Year 1996

The start of 1996 was not at all dull for me, as I remember that due to invitation cum insist from my school friends, I had to celebrate 31st night.

I had to visit to Railway Office to know the process of my appointment. I finally joined South Eastern Railways, Bilaspur Division (now Bilaspur Division is in South East Central Railway) on 28th of February 1996. At that time my brother Kingshuk was with me at Bilaspur / Uslapur. He loves me a lot. He is elder to me and has big ambitions. He is not of the opinion to rise slowly in life but to start with a jump. In actual he failed in many projects he undertook as a profession. Now he is somewhat establishing. He then was planning to buy goods carriage vehicles, later he bought also, and his judgement was that he will be able to manage good amount of money. He then many times told me that in future I should leave my job as he will earn a lot.

On the last day before joining I was depressed. Suddenly my life will be locked in job. Yet I joined and after my joining I had to change my residence from Uslapur to Bilaspur. Then Shantanu Ghosh, Station Master of Uslapur has arranged a quarter on sharing with Bikash Das. I thing I must tell that, one girl wept on our leaving. She is elder sister of Mohan. We and Mohan were on adjacent quarters from our childhood may be for 18 years.

On shifting to Bikash’s house (quarter no 797/1, Construction Colony), Kingshuk started feeling uncomfortable with staying with others, asked me to search for a separate house, though it was not realised.

My job days were supportive from the staff, but I did not like the office environment at all. I got separated from my school friends and they were then going to college and I had to go to office. Inferiority complex developed on me. I avoid going to friends house as many peoples asked, “what you are doing”, and to their reply I felt my answer to low that I have to go for job. Also my job was not of a kind, I had expected. It was a workshop type environment, with many illiterate people, many old people, some chewing tobacco, and do not have topic of discussion of young people. The work of the office (RCC office) is related to maintenance of equipments installed at “traction Power Control Room”. Such maintenance include outstation visit to smaller units. The work consists of cleaning equipments, and some technical repair. I felt the job to be below the dignity of me and my school friends.

At office I go two good persons; they can really be called guide and good friend. Amongst many staff, I got attached to them. They are Mr. J.S.Jacob and Mukesh Sharma. Jacob came on transfer from Bhilai Loco Shed to Bilaspur and joined Bilaspur RCC office about one month after my joining. Mukesh Sharma came from Bhilai PSI office. He may have joined about a year later.

Jacob was very caring to me. He never hesitated in spending money for others. Actually he is also very religious and always used to donate one third of his salary to the Church. He also worked a lot for maintenance and development of the church. The church “Bethany Prayer House” is built mostly due to his family’s effort and financial contribution. He resigned from the job of Railways may be in the year 2002.

Mukesh have very very technical knowledge. He is “Diploma Electrical Engineer” and always used to learn new things, every other than electrical. He himself learnt computer, and always tried to figure out the hardware and software related problems. He was the best to learn the newly installed “Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition” (SCADA) equipments at RCC. He is now working as TPC in Nagpur.

I must mention about my Supervisor at RCC. His name was Mr T.K.Das. His qualification was BSC math-Honours. He too was very caring to me. He always used to invite me to his house and was very sympathetic to me. But I feel very sorrow to mention that his elder daughter got expired at the age of about 15 years due to kidney ailments in the year (probably 1999). Few days back Mukesh informed me from Nagpur that Me T.K.Das died about a year back, i.e. in 2008. His death was also painless, as described by Mukesh and I thankful that the person of very good nature got such peaceful death. I feel it’s my duty to meet his family.

Also I must mention about Mr. S.C.Sinha. He on his own interest came on transfer from Kharagpur to Bilaspur. His inlaws are at Santragachi. He was also very helpful to me and offered food at his place many many times, but actually used to force others to eat more and more. He constructed house and is still in the same office since long time.