C
The facts first. Two years back, when I started learning Spanish, I didn’t have a clue as to what the endpoint of this exercise would be. It was more of an impulse than a calculated decision. The course was cheap, some of my acquaintances had done it, and brushing up on my rusty French was far too expensive. Furthermore, the ecosystem aligned with my Bengali middle-class sentiments to a great extent. Well, almost. I was 64 then and a tad away from being referred to as a doddering, senile being, my own feeling to the contrary notwithstanding. So, I needed to prove it to myself – that I could still do it, like the ones who are climbing the Everest now. I will not be a pioneer, but who cared, if I could prove to myself that my feelings about not being old were rooted and they were not just bravado would be enough to keep me going for a few more years with confidence, little knowing what the future held.
I still recall the day I took the final exam. Well, it was more like supine than sitting. I had sustained a spinal injury and was in the hospital when the exam happened. The institute was gracious enough to offer me an alternative date, but my ego kicked in. I wanted to compete with my compañoros and check my performance. But on the day of the examination, my hospital cabin transformed into a circus ring. Somehow, the word had spread that the accident-patient-uncle was taking an exam at the hospital.
My nurse on duty came in at 6 am to prepare me for the day. The exam was supposed to start at 7. I had ample time. But other nurses started coming in from 6.45 onwards on one pretext or another. And then they stayed back.
I must say that they were also eager to ensure that I was as comfortable as they could make me. One got hold of a hospital table of a height that would be comfortable for me to write on the laptop. Another was continuously checking whether the wifi was working correctly. It was, in fact, quite a touching experience. And that I qualified at the top of the class remains another tale to tell!
A confession – I still struggle to express myself in Spanish. I still need dictionaries and grammar checks while writing, but I can do it in a reasonably competent way.
One thing led to another. My editor from another life, a person of huge academic capability, somehow has always been unreasonably sympathetically disposed towards me. I, at times, have the feeling that it’s more out of pity towards my intellectual shortcomings than anything else. Que sea lo que sea or que será, será, it was Anirban Chattopadhyay of Anandabazar Patrika and my teacher, Dibyajyoti Mukhopadhyay, who were responsible for me doing the Tenzing act in Spanish.
To cut a long story short, had it not been for them, I wouldn’t have dared to accept this challenge. Now it is done. The accolades are coming in, not for the content that got published though, but for the doddering, near senile old crap proving himself as being not so old. I did the Everest, but the headline is a doddering fellow who defied senility to make it there.
You can check the veracity by clicking on this link
Pix Courtesy Chatgpt
https://online.fliphtml5.com/uxhgi/Trobairitz-34---Enero-de-2026/#p=9
