Home tutor in Kasba, Shyamadas Chatterjee

Shyamal Kumar Mishra is a headmaster of a school in Jadavpur. Shyamadas Chatterjee is a home tutor in Kasba.

The two mastermoshais turned up at Park Circus Maidan separately on Saturday, both driven by an “agony within”.

Mishra said it had become impossible not to respond to the call of his soul. “India has witnessed Partition and a second attempt needs to be averted at all cost,” he said.

Chatterjee, having seen new India’s youth fight against divisive forces in Delhi and elsewhere, wanted to witness the reflection of that spirit in the women on vigil at Park Circus Maidan.

Mishra was on his first visit to Park Circus Maidan but he had been reading about the sit-in. After school, on Saturday, Mishra and his friends decided to head for the protest ground.

The banners, posters, slogans and the national flag at Park Circus Maidan reminded the headmaster of Jadavpur NK Pal Adarsha Sikshyatan of Uttar Pradesh, where he has his roots.

“In the villages of UP, when a woman is pregnant, women gather around her and sing ‘Allah miyan/ Humre bhaiya ko diyo Nandlal’,” Mishra recalled. “This marriage of Allah and Nandlal is the India we have known and grown up in. We can’t let this wither away because of some strange decisions. There is an agony within me, a pain.”

“It can’t be that one morning you wake up to see Rahamat Chacha, whom you have grown up with as your neighbour, being asked to leave the country. What is this? What was the role of RSS in our Independence?” Mishra asked. “There is a second attempt at Partition, this time on religious lines. Aami mene nite paarchi na (I can’t accept this).”

For a little over a month, Park Circus Maidan has been drawing visitors from different parts of the city and from diverse backgrounds, lending support to the women on 24X7 vigil.

Chatterjee, the mastermoshai from Kasba, was among them.

“Can’t you see the frustration in the eyes of our students and youth? Why is it that many students from different varsities are out on the road protesting? As a teacher, if I don’t join them now, then when?” asked Chatterjee, who knows some 100-plus songs of Mohammad Rafi by heart.

“The discrimination is on communal lines. This is not the India I have known. Even our students and youths can’t accept this India,” he said.