Just One Circle >>>

In Bangla, dash (it rhymes with bosh) stands for ten and chakra, for wheel or circle. (Remember the Sudarshan Chakra, the spinning-disc missile in the hand of the Hindu god Vishnu aka Krishna? Or its modern version in the hand of Vijay Amritraj in the James Bond film Octopussy?) Chakra also means conspiracy. Together, dashachakra means a conspiracy hatched by a number of people, that is, an intrigue, machination. However, the Dashachakra Hostel, where I moved in in my second year of stay in Santiniketan had nothing to do with intrigues, neither did it have 10 circles. 

It had just one circular courtyard at the centre shaded by two old mango trees, around which were 10 double rooms and a bathroom block. The rooms opened into the central courtyard. Between the door and the courtyard, each room had a tiny attached veranda too. The oblong rooms had two beds and three windows each. One of the windows was in the far wall, directly opposite the door; the other two were on either side. 

The wheel-shaped building stood as a beautiful work of architecture about 50 feet off a straight road on which only cycles and cycle-rickshaws plied. The foreground was barren. A slightly raised path of red gravel connected the hostel to the road.

On the other side of the road was the main playground of the campus. So, from the entrance of the hostel, we would see an enormous open space which merged into the greenery on the far side. 

Behind Dashachakra, there was another small boys’ hostel called the Punjabi House – a reminder of a time when Santiniketan was a cosmopolitan place – and a few staff quarters, where university teachers lived with families. Behind them were paddy fields. The proximate presence of profs was a nuisance; we, the inmates of the hostel, couldn’t make as much noise as we would have liked to. 

As the three windows in each room opened outside, our hostel was airy and light. In fact, wind swept through it all the time. Thanks to the mango trees in the courtyard and super air circulation, the summer afternoons were quite bearable there, but the winter nights were c-o-l-d, when the temperature often dipped below 10° Centigrade (plus the windchill factor!).

I was in a different hostel when I first went to Dashachakra in a frigid night to meet someone. Shivering in the cold draught despite two layers of woollens, as I walked towards the hostel, I saw a hairy man standing outside, looking into the distance, with nothing on his upper torso, and a printed red lungi below. I thought he was a madman. But he was not. He was Dilip Paul from East Pakistan, a few years my senior. 

Dilip’s roommate was Anuttam, who was a normal person, meaning he could feel hot and cold. But to share a room with Dilip, he could close only one and a half windows on his side of the room whatever might the temperature be and however piercing be the wind outside. I do not know why Anuttam accepted the deal. Maybe, it was his Buddha-like tolerance or maybe, Dilip Paul had some special charm? The answer would be bits of both, I guess.

In the two years I lived there, I would have shared the hostel with about 25 boys. I can recall most of their names and faces. The circular architecture of the building meant there was certain openness amongst its inmates; we would interact with each other closely. Did it contribute to making the place a more friendly one? I think yes. I do not recall an instance of discord in the two years I was there. 

As I look back, I find it surprising that the hostel had such a motley crowd. Let me begin with my roommate, Gautam. He was the badminton champion of the university and played football brilliantly despite smoking like a chimney and doing no physical training. Generous to a fault, Gautam would shower gifts on people whenever he could. If he was sharing food with a friend, say a cup of tea or a cutlet, he would surely part with the bigger “half”. On the other hand, if a girl was hosting us for tea and snacks at our self-service canteen – which wasn’t rare – Gautam would volunteer to get the food and afterwards, he would tell the host in a serious voice, ‘I’m keeping the change.’\

Gautam also had a fine sense of humour, to which I will come back in a moment. Turning back to the hostel with 20 boys, two most disciplined and likable guys were Shil Chand and Nikhil, who were roommates. Besides participating in the National Cadet Corps drills diligently, they studied. They would study till late into the nights, they would be the last to go to bed; next morning, they would be at their desks before anybody else got up. Maybe, Shil and Nikhil considered it a moral obligation to make up for the lack of efforts by some of their friends. Soumitra and Tapan were two of the gentlest souls I have come across. Soumitra’s handwriting was printed cursive writing and Tapan was the default tabla player at musical functions at our department. Dilip Paul, who studied chemistry, used to read widely, including impenetrable essays on philosophy and religion. He was much older than his age and we would refer to him as Sri Paul, which would have been quite a weighty name for a twenty-something. Kaushik and Siddharta were two adorable younger students. Kaushik had a whacky sense of humour and Siddhartha, who studied English, was an excellent a tenor. Both of them would migrate to the US.  From there, Siddhartha has gone to a place much farther-away. Bishu was a sad fellow, with a melancholy look pasted on him at all times. We used to say that whenever some sadness flew by, Bishu would shoot it down to have it with him. Badru didn’t have to live with the mystery that we all were condemned to suffer from. He had been married. 

Above all, there was Anuttam, an unusual person and a brilliant singer and poet, who I will come back to.

Gopalda, a very old man, was one of the 464 (?) casual labourers who had been given permanent job by the university. He looked very old and it seemed he was way beyond the age of superannuation. We often quizzed him about his age. And he would put on a serious face, ‘My dad had written down my date of birth on a chit of paper, but I’ve lost it.’

Anuttam’s younger bro, Gautam Biswas, who we called Bulti, moved into the hostel a year later. He initiated a process to beautify the barren patch in front of our hostel. He didn’t actually plant any trees. Instead, he wrote long letters to the university gardening department, containing detailed wish lists in convoluted officialese. He said there had to be at least one hereby or thereby, or preferably both in an official letter if it was to be taken seriously. And to add more weight, Bulti actually got a peon book, numbered the letters, and sent them across through Gopalda. And he insisted on a stamped acknowledgement for his missives.

The gardening department didn’t bother initially, but Bulti would send reminders regularly: “It has been noted with serious disfavour that your goodselves do not consider it necessary to look into the pressing aesthetic obligations to beautify the ugly barren patch in front of Dashachakra Hostel, and thereby betraying a lackadaisical attitude …” Etc. etc.

After some time, either because of Bulti’s nerve-racking letters or because of the peon book, the gardening department sent a cartload of manured soil and about 20 saplings and got them planted on either side of the path in front of our hostel.

Missioned accomplished, we soon forgot about them and one day I saw Biren holding an uprooted plant upside down and observing it closely. I asked him what he was doing and he answered, in all seriousness, ‘Checking how well the roots are growing.’

The playground in front of our hostel would have a lot of activities in the afternoon, but would fall asleep after dusk. On certain nights, it would become a sea of moonlight. In such nights, a girl sometimes pushed a wheel chair with her boyfriend, a paraplegic singer and a senior student in Sangeet Bhavan, to the edge of the playground. M, who is a well-known singer now, would sing khayals or thumris that would submerge area of our hostel in soulful music. We would speak in whispers in those times. 

Postscript: When I visited Santiniketan recently, I didn’t find Dashachakra. It seems the building was first allowed to go to seeds. Banyan trees grew from its unattended crevices as plaster and cornices fell off. Then the university authorities decided to demolish the structure. Fortunately, no authorities can ever demolish memories. 

Bengaluru / 12 July 2021