I felt enlightened to read the account of Arun Kumar Gupta, the senior-most member of our block who turned 100 on November 10 ("Father's bike ride with Nehru in side car", published on November 15). It is great that he possesses so many valuable documents too.

In this context I feel inspired to mention my father, the late Samar Kumar Rudra who expired on December 26, 2014 at the age of around 94 years 10 months. He was a resident of GC Block too.

My father, at Presidency College, had intimate friendships with Pratap Chundra Chunder, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Kamal Bose etc, and passed MA in Bengali with First Class scoring the highest marks in the paper on “Rabindranath Tagore”. Thereafter he visited Bolpur and met Rabindranath there.

My father had fought and won the case of freedom-fighter Bina Bhowmic (nee Das) as solicitor along with Sarat Chandra Bose, the elder brother of Subhash, as barrister.

His clients included the likes of poet Premendra Mitra, actor Dhiraj Bhattacharya, actress and singer Kanan Devi, writer Sibram Chakraborty, director Ritwik Ghatak’s wife etc. He also provided legal assistance to Maa Anandamoyee Ashram and CPM political party as and when required. Amiya Bose, a member of the Sarat Chandra Bose’s family, used to sit at his office for quite some time.

Maa Anandamoyee was affectionate to my parents and visited our Bhubaneswar resort at the request of my maternal grandfather Sarojendra Datta. Later an interview of my parents about Maa Anandamoyee was published in Ultorath journal.

My father met Indira Gandhi at Raj Bhavan, as MLA, and met Gandhiji at Beleghata, with his elder sister Chameli Devi, and others. Gandhiji had even written a line in my father's notebook and signed but unfortunately, this book got misplaced.

At Dumdum airport, my father as a leader of Opposition of CMC along with mayor of CMC and others were photographed with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru while being introduced by Prafulla Chandra Sen, the then chief minister, regarding my father's proposal of drainage piping from Thanthania towards the Ganges to reduce water-logging at Thanthania. All the Left leaders including Jyoti Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Somnath Chatterjee used to visit his residence and he had good relations with Triguna Sen, Ashoke Sen, MC Chagla etc. Bharat Maharaj of Belur Math was affectionate to him and used to offer us meals there too.

These anecdotes, along with those shared by Arun Kumar Gupta, are inspiring and thought-provoking and they convey the significance and value of the times gone by.

Swapan Kumar Rudra,

GC Block

I convey my heartiest birthday wishes to Arun Kumar Gupta and pray that he upholds the tradition of longevity in his family. His splendid activities in different spheres at this age have amazed me and, at the same time, left me dumbfounded and speechless.

He will remain a role model to a septuagenarian like me for the rest of my life and inspire others to follow suit. But the question remains as to how far his advice “Take it easy and stay positive” is practicable in the present scenario.

Parthasarathi Roy,

Cluster XI, Purbachal

I want to wish a belated happy birthday to Arunbabu! Please look after yourself. I wish you good health. Pranam to you!

Sourish Misra,

Sarat Abasan