DO YOU KNOW HIM? -GOUR CHAKRABORTY

FROM THE BLOGGER’S LIBRARY: REMEMBERING K.B.SAHAY:6

Gour Chakraborty, an eminent journalist, the recipient of All India Bengali Literary Awards (1983), a known writer of short stories, and a novelist of repute, delineates Sri. K. B. Sahay’s love for education and projects the cultural; side of his personality. (Editor)

D

o you know him?

No.

And again no.

A man is not known from his autobiography or biography. And that also the man of Sri K. B. Sahay’s stature! A man of hard tongue but a very soft heart. He had the heart of an innocent child.

Every living being on this beautiful planet of ours has got a secret chamber in his heart, even without the knowledge of the possessor. Nobody knows when where how, and why by whose tender touch the door of that very secret chamber will open and the heaven will speak out aloud- Here I am, and here only is my secret temple.

We see the tricolor, our National Flag waving proudly today on the top of the Collectorate. How many of us know how many drops of blood Krishna Ballabh Babu had to give for raising the flag? How many of us know, then a lean and thin man, he used to go on foot to Mandu or Padma to organize public meetings not caring the baton of the British Colonies.

How many of know today that he was also the Press Correspondent of Amrita Bazaar Patrika, Calcutta in those days of our national struggle for independence. This he disclosed in presence of Sri. Tushar Kanti Ghosh, who is still alive, during the time of opening ceremony of the News Office of Amrita Bazaar Patrika at Ranchi, where I had invited him. He narrated amongst prolonged laughter of his vast audience that journalists should have to cultivate restrain even when possessed with bare truths. Sri Sahay said, he filed a Press-Telegram to Amrita Bazaar Patrika praising the Police Sub-Inspector of Mandu for giving all cooperation in organizing the Congress Meeting at Mandu. Within a fortnight the Police Sub-Inspector came to his residence weeping as he had lost his job. Tushar Babu also laughed and said it was a grand feed for Patrika in those days of grim struggle of Non-Cooperation, but Sri Sahay had to bear all the expenses to maintain the family of the said Police Sub-Inspector when Sri Sahay was himself in the financial crisis. He said, journalists had great responsibilities to society and should not jump into every and any truth, which ultimately would ruin the units of human society.

In 1962 I, along with Rai Sahab S. N. Sahay (father-in-law of Sri. M. C. Subarno, I.A.S.) Organized one L.P. School and approached Sri Sahay to be the President of the School Committee. Sri Sahay readily accepted the proposal. Sri S. N. Sahay was the Vice-President and I was the Secretary of the said school where fifty to sixty poor boys of several villages came as students. A problem arose for housing the school and at last, the school was housed in the dilapidated outhouse of my present residence in Hunterganj Mohalla. But the house owner who was a permanent resident of Calcutta began to demand some rent from the Municipality, as we had by that time handed over the school to the municipality. The house owner put pressure on me to get the rent adjusted with the municipal tax of the house which seemed impossible. Sri K. B. Sahay got angry on seeing the greed of the house owner and asked us to start the school in the adjacent mango grove within the same compound of the house and he himself visited several times to see the school in the mango grove and said “It is Santiniketan. If the Calcutta house owner demands rent for using that mango grove send him to me, I will pay the rent.” But the then Vice-Chairman Sri Kauleshwari Prasad asked us in a letter to arrange a permanent house for the school and the same was later arranged in the Hunterganj Post Office. Not only Sri K. B. Sahay, but once for Flag Hoisting Ceremony, Kumar Bahadur Basant Narayan Singh (brother of Raja Kamakhya Narayan Singh, Raja Ramgarh) also came to this school, though at that time both of the two stalwarts were in different political camps.

A great scholar himself, who stood First Class First in English Honours and a Gold Medalist when four provinces (then not states) of Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Orissa were under one University) took such keen interest in the school for the poor village boys, run by us in the mango grove making the wall painted black to be used as a blackboard and Hazaribagh Municipality had given us by that time two teachers. I still possess all the records of what I have written above.

