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Kamal Krishna Chaudhury (1906-1992) was born in Dhubri in the District of Goalpara, Assam, as Kumar Kumud Narayan, son of Kumar Bipra Narayan of Cooch Bihar and was taken to Lakhipur, Goalpara, Assam by his maternal grandmother Smt. Gobindopriya Chaudhurani, widow of Tilakram Chaudhury, eldest son of Rajah Prithiram Chaudhury. Earlier, in a series of wars with the British, between 1845 and 1870 Prithiram lost parts of his kingdom and the right to primogeniture-which hurt the family the most. So Kumud Narayan was named Kamal Krishna on adoption. The Lakhipur family of Goalpara in undivided Bengal had migrated from Rajputana over 400 years ago, changed their identity and won their lands by dint of the sword. The Royal family of Cooch Bihar Narayans hailed from the fabled Chittor Dynasty and disguised their names to Narayans, so the Moghuls could not trace them. Gayatri Debi of Jaipur was from Cooch Bihar, second daughter of Maharaja Jitendra Narayan Bhoop.

Around 1917 Gobindopriya brought Kamal Krishna (KC) to Calcutta. She bought 3 bighas of land on what is now the western end of Southern Avenue (There was no street then) and built a large 3 storied home. The home still stands today but has gone out of hand. Young Kamal Krishna attended St. Xaviers School and College and went on to the University. There he got drawn towards the freedom movement on coming into close contact with Subhash Chandra Bose. Kamal Krishna donated 1.5 Lakhs into Netaji’s hand for his All Bengal Students’ Association. Later in the 30’s Subhash Chandra was the family’s guest at their Shillong home when recovering from a long illness. The family had always stood with the National Movement and the Congress. Gandhiji with his entire entourage stayed in the family’s Rupshi Rajbari on his way to Lakhipur just before the WWII.

Meanwhile he was well entrenched in Calcutta life and pace. The first Cadillac-lasalle Limited edition to run in Calcutta was brought in by him. Both the car and its unique illuminated glass dragonfly radiator –mascot made by Lalique of Paris created a furore when the Stanley Jackson Government prohibited its use, though Jackson himself was not aware of the turmoil in the beginning. Kamal Krishna fought in the court and won. Later Sir Stanley was to meet Kamal Krishna at a social function and expressed his desire to see to the object of the contention- on seeing which the cricketer Governor pronounced it a rare work of art.All this was back during 1928/1929. There were also other cars-Willys Knight, Oakland, Buick, Chrysler Imperial, Lancia Dilambda, Plymouth Standard Rover, but no British cars then-they were not our friends, before the independence.

Kamal Krishna married in 1929/30 the accomplished beautiful second daughter Sulata (Maina) of Hemendra Mohan Bose (H Bose) of Kuntalin fame. Hemendra Bose was blessed with 14 sons and daughters all singularly gifted, Nitin (3rd) and Mkul (5th) were pathfinders in film making with New Theatres Calcutta. They made playback singing in films possible in the world. Nitin Bose won international awards for his super imposition. camera work and direction in Germany. Mukul was the favourite grand nephew of Acharya Jagadish Bose the scientist and was the only person who could repair and design the super delicate instruments used by Jagadish Chandra and those instruments could not be bought off the shelf anywhere in this world. Mukul Bose made the first sound recording machine in the country in the 1930s. Eldest son Hitendra Mohan was a connoisseur and doyen of classical music, art and a collector of the rarest of books. Among his disciples was the many faceted genius Jnan Prakash Ghose. He was a rare artist with the brush and in life .The four younger sons Kartick, Ganesh, Bapi and Babu were cricketers of national repute, their palatial home and adjoining grounds at 52 Amherst Street (North Calcutta) saw the leading lights in the days of “Sadeshi” as well as national cricketers Vijay Merchant, V.S. Hazare, L Amarnath, Mustaq Ali frequently .Maina’s mother had five elder brothers from Mymensing (Bangladesh), all living in Calcutta since the turn of the century. All of them were pioneer cricketers and sportsmen except the second Upendra Kishore (Sukumar Roy’s father). Eldest Sarada Ranjan was called the W.C. Grace of Bengal, father of cricket, Principal of Metropolitan (Vidyasagar) College.

