paterfamilias of modern Bengali literature—but I have felt a particular kinship with you.
Perhaps this was because I was deeply attracted to your work at a time when you were living. Somehow that made you a more intimate presence.
Of course, there is so much to like about you. A world-class filmmaker, juvenile story-teller, composer, typographer, illustrator, graphic artist, you had a keen intellect and an avid curiosity, with a formidable command of both English and Bengali—you were a true renaissance man.
There was another parochial reason. I took particular delight in the fact that your ancestral home was in East Bengal. Your grandfather Upendrakishore Roychowdhury, juvenile storyteller extraordinaire, was from Mymensingh, the land of the storied folk treasury of