Beloved readers, now from the open-air L.P. School of ours I take you to a great and pioneering educational institution, where the same great scholar Sri K. B. Sahay was the main prop.

It was 1961-62. Tagore Centenary observation in our district also had just concluded like other places of our country. I was sitting with the then Deputy Commissioner Sri S. N. Chakraborty and then-Police Superintendent Sri Shivaji Sinha. There were other elites of the town. The DC asked my opinion, what was to be done with the balance amount of rupees Ten Thousand that could be saved through the charity cultural shows. Others perhaps had already given their learned opinion, about which I was not aware of. I spontaneously gave out my loud opinion that something should be done for the higher education of our daughters and sisters, who could not afford to have higher education by going outside the district., so why not we try to start a Women’s College at Hazaribagh? There was laughter. Women’s College with only Rs. 10000/-? Those who did not laugh were my great admirers including A.F. A. Hamid, the first Indian IG, Police, Khan Bahadur Qadir Bux Khan, Nago Bhaiya (Nageshwar Prasad, the noted advocate), Tapeshwar Deo, and D. N. Sen, Proprietor, Pearl Motors.

Several voices shot out,” Dilwar, Dilawar”, sharp came the reply “ Huzoor”, and Dilwar, the bearer of the Station Club, where we were all sitting, came running. “Dari Lagao”. Where today we have marked Kashyap Hall, on the floor of that big hall, the “dari” was spread. We all sat and after prolonged deliberations, it was decided in the meeting that receipt books would be printed out and door to door collection actually started within a few days. Giridih, Koderma and other places came with a good response. An Executive Committee was formed of which I was also a member. I still possess the documents.

Then came the birthday celebration of Sri K. B. Sahay (64^th perhaps). There was a colourful function in the Congress maidan where a purse (not a purse, but a red cloth small bag) of Rs. 64,000/- (Rs Sixty Four Thousand only) was presented to Sri K. B. Sahay. After meeting everyone who was present there, Sri K. B. rushed back to his residence. We discussed why not we go to him and place our proposal for the Women’s College and disclose the humble amount we could collect? Eleven motor cars carrying all of us, and Sri D. N. Sen singing songs of K. L. Sehgal we reached the residence of Sri. K. B. Sahay. I rushed inside the house and found him talking with his wife on the verandah under the sun. Surprised he asked, “What’s the matter, Gour?” I only could say who was waiting for him in his drawing-room. He came out when Tapeshwar Deo disclosed our purpose. Ram Babu, Amal Da, and all other elites mentioned earlier were also present. In a split of a second Sri K. B. Sahay rushed inside and brought out the unopened presented purse containing Rs. 64,000/- and put the same in the hands of Tapeshwar Deo and said “Give a receipt and make Ram Babu also one of the Secretaries”. We all stood there thunderstruck. Stunned! Speechless we stood there. This is the starting of the K. B. Women’s College. Do you know my beloved new generation? Do you know who our first student in this college was? Mrs. Zarina Begum, wife of Mr. A. F. A. Hamid. She along with other respected ladies met the Principal of Saint Columba’s College and got their willing girl students for the college. Mrs. Hamid took her M.A. as a private candidate and worked temporarily as the lecturer in the same college where she was admitted as the first student in the K. B. Women’s College. Such was the devotion of all of us under the leadership and guidance of Krishna Ballabh Sahay.

So, friends, you have traveled with me from the open-air L.P. School under the shade of mango trees in my present residence to the great institution from where in the past nearly a quarter of a century hundreds of our sisters and daughters graduated themselves in this so-called backward place of Hazaribagh.

And everything behind these achievements was the great soul of Krishna Ballabh Sahay. I personally know so many opposition leaders who got financial help in their bad days from Krishna Ballabh Sahay. I was an eye witness to many such cases.

Waves and waves of reminiscences are coming to my bleeding heart.

I salute the soldier of thousand reverences with the famous words of our Mantu Da (S. K. Ghosh, Bureau Chief of P.T.I., Patna) article in “The Indian Nation” after the tragic end of Sri Sahay: “The political and human stalwart lived in speed and died in speed.

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

-HELEN KELLER