GAGAN BARAN’S TALE My name is Gagan Baran Chatterjee. I am a minor celebrity in Delhi and Shimla, where they know me as G.B. Chatterjee. The initials G.B.C. have been scrawled on important government documents at least a thousand times. I went to England at twenty-one, and upon my return at twenty-four, I got a job in Delhi. I’ve lived there ever since. So long have I been there that I can no longer imagine living, or ever having lived, anywhere else. After retirement? I’ve made arrangements for that too. I have a house at Civil Lines in Delhi, you can see the Yamuna from the veranda. Bengal’s damp climate doesn’t suit my wife’s health – her father used to be the principal at Agra College. Our children speak in Hindi-laced Bengali, and they speak in English even more. Even this conversation with all of you in Bengali – this too is new for me. I hardly ever have these trysts with Bengal anymore, I don’t even feel any attraction. Once in a blue moon when I do go to Calcutta it’s on official work, I don’t stay a day longer than necessary.