Maina’s elder sister Maloti (Ghosal) was a celebrated toppa singer in the 20s and 30s. Her two younger sisters were fine singers too and artists. Maina herself sang, cooked and could sew like an angel. She played the piano and organ very well and later the sitar and veena she learned from Enayat Khan. Though Kuntolin (hair oil) was generally associated Hemedra Bose, it was by no means his only creation. The other superlative range of cosmetics challenged the best of the English in variety and quality.

He was a pioneer in the record industry. To record the songs of his three friends primarily-Rabindranath, D.L Roy and Lal Chand Boral (father of famous music director Rai Chand Boral) he brought to Calcutta from France-Pathe Freres at the turn of the century. There were recordings of other luminaries like Gauhar jaan Bai, Manada Sundari, Peara Sahib etc too. Rabindranath himself had made 49 recordings on his frequent visits. Before Pathe was brought down to Calcutta, Hemendra Bose’s earlier recordings of the 1890’s were made on Thomas Edison’s cylinder machine which he had received from Edison .Thomas Alva , Graham Bell were good friends of J.C. Bose through their intertwining paths in science since long.

Great Eastern Motors was another pioneering entrepreneurship of mammoth dimensions, situated on the junction of Park Street and Free School Street opened in very early 1900s. It was said to have the biggest showroom /garage in the country. Some imports had bodywork built according to choice at the garage. Repairs, paintwork and coach work were carried out by employing and training local talents. Hemendra Mohan’s second son Jitendra Mohan went to the continent and returned a master automobile engineer in 1921, though his father had left the world by then. Love for sports especially cricket drove him to establish the Sporting Union club about the end of the 1800s with their own home ground at Marcus Square, when all playgrounds were used and held for the exclusive use of the British. Hemendra Mohan’s love for literature gave rise to the birth of the famous “Kuntalin Puraskar”, the kuntalin literary awards. Many unknown struggling writers found their footing through this support.Their writings were then published free of cost in bound volumes printed at the Kuntalin Press which employed even so far back lino-type and mono-type German printing machines. Legendary author Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay won his first award and recognition through this feat.

Sudhindra Mohan, his fourth son was a connoisseur in philately and numismatology. Especially his balloon mail cover collections were so rare as to be unheard and unseen even today. Photography, rare birds and story telling were some of his other loves. Love for photography was inherited from their father, who was known to have popularized colour photography in the country by the use of “Auto chrome Film Packs”. Hemendra Bose’s stereoscopic glass slides would have been a boon to any photo museum today. All the darkroom work was done by him. Bicycles had come within his vast ambit as well. He had his own manufacturing factory and he also imported famous brands as Durkopp, Rover, Sunbeam, Coventry and others, when bicycles were such a novelty that there were seldom heard of, much less seen even. Probably the first manufacture of flashlights and batteries in the country was carried out by Hemendra Mohan. A puritan Brahmo by faith with high moral principles, he always came forward to make large donations towards altruistic causes keeping out of the limelight.

A fair sized book could be, and should be written to sum up the many avenues trod by him. That so much could have been done in so short a time, he died in 1916 (born 1863), an individual entrepreneur in a English dominated land that was being robbed blind.Hemendra Mohan could hold his own against anyone else anywhere, enjoying far better conditions and support of benevolent home-governance. The light that burned in his hearth and home at 52 Amherst Street was to induce Satyajit Ray so many years after he had passed away to write in his reminiscences that he had nowhere else come across a household so full in sublime gaiety and pure joy and multifaceted knowledge in his own very eventful life.

