Early childhood character building is essential for an individual aspiring to serve the nation...

This is exactly how I spent my childhood days...

And this is me, today, joining the dots backward...

My early childhood days were spent mostly with my grandfather - listening to stories from Mahabharat, Ramayana and the real history of #bharat - playing barefoot on the roads of #puruliya - flying kites in the hot summer sun, playing badminton during winter, playing kaccha and Gulli-danda with a bunch of absolute financially poor people of the locality, participating in top-rotating games - but at the same time reading books likes Dwitiyo Bishwajuddher Itihaas  by Vivekananda Mukhopadhyay, Jue Verns’ Stories like 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, Around the World in Eighty Days, lots of Indrajaal Comics, Haanda-Bhonda - Nante - Fonte, Bantul The Great, Sharadindu Omnibus, Bengali translations of best selling books like Notredum of Hunchback, Three Musketeers, Ami Subhash Bolchi , Bottishi Singhason, Arthur Conan Doyel - spending time in the cowsheds with the cows, and of course trying to memorize few stanzas from Ramayana or Mahabharata - because of high demand from my elder sisters to be recited at any moments.

But one thing was for sure, the almost regular advice from my grandfather - was not to run behind money at any point in time. 

In fact, one day, while traveling by bus, sitting beside a Ramakrishna Mission monk at a very early age, when I was reading loudly the basic instructions written inside the bus like “Smoking is injurious to health” and all such stuff, the monk was taken aback owing to my absolute ordinary, poor outlook. So when he asked me, why I didn’t take admission to Purulia Ramakrishna Mission, I told him, exactly what my grandfather told me …

”You make lots of money from each student and I am not okay with that”.

The monk, totally shocked, asked me,

“Who told you this?”

I replied …”My grandfather”

Later, my mom always used to say

“Khoka… do your duty. Tor peter bhater obhab hobe na” 

meaning carry on. God will take care to feed you.

Hence, salary negotiation could never become a part of an important discussion for me during any new job

rather

what would be the challenge in the job and where and how I fit over there.

And I am happy to say, that I am passing on the same message to my young son…

“don’t run behind money.

one does not have to earn a lot of money to lead a happy life.

rather live a purposeful life and always aim to create an  impact for others who will come in touch with your life”

For the Bengali-speaking and reading population of the #Universe, my awakening regarding the freedom struggle of Bharat was formed at a pretty early age when my Mom read out the book "Ami Subhash Bolchi".

Here we go...

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