Shaking hands with a certain Salil Chowdhury and donating a small sum for his charity event became one of the most cherished moments of my life…later. I was a kid then and did not realise whom I was sharing the stage with. To me he was just “Antara didi’s” father whose songs for kids mesmerized me at that time. My father was an in-charge of a local club, Friends’ Association, in Northern Avenue which organaised cultural events every December. He used his contacts to invite a galaxy of superstars of Bengal’s golden age.
And it was probably one of the last times we got to see them live together. Starting from Manna Dey, Soumitro Chatterjee, Mamata Shankar, Ananda Shankar, Tanushree Shankar, Bhanu Bandopadhyay, Robi Ghosh, Lily Chakraborty, Sabitabroto Dutta, Shyamal Mitra, Utpalendra Chowdhury – the list seemed endless. My father bought many autograph books and distributed them to my cousins and me with a game – who could top the list of autographs collected. With privileged access to the makeshift green room, I barged in every evening with my autograph book in hand. I ran to all and sundry to scribble on its pages. I vaguely remember a gentleman saying “but son, I am not a sportsman”.
I still insisted that he gave his autograph. I thank myself for insisting. He did it smilingly. That was in 1982. The mastero must have been amused to see a kid asking for autographs and that too from the cultural fraternity. He sensibly did not reveal his identity probably because he knew that it would not interest me. I found the treasure a few years back, while cleaning a shelf, with the genius’ and his daughter’s autographs. Now, a big fan of Salil Chowdhury and having almost all his records in my gramophone library, the autographs brought instant tears to my eyes as I went back to 1983. Yes, a year later, in 1983, he was back again with his family at our Durga Puja. He was performing a free open-air function, probably for a charity event.
At the end of the function, we lined up the stairs to the podium to donate. When it was my turn, my father prompted from behind, “Salil Da, my son”. He caressed my head and like all others, announced my name. I suddenly felt important in my kiddish mind! Later I also came to know that I share my birthday, 19 November, with him. I would like to say, “Happy 100th Birthday Salil Chowdhury, wherever you are. You made Lata Mangeshkar sing ‘Aaj tobe eituku thaak’. However your promise to say the ‘baki katha pore hobe’, including the ones you did not say, haunts us. You wrote an obituary on Hemanta Mukhopadhay and ended it saying, ‘If God were to sing, he would do so in Hemanta Da’s voice.’ I would say ‘if God were to hum, he would hum in Salil Chowdhury’s tunes.” The writer is a freelance contributor.