Into this family Kamal Krishna stepped on his marriage. To most bystanders it seemed the marriage of the year, made in heaven with angels dancing and flowers falling from the skies. But before long there were cracks showing and things were not going too well. Through the garden gate, the big house and sprawling grounds had tennis courts, deer park, peacocks. Large land tortoises, Angora rabbits, looked peaceful enough. And so did the host of smaller animals like hedgehogs, mouse deers and slender lorises. The Calcutta house did not have the Lakhipur tradition of the big cats, pet tigers, leopards and cheetahs but there were some snakes-pythons and very light coloured cobras called “dudhrajs”, these were not free roaming of course were kept encaged.

Kamal Krishna’s interest in zoology and herpetology was shared with history, law, literature, photography, medicine and music. The King of Strings Enayat Khan taught sitar called him “my son” and stayed with the family when in Calcutta. The pretty child Vilayat accompanied his father at times. With the advent of winter he would go to Assam to hunt big game from elephant back. Some foreigner friends from the Masonic lodges would jump at this chance to hunt from the backs of elephants especially trained for sikar. The Lakhipur pilkhana used to have in those days in the 20s and 30s around 30 or more elephants about half of them trained for sikar. It would seem that Kamal Krishna was something of an early aviator too, he held a Class B-twin prop flying licence. In the 30s and 40s ,the family owned airplanes. And he had not forgotten his craze for model railroading since his Dhubri days. Laid on elevated tracks in the Southern Avenue garden was a railway operated by live steam hauled mostly by Marklin and Bassett Lowke in 3 ½” guage. Later when he laid indoor tracks of “o” guage on a 23’ x 11’ table top, there were more Lional, Marklin and some English makes of models. These were run by electricity with working signals, cranes, bridges and many scale sized track effects. Known, half known and unknown people poured in to gaze. All were served with generous refreshments, some were then driven back home.

All this was what could be seen through the garden gate- a somewhat dim, distant glimpse. Things were much more grim in reality. Kamal Chaudhury would go out upon longer and longer tours by car with friends leaving the expanding family behind. Gobindapriya now a frail old mother could not prevail upon Kamal Krishna anymore. A very sorrowful person as she could see the path all this was leading to. The financial crunch kept mounting –it was a large household still, with salaries of retainers running into hundreds. Maina had to move heaven and earth to make ends meet-the children were practically abandoned. The partition came to India and with it came mayhem and murder in unseen intensity. Many areas inside the city proper were in the grip of killings. The unprepared citizens were overwhelmed and cut down by the aggressors who had planned for months ahead, as the British Police just looked on. With some friend relatives Kamal Chaudhury sought to build a kind of defence. They took food, medicine, tents and clothes by cars to the stricken. The disbanded U.S. armed forces were present in the city in some number, and they witnessed the plight of the people and at times brought along trucks to evacuate and rescue them from stricken areas-in an unofficial capacity of course. But the British took a dim view of all this running about and landed Kamal Krishna in jail. But their days in India were numbered. We pray it ever remains so and Kamal Chaudhury was soon out.

For some years past, Kamal Krishna’s fortunes seemed to be headed downward for no identifiable reasons atall. The vast Assam properties were bringing revenues all this while. The family owned a large plot of land next to Golpark (the eastern end of Southern Avenue) of about 2 5 bighas since the 1870s, which was then much shunned by the elders as a dacoit infested land, with some justice too. But by the 1940s and 1950s it was prime land of course. The crushing blow for the family came in the late 1940s. Kamal Krishna sold the no.8 Southern Avenue house and garden which he had no legal right to do. All asked what was the need for it ! And if he had to sell then sell one and save the other ; the house or the garden. But it all fell on deaf ears. Of course not most knew that he had no rights to sell either by the provision that Gobindapriya had made years ago, fearing such an act may occur. But the die was cast-it was swift, sudden, irrevocable and planned-not providing any time for redemption or rescue. No one till today knows how much it was sold for. By today’s expectations 3 bighas on Southern Avenue may fetch 300 crores not taking into account the big three storied house, fully furnished with period furniture of different ages and styles for different floors. Kamal Krishna kept no part of land from his portion of the 25 bighas on Golpark that the family owned. He never built or bought a home for his family in Calcutta. There were properties bought by Gobindapriya in several other towns outside Bengal as was then popular practice. But these too were seen through one by one by Kamal Chaudhury in time.

