I will 'possibly' never ever have Br. Dr Brendan MacCarthaigh Sir to rush to everytime I am psychologically down, hear him talk to me with great compassion for 15 - 30 minutes and return home totally rejuvenated.
Even while I started writing this piece at 5.15 am on Sunday 2022-10-30, Sir is possibly getting ready at St. Joseph's Collegiate School in Bowbazar to leave his favourite Kolkata (read, India) forever to get airborne and head for Dublin, Ireland (his country of birth) where total uncertainty stares at him at a ripe age of 84. There's not a single relative to even say a hello to him, leave aside be at his bedside in far off Ireland. He has got no savings either.
Sir came to India as a Christian Brother at a tender age of 22 in 1960 (2 years before I was born) and shaped the lives of thousands of Indian school children for the next 62 years upto the last day of October 2022.
Sir came to my life as my senior school class teacher in St. Patrick's School, Asansol from mid 1977. Something very unfortunate had happened during the fag end of my school year. It was Sir who drilled it into me that life must go on and that I must stamp out all odds and come out victorious. I never forgot him, although for about 13 - 15 odd years I was out of touch with Sir.
It was around 1996 that I found him out once again. By then Sir had formed SERVE, an NGO to inculcate value education in schools, to ensure that a school going child is free from all fears and stop the propensity of children to commit suicide which even today is rampant in India. He was very keen that I officially become a SERVE honorary member with some responsibility bestowed on me, which I denied in no uncertain terms. I volunteered to do quite a bit of brand marketing exercise for SERVE out of my sheer love for Sir. However, there were people in his team (which included his most trusted lieutenants) who made Sir believe that my ideas should not be accepted.
By 1998, I told Br. Brendan that I will do anything for him but not for SERVE. Even the email ID he uses even today was made by me for him. The writing on the wall was bold and clear that people were using Sir for their own interests. Almost everytime I visited Sir at his SERVE office, he would share all his plans, I gave him ideas as food for thought and before bidding goodbye I would invariably warn him that things were not right. I would remind him that some of his writings and utterances need to be politically correct. I have always warned him that people are using him for conveying false narratives. I have always warned him to stay clear of echoing meaningless rhetorics. He would listen to me but never stopped his rhetorics. From 2014, his aides started brainwashing him with extra vigour and he too started getting more vocal to voice untrue narratives. Rightfully, thousands of registered NGOs had a lot of answering to do to the government to stop rampant money laundering and more. On realizing that the 'gandha' days were history, a new metric, viz. 'SERVE works for unity of religion' crept in. The narrative which was drilled into Br. Brendan by his lieutenants and Sir gulped it down and became vociferously vocal in spreading the utterly false narrative.
In 2019, the decision makers in the Christian Brothers setup in India transferred him to Chandigarh immediately after he returned from a 3 months of leave in various places in Europe. It's obvious that the decision makers too felt that Br. Brendan was surrounded by too many people who had other motives in mind and that might become a deterrent in the smooth functioning of the reverred organization in a new India!
Around mid October 2022, I was told by someone that Br. Brendan would be leaving India for Ireland possibly forever. I sulked and wept, went into depression knowing jolly well that there's nothing that I can do to hold him back in India, if not in Kolkata in particular.
Sir, wanted to leave India from Kolkata. He flew in to Kolkata from Chandigarh on Sunday 2022-10-23, a day before Diwali. On Saturday 2022-10-29 I could meet Sir in private at the 2nd storey parlour of the main building in St. Joseph's Collegiate School in Bowbazar. Although our private meeting was supposed to be for 10 minutes, it actually stretched to over 50 minutes. I wept. He held on to my hands tight. His eyes had moistened up, too even while trying to crack jokes. There were too many things he told me for the first time ever.
A farewell meeting was scheduled in the hall downstairs from 5.30 pm on Saturday 2022-10-29. Although I was in no mood to attend, I could not discard Sir's request to remain present throughout the meet which ultimately ended around 7 pm. Dr. Mohan Lal Mukherjee and Dr. Santanu Chatterjee, alumii of St. Patrick's School, Asansol were pleasantly present for the farewell meeting.
Even during his last captivating speech from the stage, Sir uttered a few lines what he has been made to believe by the hate India brigade since 2014!
With Sir's departure from India, it's almost as if I have been orphaned 😩
I will only be living with memories of how often Sir cheered me up 😩
Sir, stay safe. Stay fit.
.
.
P.S: The headlines in Page 1 in The Telegraph, Kolkata edition dated Saturday 2022-10-29 bears testimony of a false narrative that Sir has been made to seriously believe in by his other associates. Please read the complete article spread over two pages in The TT.
I have lost the physical presence of my mentor, but the cunning brigade will start working overtime to find and brainwash their next prey. Life will continue unhindered for the hate brigade!
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