Fifty Years Ago

Ashok Mitra OF the Chaudhuri brothers, the fourth and youngest, Sankho, the sculptor, was away in Paris. The rest of the brothers were in Mumbai (nee, Bombay). The second brother, Debu, held a comfortable assignment with a multinational company assembling and distributing electronic products. The third brother, Hiten, was a gadfly, with varied business interests: production and distribution of films, export and import of raw as well as semi-processed cotton, presiding over an engineering concern producing small tools and equipment, managing a printing press, and so on. The eldest brother, Sachin, was a pucca patriarch. The brothers adored him and were in awe of his scholarship and intellectual powers. He had lived the life of a nomad ever since he disappeared from Dacca in 1927 after faring disappointingly in the master