Whispers from the Past!

 Whispers from the past ! 

I was zipping past College Street in Kolkata , when suddenly the driver showed a  name which brought me halting there ..He was showing me The Presidency College, Kolkata. The building was imposing and the legacy of the college was well known, but what really brought me to halt was the memories the name brought to me suddenly from the bygone era-memories of the stories I heard from my father and aunts … this was the alma mater of my grandfather, Pandit Jamuna Karjee , one of Bihar’s prominent freedom fighters and leaders of Kisan movement, back in the 1930s and 40s! Whispers of the distant past came back to me .. stories of my illustrious grandfather … 

My grandfather came from a family of scholars of some repute in their village and the surrounding areas. Unfortunately my grandfather lost his father in his infancy and I heard stories that all the land and properties were usurped by greedy relatives and neighbours . But one thing which nobody could take away was his mothers determination in getting her son educated in an era when education was sparse and hard to come by … the son lived up to his mother’s expectation . He used to walk all the way to school in Dighra, a good 10-12 km away. The family scholarly genes showed that it had survived all the hardships ..student Jamuna earned scholarship to the only high school in the  area at that time (sometime around 1910) ,Northbrook Zila School, Darbhanga! He shone in his academics there and earned scholarship to study in presidency college , Kolkata , at that time probably the most well known and prestigious college in India ! 

 

His academic prowess shone through his years in college as well and it seemed imminent that he will be joining the elite civil services of the British government or some other prestigious government job. But, fate had other ideas - during his college he came in contact with leading luminaries of India’s freedom movement like BC Roy and Rahul Sankritayayan and also the great peasant leader Swami Shajanand. He sacrificed what looked like a promising career in government and jumped into the Freedom movement. He started a weekly by the name Bharat Mitra in Kolkata highlighting the freedom struggle. He participated in the non cooperation movement and was jailed several times by the British Government. His overall intelligence, networking skills and organising abilities very soon made him a leading figure in the freedom movement in BIhar. Later he became the leading associate of Swami Shajananad Saraswati in the Kisan aandolan of 1930s and was also its President for some time. In Bihar he started weekly newspaper called Hunkar to highlight the Kisan movement and the freedom struggle . The weekly came to be the mouthpiece of the prominent voices of that time like Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Sri Krishna Sinha and others. He was close to Sri Krishna Sinha who later was the first Chief Minister of Bihar. It is said that the best things come with a short life span-in mid 40s he was diagnosed with cancer which quickly spread to his entire body and by 1950 he was bed ridden. He  breathed his last in 1953! 

In short lift of 55 years he shone like a shooting star , contributing to the freedom struggle of his state and the country immensely and faded away as quickly!

All these memories flashed by me as I stood by the imposing structure of the Presidency college feeling dwarfed by the mammoth building and its worthy alumni! 

Post script : My grandfather went a bit too soon but his legacy still continues in the region. His contribution to the freedom struggle was noted and found mention by the honourable Prime Minister of India, Mr Narendra Modi during his speech in Samastipur in 2020!