Gone at one stroke the home that had hosted so many luminaries of the era. Deshabandhu C. R. Das and his wife Basanti Devi. Basanti Devi was a childhood playmate of Gobindapriya in Lakipur. Her father Boroda kanto Haldar was Tilakram’s (Kamal Krishna’s adoptive father) Dewan. Much later Boroda Kanto was asked by Tilakram to assist widow Abhayeswari of Bijni when in danger. He did not wish to leave Lakhipur but he did go to her assistance nevertheless. But he would visit Gobindapriya from time to time when Tilakram was gone and Gobindapriya was herself in danger of her life as he had warned her of. . Then one stormy night she fled with her only child –a daughter (Kamal Krishna’s mother) on elephant back with her mahal and all it held burning around her in a bid to kill her; with her own faithful retinue. Subhash Bose had visited a few times as had the poet Nazrul. Among the frequent s were Kundanlal Saigeal, Pahari Sanyal, Promotesh Baruah, the then lesser known Sachin Deb Burman, Prithwiraj Kapoor with young Raj who romped with the spotted deers. The great Abdul Karim Khan and Badal Khan came accompanied by Enayat Khan himself. Then the maestro who was his own gharana –Birendrakishore RoyChaudhury of Gauripur, the famous tiger hunting barrister Kumud Nath Chaudhury, Jnan Prakash Ghose, Bhishwadeb Chatterjee with his lightening tans  and how many more it would be quite impossible to recall today. Gandhiji had not lighted their Calcutta home, but Maina had a clear recollection (though very young) of his stay at her father’s 40 bigha garden home “Rose Villa” at Giridih-then Bihar.

Once the 8 Southern Avenue place was sold, Kamal Krishna put up the family in rented quarters and moved off to Bombay to dabble in films-Hindi films. Many a Calcutta hopeful film person found themselves walking the Bombay streets looking for a roof and a job. Kamal Krishna paid for some of their mess charges until they found work. There may have been a few dozen of them from Calcutta proper alone. Bimal Roy who was initially introduced to films by Kamal Chaudhury through introduction to Nitin Bose  at New Theatres, Calcutta came under his wings again in Bombay. Kamal Chaudhury’s help was largely responsible towards the making of “Do Bigha Zamin” possible. Kamal Krishna would return to Calcutta for a short while and again head back to Bombay. His presence was most urgently required in Assam to tie up the many loose ends but, he would not go there. Gobindapriya had been mercifully taken care of by the Lord and left this world. Kamal Krishna had a very flourishing business-partnership at New market, Calcutta, ably looked after by his junior partner. Towards the end of 1950s he came back to Calcutta and opened a sweetmeat shop called “Madhuskhara” on Rash Behari Avenue. Soon it was doing very well indeed. He was elected the President by the rest of the trade in West Bengal –some of them going back a few hundred years. But this was too good to last. Early in the 70s he went back to Assam, leaving “Madhuskhara” in deep debt and certain death looming over it. But he was to come back in the 1980s to perform the last rites of both the businesses –“Madhuskhara” and the New Market one-which was if anything doing even better. This involved no surprises for most, the death knell had long sounded for all to hear. Now the shroud was tucked into place and the coffin lowered.

Festivities over, he went back to Assam. The cramped rented quarters and frugal food never had any appeal for him at any time and even less now. It was not the accommodation and food alone that were responsible to speed him back. For, however much he had tried all his life to eradicate the landed properties, some tiny morsels had still remained, even if only on paper. This was cause enough for his anger and bafflement, for he could understand that his innings was drawing to a close. For even such tiny bits could provide sustenance to a starving person. The end for the conjurer of huge-scale vanishing-tricks to take his last bow on the earth came in 1992. It then seemed that all his many connections and distractions that had pulled him away in body and mind from his family had fallen away somewhere by the wayside and turned away their faces. His family, Maina, 4 daughters and 2 sons took him in their midst , to try to bring him back to health as best as their resources allowed. But there was not much time left. He left on the 3rd of July and not a word of repentance was to escape past his lips. If it was ordained for him to rest in peace-so be it. Some doubts remain however-did the Lord allow Kamal Krishna to remember His Holy Name at the very last? As enjoined in the Bhagvad Gita-8/5 “Anta Kale Cha Mameva Smaran Mukta kalevaram”.

