"You are a teacher. People would listen to you."

"Ok"

With that she had launched into an awareness building campaign for the benefit of her gay friends. She spoke at forums to their parents' gathering, she interviewed their parents individually, slowly breaking the news to the parents. The parents fell in love with her, they chatted with her, spilling their hearts out for her. She took copious notes. 

"You should go. Pradeepda would come too. Please?"

"Ok"

With that she had woken up a straight friend at four in the morning to go participate in the gay pride walk in Kolkata in support of her gay friend - his boy friend walked with her. She held his hand and patted him on his arm, he was trembling slightly. "It would be fine, dada". "Would he come?"

"No he cannot come, not at this stage. It is too early still for him to come out. Do you want me to try and talk to your wife?"

She had been one of the five straight woman that had walked the Rainbow Pride Walk that year, along with Siddharth Gautam's sister, Anudidi, who is an immigration lawyer at that time based in the US and her daughter , and two other law students from Calcutta University and an Indian Express journo that walked for her brother.

"Yes, please."

She visited the wife at their home somewhere, she is furious, "Do you people think this is a game? Do you think life is a game? And why on earth do you support these people? Why?"

She didnt want other women to go through what you went through, what she went through? Do you know how many women suffer like you in arranged marriages throughout the country and live unhappy ignominous tortured lives?

"Nobody would accept that!"

At that she launched into an awareness campaign with the celebs that she had designed. Her first 'campaign design' based on what she had learned at her Mass Comm class at Jadavpur. Taslima Nasreen turned them away in the first instance. So they went on to Sunil Gangopadhyay's house from there. He willingly gave the second interview. Parambrata Chattopadhyay was the  first person that had graciously reached out spontaneously. Each one of them referred the campaign to another celeb, so interviews of Bratya Basu (the firebrand playwright, who is currently the higher education minister of the state of West Bengal), Nabanita Debsen, Aparna Sen, Anjan Datta, Sharbari Dutta the designer, artists, poets, writers like Amit Chaudhary, musicians like Kabir Suman, the Director of National Library, followed.

On her way back from New Delhi, one day in this phase, in the shuttle from the tarmac to the terminal at Kolkata airport, she met Taslima Nasreen again and this time she happened to be sitting right next to her. She in fact got up to make place for the lady friend Tasleema usually always stays with when she is in India and not in Kolkata. They both thank her, "You look familiar".

She takes her chance, Yes, she smiles, "You had turned me away at that time, are you prepared to give me an interview this time please?"

That is how the Rawdon Street interview had happened. She taped Tasleema and had handed the transcript to the group that had approached her.

The story of "Manas Bangla" the umbrella organization of the gay rights welfare program was the second story she had done for Shamoy Ashamoy, the paper that has wrapped up since then and now only exists as a religious journal.

She completed her Mass Communication course from Jadavpur University. Her school refused leave for the exams. She fought a bit but since she knew she had already picked up what she needed from the course and really did not need the certificate or the degree she had given in.

That August her father fell ill and was hospitalised for the first time. The children were all at work that afternoon. The neighbours took the sick man to the hospital. They called her workplace. She had invigilation duty. So they never informed her when the call had come through the first time.

At the end of the day the Princie had called an exam meeting of all the Board examiners. She was preparing for that when a colleague informed her about the phone call. She went to the Principal's office.

"Well, come on N, he isn't exactly dying, so what is the hurry? I want you at this meeting after school this evening". She had been number five in a department of eighteen full time MA B.Ed senior secondary English teachers, with the Principal, Vice Principal, Teacher in Charge of the school, and the Head of the Department over her. She had put in nearly eight years of sweat and blood into that organization, pioneering things, building somethings from scratch. She loved the place and the students said "She doesnt teach grammar, she romances the subject". Young strapping adolescents actually looked forward to their grammar classes with her and the whole school marvelled at that and her enemies said she probably has some kind of a pact with the children outside school. 

The management secrety called her a "race horse", her Boss that was always openly resisting her unconventional ways said at departmental meetings she had later learned, "an asset to the department". The day she left, eleven other teachers had walked out. When she left she had 114 days leave due to her. She never had cause to take leave so she hadn't ever.

Around October he was hospitalised again and diagnosed with terminal cancer, bone marrow cancer. She did not get leave in the second phase either to attend to her ailing father while he lay struggling with terminal illness.  He had been in terrible pain for they had drilled the base of his spine twice to get marrow out for the biopsy. But whenever she saw him, he was always smiling, the normally twinkling eyes were now dimming like a matchstick about to go off. He chatted with the other patients, cheering them.

She attended school full day, then went and sat outside his cabin at the hospital checking her Board exam scripts until it was no longer possible to sit there and it was time to go home to bed. The brother for some reason had not attended even for a day. Not the first time, not the second time.

That December she quietly performed all her duties as convenor of the Wall Magazine Committee, Member Sports Committee, Class Teaher, subject teacher and then  as school closed for the long winter leave, she had walked out of Kolkata altogether and had never returend.

Initially she had wanted to., She had called her father from Delhi and informed him that she had found a lovely place at CR Park and that she would come and fetch him. He was happy but had sounded weak, "Take care and dont be surprised, you always have done well, you would always do well".  They hadn't accepted her resignation for two months, later they sent her the letter and the cheque. Cheques.

He was hospitalised for the first time in August. In March the next year, exactly seven months later, he had passed away. She never saw him after that December. She was working in Delhi at the time. News reahed Delhi at 6:30 am in the morning, her manager quietly instructed the concierge at office to get the first available flight out from Delhi, but she had refused. She had completed her shift and then took out the blank ticket he had given her - she looked at the passage, SOL - he had given her his own staff on leave passage for emergency. She sat and prayed for "no fog".

That was the year she had discovered that nothing leaves for Kolkata from Delhi before 1615 hours unless you get an early morning flight or a train. Rajdhani, Purba, Indian Airlines, Alliance Air, Deccan - no luck. When she reached home around 1930 'the body' had been in the care of her gay friends since 7:30 am in the morning, the house was jam packed with neighbours relatives friends, everyone waiting for the children to arrive. Bro had arrived in another half hour and they were ready for the last journey.

Bengalis keep vigil for thirteen days. They do not shampoo their hair or oil it, they do not eat meat or fish or eggs or wear shoes or leave the house or cut their nail or wear gold jewellery. The son shaves off his head and would start wearing akbastra, a plain white unstitched piece of cloth - they start mourning in white. After which there is the shraddh ceremony when after the last rites, they invite the people that accompanied the dead and departed on his last journey to the creamtorium (shamshan yatris) with friends and neighbours to eat together.  On the third day though the brother had walked out, "We would do it our way at the parish downtown". He had not converted at this stage, he did this year. She had to perform her father's last rites alone.

"Let him go, it is his father, let him decide". There is so much she hates about her mother, but this memory of her she cherishes, there was no scene, no "trying to persuade to do the right thing", this quiet submission and grace and dignity is what makes her so precious. Not that she exhibited that often. Mostly it was a raging Aries woman that domianted everyone in the house and always had her way with everyone.

She did not cry. She had spoken to him gently. She had held his hand until it was time to say the final goodbye, but she hadnt said good bye.