Rabindranath Bhattacharya > Quotes

“He wanted to sleep. He came closer to his father, slowly lowered his head and kept it on the shoulder of his father. “Papa, am I really going back home?” Rabi murmured. Taxi was moving very fast and even the rumblings of vehicles moving all around or the occasional thunderous sound of a tram moving past the taxi in the opposite direction blocking the views totally could not wake him up. He held his father tighter and tighter in his sleep so that he was not snatched away by anybody again. He does not want to lose the freedom he has just got!  *************************”
― Dr. Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Looking for the Freedom: stories through the eyes of the children

“The boy, we would call him Rabi, used to get busy in the library of his father in the morning when he did not have anything to keep him busy. He started looking at the titles and authors of the book. He was too young to understand the meaning of what the great authors like Bernard Shaw, Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, Maupassant, Chekov etc. wrote but he started reading them from time to time so that he could become a journalist one day. Journals, newspapers and articles flooded his house and his mother was struggling to keep them intact but Rabi helped her with a smiling face. Books were his friends and it seemed the stories inside them suddenly come alive whenever Rabi touched them.”
― Dr. Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Looking for the Freedom: stories through the eyes of the children

“I was on bed soon and was lost in deep slumber. I was in conversation with my father who appeared suddenly from nowhere:”
― Dr. Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Welcome! A Student again at 60!: A Career after Career!

“If you choose you are free from the bonding and if you choose you need blame no man - accuse no man or your fate. All things would be at once according to your mind and according to the mind of God.”
― Dr. Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Welcome! A Student again at 60!: A Career after Career!

“Time passed fast and I was coming out from the reputed engineering college at last after the same Professor had intervened with the college authority for holding the examination in spite of political troubles, prevailing during seventies in Calcutta. The sprawling complex of the university would suddenly vanish from my view. I would be missing the chirping of the birds in early morning, view of green grass of the football field right in front of our building, badly mauled by the students and pedestrians who used to cut short their journey moving across the field, whistling of steam trains passing parallel to the backside of boundary wall of our building, stentorian voice of our Professors, ever smiling and refreshing faces of the learned Professors every day. I would definitely miss the opportunity of gossiping on a bench by the lake side with other students, not to speak of your girlfriend with whom you would try to be cozy with to keep yourself warm when the chilling breeze, which put roses in girls’ cheeks but made sinuses ache, cut across you in its journey towards the open field during winter. The charm of walking along the lonely streets proscribed for outsiders and bowing occasionally when you meet the Professors of repute, music and band for the generation of ear deafening sound - both symphony and cacophony, on Saturdays and Sundays in the auditorium, rhythmic sound of machines in the workshop, hurly-burly of laughter of my friends, talks, cries at the top of  their lunges in the canteen and sudden departures of all from the canteen on hearing the ding-dong sound of the big bell hung in the administration building indicating the end of the period would no longer be there. The street fighting of two groups of students on flimsy grounds and passionate speeches of the students during debate competition would no longer be audible. Shaking of long thin pine trees violently by the storm flowing across these especially during summer, shouting and gesticulation of students’ union members while moving around the campus for better amenities or administration, getting caught with friends all around with revolvers in hand during the violent Naxalite movement, hiding in the toilet in canteen to avoid beating by police personnel, dropping of mangoes from a mango tree which spread its wings in all directions during the five years we were in the college near our building and running together by us to pick the green/ripe mangoes as fast as possible defying inclement weather and rain etc. were simply irresistible. The list was endless. I was going to miss very much the competition among us regarding number of mangoes we could collect for our few girlfriends whom we wanted to impress! I”
― Rabindranath Bhattacharya

“I woke up suddenly and everything was dark inside the room. I slowly investigated the garden below through the window. It was a full moon day and the whole garden, illuminated by the soft rays of the Moon, seemed to be covered with a white transparent sheet. Suddenly fire crackers crackled, rockets soared into the star-studded sky, birds flew across the avenue of Bougainville flowers and in letters, all made of fireflies, was written: “Welcome! A Student again at 60!” I felt exalted and wanted to fly like a bird and tweet that I have made it at last! But would the journey be so smooth till I come out of the citadel and swim in the ocean of tranquility? Only time would tell. For the first time in my life I felt I know nothing and would start the journey afresh!”
― Dr. Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Welcome! A Student again at 60!: A Career after Career!

“Exactly! And that is the difference between common men and Great men. The philosopher said – A glance at their will make it clear to you. All day long they do nothing but calculate, contrive, consult how to wring their profit out of food-staffs, farm plots and the like …. Whereas, I entreat you to learn what the administration of the world is, and what place a Being endowed with reason holds therein: to consider what you are yourself and wherein your God and Evil consists. Son”
― Dr. Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Welcome! A Student again at 60!: A Career after Career!

“Houses were so scattered in the area that sometime in absence of any electric light on the road you would feel scared to move around after darkness because you hear only the ear deafening humming sound of insects called cricket all around only, apart from that emanating from the contact of your shoes with the pebbles on the road.”
― Dr. Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Looking for the Freedom: stories through the eyes of the children

“Next day we got the news over phone that Sheema had crossed the boundary of life and vanished into infinity. She had won the race of reaching God beating me hands down although I was born ten years later. When shall I get to know my boundary so that I could finish my pending works? I pondered. But I could not cry because she told me “A philosopher never cries!” I looked at the sky and there was no cloud anywhere. Let her soul rest in peace!”
― Dr. Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Beyond the Border

“What reason hast thou for desiring to read? For if thou aim at nothing beyond the mere delight of it, or gaining some scrap of knowledge, thou art but a poor spiritless knave. But if thou desirest to study to its proper end, what else is this than a life that flows on tranquil and serene? And if thy reading secures thee not serenity what profits it?”
― Dr. Rabindranath Bhattacharya, Welcome! A Student again at 60!: A Career after Career!