The journey of Kamal Krishna ended in a shipwreck. Those who had followed that ship from a distance could not have got a clear view of the complex mechanism of the prime motive forces that had forged its path-as explained in the forepart. That the ship was headed mainly downwards may have occurred to those on shore. But the ship did not sink with all hands though-there were survivors among the flotsam and debris., trying to keep afloat in the troubled wake. That they did make it to Terra firma was through the Causeless Mercy of the Lord alone. Without a roof over their heads or a pie to their names it looked a bleak world indeed. But the Lord had His Own Plans, unseen to human eyes, Maina, his wife left the world in 2003, 92 years old still able to walk slowly. Eldest daughter Manjula (Khuku, born 1932) had married Sujit Sirkar (Robin), grandson of the doyen among the Kings of Children’s literature , Jogindra Nath Sircar/ Dr. Nilratan Sircar of the Sovabazar Raj. Sujit had been with Metal Box Calcutta throughout –a blue chip international firm-a high administrator there in. He left the world in 1998. Manjula now lives in Delhi with only daughter Chandrayee (Pia), her husband Subir Gupta and daughter Nilanjana (Ria-15). Manjula was much more of a mother in the raising of her siblings even when there were grown boys and girls. Today at 87 she is the central bondage among the survivors. It would be impossible to try to repay her love and kindness. She was a classical dancer and a fine Rabindra Sangeet singer.

Sumala (Babla, 1934) the second daughter embraced the renounced order and did not marry. She had a highly cultivated aesthetic sense and was an artist and sang very well too. Sumala passed away in 2003, a few months ahead of her mother. Subha (Lakshmi 1937) the third daughter married Amitava Khastagir, a dean and HOD in Philosophy belonging to a well known enlightened Calcutta family; at the City College (North Calcutta-Amherst Street) founded by none other than the great Annado Mohan Bose-a wrangler in mathematics(the highest degree in England) one of the five founder presidents of the Indian National Congress and the founder President of the Indian Union before the formation of the Congress. A man of God, an evangelist who propagated Indian thoughts, principles, projected Indian wisdom and teachings to the English people, the 4 years he lived there and created immense imprint among them, in the 1870s and 1880s. He was the first and foremost architect of the Indian Constitution and fought for them in the British Parliament. In London/Westminister. Rabindranath addressed Annado Mohan as “Bharat Gaurab” the pride of India-the brightest star among a firmament full of glittering stars. His younger brother Mohini Mohan was the first in the country to be a M.D. in Homeopathy from New York and Philadelphia in 1880 and to run a similar hospital on Circular Road in Calcutta after a few years. Their eldest bother Horo Mohan Bose was the father of Hemendra Bose. Horo Mohan was seen as the servant of the Lord and was known as Bhakto HoroMohan.

We have transgressed not from the objective, but some data is set a little way back in chronology and hence looking back from time to time. We are also mindful to recall the near forgotten names of the legends and stalwarts of the near past, their lives and work who had hoisted Bengal –“Bongo” to the high throne that they have today lost toall our utter grief. Lakhsmi has her only son Sudipto Kiran living in Bombay with wife Gargee and small daughter Amalika, 5 years. Lakhsmi sang and still sings regularly at all Brahmo Samaj functions as did son Sudipto when in Calcutta. The youngest daughter Ranjana (Manik 1942) was a classical dancer who had toured abroad and was a gifted painter. She met and married in Denmark Probir Mitra of Calcutta, a naval architect of the European yards. Their daughter Anita and her husband Anuj Arya both civil architects live in Delhi with daughter Anushka. , 15 years. Son, Ananda lives in Pune with wife Arpita and sons Arya (11) and young Saurya (9). There was a son born between Lakshmi and Ranjana but he died when still a child.

