Written by: Siddhartha Krishnan | 5 Min Read
My grandfather migrated to Calcutta from a small village in Palakkad, Kerala, two years before Independence. I’m not sure when exactly he made Gokhale Road his home. My father was born in the autumn of 1949. With quiet determination, my grandfather set up a small business and soon brought over relatives from Palakkad—young men with dreams of education, growth, and a better life.
Among them was Dr. P.R.G. Mathur, a relative of ours, who would go on to become a renowned anthropologist. He completed his PhD from Calcutta University, and in the 1990s, would often visit us during his tours. He’d bring along his close friend, P. Thankappan Nair, now fondly remembered as the ‘barefoot historian of Kolkata.’ Nair lived just a stone’s throw from our home, on Kansaripara Lane. My father, Dr. Mathur, and Nair would slip into long, meandering conversations on books, politics, and the city itself. I would sit nearby, a silent bystander. The topics were far too heavy for me, but the rhythm of those conversations stays with me still.
In the 50s and 60s, as old-timers tell it, my grandmother would cook for a gathering on humid afternoons. Our small flat never felt small back then. “When it got too crowded, we’d sleep out in the balcony,” my father used to say. Years later, I accompanied him to visit Dr. Mathur in Palakkad, not long before his death. Both men were frail and quiet, but the moment was heavy with feeling. Dr. Mathur kept recalling just one thing—how lovingly my grandmother used to feed him. Her begun bhajas were his favourite. In the end, perhaps it’s always the small things that matter.
Three generations of our family owe a quiet debt to this city, and to this locality in particular. We lived in Krishnapriya Mansion, a hundred-year-old building just across from the police barracks on Gokhale Road. Modest, weathered and slowly crumbling, but always full of life. We had rented two flats in the building. My father spent his entire active life there, anchored not just by familiarity, but also by the flavours of the city.
He was a true foodie—perhaps the most Bengali of all his traits. Nimki House with its crisp savouries, Sharma Tea House with its heritage chai and club kachoris, Tibetan Delight’s momos, the doodh cola and parathas from Balwant Singh Eating House, pastries and sandwiches at Sugarr & Spice, and of course, the mishti doi and sandesh from Ganguram. These weren’t just food joints. They were rituals. Each one just a few hundred steps from our door.
However, one of the strongest memories I carry from the 90s is of my father heading to Jadu Babur Bajar on Ashutosh Mukherjee Road. It was a daily ritual, folded neatly into his morning walk. But on weekends, it took on a certain flamboyance. He’d step out with a spring in his step and his trusted jhola in hand. I was usually forced to tag along.
Someone on the road would shout, “Sachi da kothai?”, and without missing a beat, he’d reply, “Bajar korte jacchi.” That reply, so casual, feels oddly alien now, meaningless almost, for a generation that shops with a swipe on Blinkit or Big Basket. But the way he said it, with a twinkle in his eye and a hint of anticipation, made it sound like he was off on a holiday.
I couldn’t understand it then. Jadu Babur Bajar or Jaggu Bazaar as we kids mockingly called it—was no picnic spot. It was chaos. A sensory overload. A maze, a tangle of stalls and sounds where the sense of direction went to die. Yet my father moved through it with the grace of someone who belonged.
To me, it was a noisy, crowded hellscape where we spent hours negotiating with fish sellers or chasing the “right” watermelon—never the ones conveniently on the way, but the one seller tucked away at the very end. He had a shop for everything, a logic for every detour, and zero patience for my protests. It was all deeply irritating then.
But memories are strange shape-shifters. What once felt unbearable now returns with warmth. The sight of his content face after a good day at the bajar, the pride in his choices, the quiet joy he took in the ritual—that image refuses to leave me.
Growing up, I had always seen my father as deeply spiritual. He’d often say he was a rebel in his younger days, but I never saw that version of him. What I did see was a man who was well-read, an All India CA rank holder, and a devoted book lover who never missed a single day of the boi mela. Years of recurring illness had slowly made him god-fearing. The first of these came early—a brain tumour diagnosis when I was just seven. He survived, but more such episodes followed.
On his way back from office, he would often stop by Gol Mandir for a quiet moment of prayer. Tuesdays, though, were more elaborate. He’d visit both Gol Mandir and Shitala Mandir, where the crowds swelled and the rituals took longer. For my brother and me, the devotion meant little at the time—our focus was mostly on securing the prasad from Panditji before it ran out.
My father could hardly speak Malayalam before he married a pukka Malayalee from Palakkad. His love for Calcutta echoed in all his choices, and in every conversation. I remember watching my mother struggle in those days—everything from the language to the culture and food felt unfamiliar to her. Yet, over the years, she quietly adapted and found her rhythm in the city. With a man so completely in love with Calcutta, I don’t think she ever really had a choice.
For my father, leaving Gokhale Road would have been like leaving a part of himself. He stayed on until 2017. After that, my parents split their time between my brother’s house in Rajarhat and mine in Bangalore, before eventually finding a house in Palakkad. But all through those years, the flat at Gokhale Road remained. We let it go only in 2023—after he was gone.
(Concluding part … in a few days)
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About the author –
Siddhartha Krishnan is the author of ‘Two and a Half Rainbows – A Collection of Short Stories’. An enthusiastic blogger he shares his essays, travelogues, book and movie reviews on his blog (www.whatsonsidsmind.com).
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