Swapan

This morning has brought bad news to me. Like it would have to thousands of Indians I do not know. 

My childhood friend Swapan is no more. 

We studied together from Class III to XI, always in the same section. So, Swapan is an important part of my childhood memories. Dark, on the taller side, with curly hair stuck close to head thanks to generous use of oil, the most significant aspect of his face was his sparkling, ever-smiling eyes. He seemed happy at all times. Would never get into a fight, one of those rare boys who Fate decreed shouldn’t have an enemy.  

Swapan was consistently near the top, but never at the top of our considerably strong class. He would come to the top much later and I will  get you there in a moment. 

Swapan lived in Park Circus, a middle-class locality in Kolkata. We set up a library on the first floor of the building where Swapan’s family were tenants on the ground floor. (Swapan would have cajoled the owner, Anal-da, a few years older than us, to give us the space to us for free!) We named the library – quite pompously – the “Fellowship League”. The "Fellows" were in high school then, Swapan being an active member. Baren, Dhurjoti, and Jyoti, who lived in Park Circus, were part of the gang. Siladitya, Anup, and I were from other parts of the city. I do not recall who else were with us.. 

After school, Swapan joined St. Xavier’s College, one of the finest colleges in Kolkata, to study physics. Soon, he got caught up in the Naxalite movement that was sweeping the campuses in Bengal then like a maelstrom. He was expelled from St. Xavier’s, but managed to complete his graduation from another college. Once branded as a Naxalite in the books of a blood-thirsty Kolkata police, Swapan had no choice but to flee.

In New Delhi, Swapan found some rudimentary accommodation and for years, earned his living by offering private tuition. When we touched base much later, Swapan told me that after paying rent and bus fares, those days, he could afford to buy only powdered Bengal gram, the Kolkata rickshaw-puller’s staple, chhatu, and beaten rice which we call চিঁড়ে (chnire) in Bangla. According to Swapan, those were the two cheapest foodstuffs available in the world. For a year or so, he survived on these and whatever snacks the kindly mothers of his tuition students would offer. Simultaneously, Swapan joined a college – if memory serves me right, in commerce. 

Then there was no stopping him. He did masters in Economics from Rajasthan University (how?) and followed it up with a PhD in public finance. He rose steadily in career and became the HOD Finance in the International Management Institute, a leading private management school in India. That was the time I reconnected with Swapan sometime in the aughts. 

By then, Swapan had married his long-time girlfriend and set up a beautiful home in New Delhi. His wife’s step garden on the terrace was fascinatingly beautiful. They had a lovable son and a daughter. Swapan was as successful as a husband and father as he was in career. But whenever we met, whether in his house or mine in Kolkata, he was the same old chirpy self with apparently all the time in the world. Success clearly hadn’t gone into his head, or manners. Over time, the demand for Swapan Kanti Chaudhuri, the consultant grew and he left the teaching job to focus on financial consultancy fulltime.

He was so absolutely unpretentious and humble that I found out the following about him only this morning, from the website of IFIM, another management school he joined in 2019 as a senior professor. 

He had been a visiting scholar at Kellogg Graduate School of Management (North Western University, USA) and Manchester Business School (UK). In India, he had been a faculty member at two universities and Professor of Finance in MDI Gurgaon. At another major business school, IMT Ghaziabad, he was a "Distinguished Professor of Finance". From 2007 to 2017 Swapan ran his own international consultancy firm. 

From the same source, I discovered that as Team Lead or Key Expert, Dr. Swapan Kanti Chaudhuri had worked in over 70 consultancy assignments funded by national governments and international organisations like the World Bank, UNICEF, EU, ADB, the Department of International Development (UK), USAID, etc. etc. in South Asia and Africa. 

His expertise and research interest included a range of areas from corporate finance to security analysis and investment management to derivatives and risk management to infrastructure project appraisal and financing. And a host of other fields. I have only a nodding acquaintance with the subject of financial management, but I can understand that Swapan became a master of so many segments only through extreme discipline and hard work. 

A few years ago, when I called Swapan on his Delhi number, he had been in Nairobi. Being the fool I am, I had a leisurely chat with him without recognising he was on international roaming and the incoming call would have cost him a bomb. That was the last time we talked. The next communication from his phone was a text message from his daughter, Sohini, on 21 April 2021. Swapan had been in ventilation with both lungs affected by COVID. 

The gutsy fighter lost his final battle yesterday. 

Swapan reached the peak of his professional field. But if you consider the point from which he had begun his climb, you will see that his journey was much longer and tougher. Equally importantly, he continued to be the happy soul that I knew as a child.

Rest in Peace, my friend.   

01 May 2021