A man who spoke gentle truth

I spent six years in Kolkata across two tenures from 2007 to 2010, and then from 2016 to 2018, mostly in the Agriculture and Horticulture departments of West Bengal. Both at Writers Building in the first tenure and at Nabanna in the second, I do not remember a single week in which I did not interact with an Aurobindo-like figure in persona as well as in thought: Satyabrata Mookerjee. Not many people live up to their name – but he did.

My senior colleague, the late GD Gautam, had introduced us over breakfast at the iconic Flury’s way back in 2007, and from then on, there has been no looking back. We would meet often at the Calcutta Club and the Palladian Lounge in the premises of the BCCI – places which exuded an old-world charm and perhaps seemed unlikely locations for discussions on everything related to agriculture, but that was as it was for us. From being friends, we became family; we have seen many ups and downs together. He held my hand when I lost my mother in 2015 and then again when my father passed away in 2018. He explained the concept of life and death, especially its exposition in the second chapter of the Bhagwad Geeta which he knew by heart. Yes, it gave relief then, and it gives relief today as well … but the void always takes a long time to fill.

My first posting in Kolkata was in the Food Processing Industries and Horticulture Department. The office was at Mayukh Bhawan in Salt Lake, not far from his residence. We would often have lunch and many a stimulating conversation on a wide array of topics – from the writings of Swami Vivekananda to those of George Bernard Shaw, as well as about the genius of Satyajit Ray and its difference from that of Ritwik Ghatak. As a leading member of the Agribusiness committees of all the major industry associations of Kolkata, especially the ICC, we organized several conferences on value chains for agriculture, the prospects for cold chain, tissue culture for potatoes, micro-irrigation techniques and newer platforms for price discovery. The highlight of my first term in Kolkata was the global conference organized in 2008 when the UN declared it to be the Year of the Potato. The ICC team at the time was led by Sanjay Budhia as the President and Rajeev Singh as the Secretary General. If there was one person outside of the department whom I could look to for advice on the state of agriculture, land-related issues, crop conditions, expected yields, availability of seeds and fertilizer, and everything related to potato, that person was Satyabrata Mookerjee.

His circle of friends was wide – ranging from agriculture scientists and Vice Chancellors like Swapan Dutta to SK Dasgupta of the CPRI, academics like Suranjan Das, distinguished debaters like Dr Sandeep Chatterjee, industrialists like Rudra Chatterjee and political leaders across the spectrum from ex-President Pranab Mukherjee of the INC to HK Konar of the CPM and ministers Arup Ray and Pradeep Mazumdar in the current cabinet. He knew so many IAS officers across batches – Palti Menon, the longest-serving secretary to CM Jyoti Basu; Samar Ghosh, the Chief Secretary in the first decade of this millennium; PK Basu, the Union Agriculture Secretary; Hridyesh Mohan, who is currently the ACS to the Government of West Bengal; younger officers like Abhinav Chandra – Satyabrata Babu was the person all could confide in, and he knew how to keep confidence.

The other great recall I have of him is the visits to Jairam Bati as well as the many centres of the RK Mission, from the Belur Math to the centre at Bhubaneswar where he would attend the annual Rath Yatra, as well as the RK Mission College of Agriculture at Narendrapur. He knew all the Presidents of the RK Mission and I was privileged to get an audience with Swami Atmasthananda and Swami Samarananda through his acquaintance with them. He also knew Swami Ranganathananda, whose speech at the IIPA in 1997 was published as ‘Social Responsibilities of Public Administrators.’ The paragraph which Satyabrata Babu highlighted and drew my attention to was called ‘Bureaucracy: Static vs Dynamic’. ‘The difference in above two is of attitude. Static bureaucrat reflects low and poor state of man, as a mere functionary who draws from his functions to enrich his inner being which is otherwise empty. Such state of mind is prone to succumbing to corruption. The dynamic bureaucrat represents a man inwardly rich in his being, in his strength of citizenship awareness and patriotic impulse and pouring out that richness into his function. This attitude fosters the spirit of service and retains much innate strength to resist and overcome corrupting influences’.

During my penultimate visit to Kolkata, he put me up at the RKM Institute of Culture and we spent some very meaningful time in prayer, mediation and conversation. He had organized a book reading session for We the People of the States of Bharat at the Bengal Club with Madhuporna Roy of the ICC and, in his characteristic affection, ensured that everything was perfect to the tee. This was also the last time so many of us – his large and extensive circle of friends – got together. How I wish there was yet another opportunity to meet him, to connect with him, and carry on with our quintessential adda on everything – Jal Bhora Sandesh from the shop of Girish Chandra Dey and Nakur Chandra Nandy to the great connect between the revolutionaries of Punjab and Bengal in the cellular jail at Andamans.

In February this year he called for Samar Ghosh, Hridyesh Mohan and myself to discuss the course of his treatment. Together with Varsha, his partner of four decades, and his son Nilanjan, we visited the Tata Cancer Hospital to discuss the pros and cons of different therapies. We all agreed that perhaps immunotherapy, which is used to treat advanced and metastatic cancers, may work. Yet obviously the Almighty had different plans. Satyabrata Babu bore his treatment with dignity, grace, and a sense of wry humour. His daughter Tithi was also with him during this time, and did her best to keep him in good cheer. He likely knew that the end was near, but he was not one to give up.

As words begin to fail, let me end with Antony’s apt lines from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: ‘His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, “This was a man”.’

Views expressed are personal