The elder of the two sons who survived, Surojit (Suman 1946) had lived in Assam for a while trying to recover a few lost properties without much success. He married Indira (Lili) daughter of late Narayan Chandra Dhabal Deb of Jambani, Chilkigarh village now in West Midnapur, among he landed gentry. Surajit and Indira live in Calcutta. Their life had been full of ups and downs with much of the latter than the former. Indira had come from easier circumstances and was the sufferer by far. She sang well-an inheritance from Narayan Chandra’s mother’s side who was connected to the Tripura Deb Burmans-a cognate. The Lord had provided many helping hands for them without which they would have floundered worse. They now live in Calcutta with youngest son Sanjit (Tobo 1982). Through the Lord’s Mercy Sanjit has a place of his own in South Calcutta. Surajit’s eldest child-daughter Sunayana (1976) an accomplished vocalist, a doctorate in Psychology from the Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi and her husband Sukanta Sarkar, M.D. from Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi , a much awarded doctor , artist and photographer live in Pondicherry in South India with sons Abhijoy (Rishi , 7) and little Aadipto, just thirteen months old. Their return to Calcutta or closer to Calcutta is much awaited eagerly. Surajit’s elder son Debjit (Bobo 1981) had worked in Bangalore for some years. He is now in Holland, working there. Debjit has not married yet. Sanjit the younger son works in Calcutta for a foreign airline, has married Nilanjana hailing from the Deb Burman family of the Tripura rulers. She had inherited the culture traditionally encountered in them of music and art. Both sons had shown early promise and prowess in cricket. They had played in first division league tournament of the CAB with distinction and in a few more years could have been selected to play for the state. But getting into a job was too much of a priority to disregard, without the family’s support. They hung up their boots and had to change roles from being match-winners to bread-winners at a tender age. The youngest of the two two sons Subhabrata (Choton 1948) now retired had worked  for the Tatas at Kharagpur. He now lives in Calcutta and has not married. He could have been a worthy sportsman of skill and grace in cricket and in football. But his were the hard days, and his application of skill and determination made greater demands at the work place and the playground lost the race.

This narrative has looked upon a family group subjected to conditions in their initial days that looked fraught with disaster. But they were to be pulled back from the very brinks of chasms, time and again almost by Divine Mercy. And these merciful interventions had occurred with magical spontaneity leaving all spell bound with humility. Though they did not attain the level of comfort or of affluence of the past, they seemed to have come through their hard life without debasement or marked miseries-as had befallen many a better regulated and endowed family. This family had come out with a deep feeling of gratitude for the rescues on the countless occasions-as if the Lord in His Wondrous ways had appointed herders for the flock. It would today sound a very old fashioned tenet, but it is the firm conviction of the survivors themselves. It is explained in the “Sastras” that the ancestors from “Pitri lok” watch over our advancement and well being and reach out to help on by Divine Consent. In this context the names of Gobindapriya and Tilakram come strongly to mind. They had bestowed everything of theirs and had seen them crumble to dust. Hemendra Bose’s father Horo Mohan is another name to consider. And lastly Kamal Krishna’s wife ,Maina, a deeply devout person all her life. Unlike the other three people mentioned who were much ahead in time, the chronicler had known her very well indeed.

And now we have the select group –the grandchildren. They represent all the hope, light and laughter that are stored for them through 3 generations –purified, rarefied and distilled. There is not much that need to be taught out of school books. All would like to think that they had been touched by the Golden wand. They are watched with avid eyes-the 4 boys and 3 girls as they go through life on their toddling feet. They need only to be reminded from time to time to keep to the Sunlit path, to hold their heads high and to know in their hearts that The Shepherd is never far from them.