Pharmacist, Educator, Thespian and Organizer

Early Life and Education

Dipan was born in Kalighat, Kolkata, in a middle-class family. His father was a government employee in the Food & Agriculture Department. Dipan was the youngest in a family of two sons and three daughters. When he was only seven years old, he lost his father to Hepatitis B. No vaccine was available at that time, and Dipan’s father did not receive proper medical care. This tragedy left a lasting impact on Dipan’s psyche, and from that early age, he wanted to be a doctor when he grew up, so that he could “treat and cure sick people”.

Fortunately, Dipan’s brother, the eldest in the family, was 14 years older than Dipan and had just finished his BSc degree. He found a job in the Ordinance Factory in Kashipur, Kolkata, and could take care of the family. Dipan finished his Higher Secondary exams in 1970 and received first class marks.

At that point, Dipan wanted to go to a medical college (because of his childhood dream of becoming a doctor) but family finances precluded that option. He toyed with the idea of studying Geology or Chemistry. When his brother suggested that he study Pharmacy at Jadavpur University to be “close to patients and their medical needs”, he jumped at the idea, although Pharmacy was a relatively new program at the university with uncertain job prospects. Dipan liked to study pharmacy and graduated with high marks.

Armed with his B. Pharm degree, Dipan decided to follow his close friend, Dulal, and apply for a Green Card (Permanent Resident Visa) to the US. He received the visa approval in 1974 but unlike Dulal, Dipan decided to stay back in Kolkata to financially help the family. But he nurtured a keen interest for advanced studies and research in pharmacy and wanted to enroll in the M. Pharm program. Much to his delight, he found a full-time job in Reckitt & Coleman, a UK-based pharmaceutical company (famous for consumer products such as DETOL). And he secured a Govt of India scholarship for his M. Pharm degree! This was the “best of both worlds” for Dipan because he could earn a salary while completing his Master’s degree. With this dual arrangement, Dipan finished his M. Pharm program in two years. During this period, his elder brother had to move to Hyderabad, so the financial responsibility for the family fell entirely on Dipan’s shoulders.

In 1984, ten years after his original Green Card had been approved, Dipan returned to the US Consulate in Kolkata to re-open his permanent resident visa application. He was granted a Green Card quite quickly, and soon thereafter, arrived in New

By Debajyoti Chatterji, New Jersey

Editor’s Note: From time to time, we have featured articles on exemplary members of our community and presented their life story and achievements to our readers. We have traditionally focused on successful entrepreneurs because our community has relatively few such role models. This time we are focusing on an individual who is serving the community in multiple ways. As a pharmacist-educator and a tireless advocate of public health and immunization, he is well known in the NY-NJ health care community. As a passionate stage actor-director-producer of theatrical plays, he has entertained us for many years. And as an “organizer with a mission”, he has gifted to the community the South Asia Theater Festival (SATF), an annual theatrical extravaganza, for 15 long years!

group named Epic Actors Workshop Association with this group helped Dipan’s growth as an actor. Subsequently, Dipan organized a group of his own, Smaranee, and ventured into the world of semi-professional acting. This group sold tickets to its productions and entered in national and international drama competitions, including some in cities outside West Bengal.

Early Years in America

group in NJ at that time, Dipan established NJ as the new home for the Epic Actors Workshop and began his theater life with enthusiasm.

Starting in 1997, Dipan had participated in the New York International Fringe Festival that brought together hundreds of experimental plays (and actors, directors and producers) in many languages and from many countries. He was smitten by this concept and dreamed of organizing something similar for the South Asian theater community. And organize he did, although it took almost five years for him to do so. In 2006, Dipan presented to the theater lovers in the NJ-NY area the first “South Asia Theater Festival” (SATF). He succeeded in bringing together – for the first time in America – South Asian theater groups from many states and several languages for a two-and-half day program. The festival was held at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ, and was a huge success. 2021 marked the 15th anniversary of this transformative theater festival.

York with $20 in his pocket as an immigrant, with no jobs in hand.

Early Exposure to Performing Arts

Besides being motivated from his childhood to serve the sick, Dipan was introduced to the worlds of poetry recitations and theatre productions by his father before his untimely passing.

Dipan’s father was an amateur but a dedicated actor in his office club productions, and Dipan accompanied him to many of the performances. When Dipan was only four years old, his father urged him to recite a poem at a neighborhood Durga Puja cultural program. A reporter from Anandabazar Patrika, a well-known Bengali daily newspaper, published a rave review, and Dipan’s father was elated. This opened totally new doors for artistic expression to Dipan. He came to realize that a much larger, and very different, world existed outside of studies and sports – and that he might excel in this world. Thus inspired, Dipan soon organized and directed a play, Mukut that involved only his playmates! Success beget success, and he started playing major roles in dramatic productions at his school.

The love for theater that had germinated during Dipan’s high school days really blossomed when he attended Jadavpur University. He met up with another theater lover, Dhruba Dutta, and they joined a theater

Upon arriving in America, Dipan’s first priority was to find a job, and the second priority was to pursue graduate studies in pharmacy. Fortunately, Dipan soon ran into Dhruba Dutta, his actor friend from Jadavpur, at a picnic in New Jersey. Dhruba helped Dipan find a position in the quality control department at Duramed, a pharmaceutical products company (located in Long Island, NY) where Dhruba was working. Outside of work, the two theater lovers began planning drama productions for the Bengali community. And in his very first year in the US, Dipan played a leading role in a play, Babuder Daal Pukurey, under the direction of Nirmal Ray at the Jersey City Durga Puja.

Dipan’s Long Island years were highly eventful. He earned his M. Pharm and PhD degrees from St John’s University, passed his Pharmacy License Exams, got married, joined industry as a research scientist, and bought a home. Even with such a hectic life, Dipan pursued theater with a passion. He networked with a number of well-known theater enthusiasts in the NY-NJ Bengali community. These interactions resulted in the establishment of a theater group, named Epic Actors Workshop, in 1988, under Dipan’s leadership. This group staged many plays, mostly in the NYC area

Birth of South Asia Theater Festival (SATF)

Dipan moved to New Jersey in 2001 to work for International Specialty Products Inc. (ISP) in their Formulations Development Department. Since there was no organized theater

Every annual presentation of SATF has required a huge amount of hard work on the part of Dipan as the overall organizer. That has ranged from inviting and screening theater groups from around North America, arranging hotel and other local logistics for the theater groups, negotiating with the venue management, soliciting sponsors and donors for funds, dealing with eager vendors for the festival, organizing an army of volunteers, etc. He was also instrumental in inviting well-known theater personalities from India as directors or keynote speakers! Above all, he had to keep a tight control over the finances because SATF was not (and is not) in the business of losing (or making) profits.

Volunteering as Public Health Educator & Advocate

While Dipan has been extremely passionate about theater, his first love has always been his childhood dream to “treat and cure sick people”. As a licensed pharmacist, he has tried to make that dream a reality by being an articulate and objective educator, a staunch advocate of immunization and other preventing steps to minimize the spread of infectious diseases, and an eager volunteer in public health crisis situations.

As a faculty member at the Tuoro College of Pharmacy in NYC, he has taught hundreds of students on the proactive roles a pharmacist can play in combating epidemics. Personally, during the COVID 19 outbreak he has appeared on numerous online pro- continue to page 6 }