides the accordion. I didn’t have the guts to open my mouth. I had to go to engineering, that’s it. Father says, ‘Go to engineering if you qualify.’”
I persisted: But what if you did open your mouth?
“No. You have to understand: You are only a sixteen-year-old kid, out of the question,” Shyamal said. “It was all what they say. So when my father passed away, my eldest brother, he became the guardian. He used to tell us, ‘Do this, do this, do this.’”
He was referring to Sudhirendra. After Sachindra’s death, Sudhirendra, as the oldest brother, became the patriarch of the family. He was an engineer by trade. In a culture where the patriarch holds much sway over what you do and what you do not do, Shyamal said Sudhirendra was a source of resentment for him. He was a dominant figure and hard on my father.
“He was a very brilliant man,” Shyamal said of Sudhirendra, who was separated by almost two decades from Shyamal. Or as my father put it: “Two decades by age, five decades by culture. Don’t tell anyone.”
Shyamal poking fun at someone else for not being plugged in was high comedy. Nevertheless, when my father first moved to Kolkata in 1959, he lived with Sudhirendra, who had already been living there. Shyamal told me I had met his oldest brother when he visited the United States when I was very young, but I had no recollection of this.
“Were you close growing up?” I said.
“No! Never!” Shyamal said.
“So he’s not an influential figure in your life?” I said. I was surprised at his honest answer.
“The MOST INFLUENTIAL figure in my life!” Shyamal said, raising