Sajal Kumar Kanjilal

Yesterday evening I was in a bad mood so I thought of going to Nandan around 7:30 p.m. My initial plan was to go to Nandan and then go to "Some Place Else" from there around 10 p.m. I went to Rabindra Sarobar Metro to take the train to Rabindra Sadan. But the station was totally over crowded with people. There were huge queues in front of the ticket counters. Some announcements were going on in those horrible loudspeakers. Someone said that someone committed suicide. Someone said that there was an accident. The situation did not feel right and it made me uneasy. I came up on the road. All the buses were over crowded. I tried to book an Ola/Uber, but failed as no cabs were available. Since the Metro was not functioning therefore there was additional traffic pressure on the roads. So I decided to cancel my Nandan plan and go to Rabindra Sarobar Lake instead for an evening walk and have some coffee and cigarettes there and watch couples kissing each other and making out in the dark. Around 9 p.m. I came back home, took a shower, had my dinner and started listening to Osho's hindi speeches on Youtube and started surfing randomly through Facebook. Around mid night I suddenly bumped into a post on Facebook which stated that the person who died at the Metro station was Sajal Kumar Kanjilal. I was shocked. I could not believe what I was reading on Facebook. I knew that man so well. I have been seeing him for ages in and around Nandan.

In today's newspapers, Sajal Da is front page news. He was a poor man but he always had a smile on his lips. He used to sell little magazines, mainly related to bengali theatre, in front of Academy Of Fine Arts. He also used to hand over leaflets of upcoming bengali theatres to people passing by. Sometimes he used to come inside the Nandan campus also and try to sell his magazines there. He was a known face to all the regulars at Nandan. He knew that my name is Raj but he always used to call me Raja. If I was in a good mood then I used to talk to him, joke with him and pull his leg. If I was in a bad mood then I used to avoid making eye contact with him. Seven out of ten times I used to buy his magazines, not because I was interested in their content, but just because I wanted to help him a bit. So many times I have refused to buy anything from him and have also behaved harshly with him. Whenever I refused to buy anything from him, he always gave me a dry smile and then walked away from me with his head hanging low. I really felt sorry for him but its not possible to buy every time. Seven out of ten times I used to give him ten rupees to have tea and biscuits at Hari Da's tea shop. Whenever he used to see me then he would come up to me and say, "Ei je Raja, dosh taka dao na go, cha khabo..."

Sajal Da, tomakey aar cha khawano holo naa...