My father was Chandrashekar Chatterjee born to a Bengali father and more so, a Malayalee and Tamilian mother. There was a huge life like protrait of Tagore, that was in the center of our home at Calcutta. I've had quite some interactions with my grandparents and have some impressions from the same, most of them, were quite conflicting.
My grandmother, was a devout worshipper of Maa Kali. She came from a small village in Kerala. I am told she met my grandfather at Solapur. She was good at languages and she had known to speak Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam and later learnt Bengali. She came from a large family and her family was more than happy to accept the proposal of my grandfather. I however, remember my grandmother was very racist in her opinions. The less said, the better. It was quite off, how did she worship Kali then or did she suffer from some kind of cognitive dissonance. Or was this mindset all due to the colonial marks left in Kerala. In my opnion, the colonization left very different impressions on the South and North. I believe, the Bengali's had a sense of discernment, to take what was very helpful for them and sort of leave the rest to time. Again, that would be my prejeduice of observation and would be debatable.
Both my grandparents were different but they seldom had any arguements and would sort of agree to disagree.
My grandad was mostly stoic, and he used to share his political opinions. Yet, I hardly knew, him very well. I knew he was stoic, practical and kept to himself and preferred order.
He was also troubled extensively at my presence, and used to sing to me, 'Eat while you eat, play while you play and sleep while you sleep' at the dinner table while I was fidgeting with some kind of a toy.
My grand dad was also very wary of my ability to take risks, when i hurled a tube light bulp in order to take a big plastic ball that was stuck in the roof of our building. He called my mom and reprimamded me saying, "Be very careful of her, she is very dangerous." I didnt take it very well, but on the contrary I believed he never took any risks.
My grandmother, was far from artistic, but she had a commanding presence running the household. Authoritative, demanding and her passion for cleanliness, was exhausting. Something, my mother was tired off.
Born in this dissonance is my dad, Chandrasekhar Chatterjee. My dad was the anti thesis of my mom, when it came to his views of music and art. But unlike his parents my dad was very poetically indulgent. He used to sing the Jayadeva's Ashtapadi, used to write the lyrics of Tagore's Banusinger Padabali, decorate the idols of Radhe Krishna so meticulosly with rose garlands and champa flowers that were abundant in our home. My dad was very tall, he lookeed a little like Amitabh Bachann and he used to sing like the singer Yesudas.
My dad was all about aesthetic indulgence when it came to art. He used to heartfully do the Shiva Abisheka, with Mahanyasam, artfully decorate the Annapurna and offer bilva with a happy smile and cool mind. He enjoyed classical music on the gramophone, and I felt he had a hearing deficiency because he probably never knew tthe optimal volume. It was all to hard for nervous sytem to handle. I used to compulsively reduce the volume.
He used to play Tennis and had was swift and mercurial at Table Tennis too and was a fast bowler in cricket. He married my mother, when she was his neighbour at Calcutta.
My parents were passionately in love with each other. However, they differed in their values, especially in art. I believe, they loved each other, but also were at odds, when they spoke and stood for they believed in.
I had witnesssed a lot of upheavals in their marriage, and not to mention their creative passions, and I had formed my own opinions with regard to art, music and philosophy.
Rabindranath Tagore had a great stabilizing effect for me as I was born out of this dissonance between aesthetic indulgence and propreity.
I loved the passion of Subramanya Bharathi and I fell in love with the verses of Tagore.
My dad was dreamy and imaginative and my mother had a noose which gave this dreamy creativity a path laid on principled value systems.
I found my answers in time.
