20. Jolly Dada will forever continue to inspire me

Jolly Dada will Forever Continue to Inspire me

Aditya Kaul

My earliest memories of Jolly Dada are from the time when my parents took me to Calcutta one summer when I must have been eight or nine years old, and I celebrated my birthday at his house. Moni Dadi was also around at the time, although she was not in good health and was mostly bedridden. It was one of those birthdays as a young boy where you start to wonder what the fuss is all about. Although a part of me was still looking for a big birthday bash, another part was content with a quiet and warm celebration that was at hand. I remember having a simple birthday, with cake that had been arranged by Jolly Dada, a tour of Calcutta, and a visit to his favourite Bengali mithai shop, which I shall never forget as I tasted the real ‘mishti doi’ for the first time in my life!

The only other time that I visited Calcutta and his house was many years later with my wife Ekta, on our way to Malaysia for our honeymoon. We spent a memorable few days in Calcutta where Jolly Dada took us out for dinner to his favourite haunt, the Calcutta Club and showered us with love, affection, and glorious Bengali food, similar to what I had experienced all those years ago as a little boy.

Jolly Dada was true to his name, and I will always remember him being jolly and full of life. His zest for living, whether it was rowing at the Calcutta Club, annual visits to Ramgarh, mountaineering, his visits to Puri, his spiritual and political affiliations, his intellectual rigor, have all left an imprint on me in ways I can only now begin to comprehend. While I confess and deeply regret not spending more time with him, he will always remain an inspiration to me for his approach to life, his positivity, his mental and physical agility, and

Aditya celebrating his birthday with Jolly Dada and Moni Dadi at their Kolkata flat

L to R: Jolly, Roopan in the car, Lalit holding Aditya and Divya en route to Bangalore from Delhi

his child-like curiosity, all of which are admirable qualities worth aspiring towards.

Jolly Dada’s passing is the end of a generation, not just for our family, but it seems like a turning point for society as a whole. In the midst of this pandemic, as we step into the liminal, where humans as a species are posed with questions of existential survival, we need the village elders like Jolly Dada to guide us, as his generation went through their own version of an existential crisis and came out on the other side. If not in person, Jolly Dada will continue to guide us in spirit, and I hope that his life and the way he lived it remains an inspiration for my generation and future generations to come.

Aditya is Anoop and Divya’s eldest son.