Biswajiban Majumdar was always a consensus candidate — universally respected and hence acceptable to all quarters.

As the former chairman of Bidhannagar Municipality lay in everlasting repose in his BJ Block house on June 5, visitors cutting across party lines dropped by to pay their last respects — mayor Krishna Chakraborty to colleagues Rabin Deb and Ila Nandy.

Majumdar passed away of age-related ailments at home at 8.10am after months of illness. He was also suffering from dementia for the past six years, said his daughter Anuradha, who stays on the floor above. He had turned 89 on March 11, she added. Other than his daughter, he is survived by his son Anish, who was away in Germany at that point and returned on Sunday.

Crisis candidate

Around 1993-94, the block was in turmoil over the leadership issue. “Biswada was the principal of a well-known college (Gurudas College). We proposed his name as president and the situation was resolved,” recalled Pradip Basak, the current president of Salt Lake BJ Block Committee, who dropped by that day along with other committee members.

It was a far more critical situation when it was time to form the second municipal board after the Left Front won in the civic election in 2005. Majumdar had contested and secured a second term as councilor but he was known more as an academic than a politician.

The North 24-Parganas district leadership had two dominant groups — the Subhas Chakraborty faction and the Amitava Nandi faction — and selecting a candidate favoured by one to lead the municipality would be rejected by the other. “Biswada had later told us how he got a call through Subhas Chakraborty to meet chief minister Jyoti Basu, who used to stay in Indira Bhavan. It came as a big surprise to him. It was an even bigger surprise when Basu told him: ‘Sir, we are in a fix. We need you to take on a responsibility,’” recalled Chanchal Majumdar, who lived across the road, adding that the ‘sir’ address was in deference to his stature as a college principal, “a decorum which even a chief minister in those days would maintain”.

Biswajiban Majumdar, chairman of Bidhannagar Municipality, hands a golden ball to Diego Maradona at Salt Lake stadium on December 6, 2008

Even after he became chairman, there were never any security guards at his residence. “He had given us, his neighbours, an open invitation to drop by for tea if we were ever at Poura Bhavan. Moreover, he continued to participate in block cultural events,” Chanchal Majumdar said.

Man of culture

Biswajiban was a sought-after speaker. “Residents would wait for him to speak at programmes, so erudite was he,” Chanchal said.

“Once there was a programme at Duttabad. Sir asked me to put up a stage act with him. We performed Karna-Kunti Sangbad,” HA Block resident Ila Nandy, who was the vice-chairperson during Biswajiban’s tenure as the civic body chief, told The Telegraph Salt Lake.

Recitation was a passion for the man who was friends with elocutionists Jagannath and Urmimala Bose. “Baba has recorded several cassettes,” Anuradha said. He had even acted in a short film with Soumitra Chatterjee, on the birth of the township, titled Ek Shohorer Katha.

He was a natural when it came to sketches. “Babar kachhe amra aanka sikhechhi,” Anish said on Monday. “At the ripe old age of 75, he would trudge to a drawing class somewhere near Labony with neighbour, Dr D.P. Ghosh, to hone his skills.”

He wrote aplenty, too. “So many people came to seek articles or stories from him. Sometimes, facing a deadline, he would stay up late to finish his writing. Didi and I are discussing if such articles can be compiled now,” Anish added.

But fiction and essays are not all he wrote. The former civic chief also co-authored books on Bengali grammar that are taught in high schools.

Rooted & real

Biswajiban was always a grounded person. “I knew his eldest brother, whom we called Captain (Krishnajiban) Majumdar, a former Army man. He was a councilor in Cossipore. I met Biswada after he shifted to Salt Lake at the BJ Block bus stop, where both of us would wait for a bus to go to work. He was already the principal then,” Chanchal Majumdar said.

Basak remembers Biswajiban’s contribution towards building the block library. “Ours is the biggest among the block libraries in Salt Lake. We have close to 7,000 books.” In fact, when he became the chairman, BJ Block did not even have a community centre. “He helped us tide over the hurdle in getting the land and pass the building plan. We held meetings at his house.”

The construction of Bidhannagar Municipal School in FE Block too was expedited due to his enthusiasm. A delegation from the school came on the last day, a family member informed.

It is easy to understand Biswajiban’s interest in the school. Himself a student of Hare School, his first job was as a teacher in a school near Katwa. “This was before he started teaching at Gurudas College,” his daughter said.

Left leanings

The doctor in Bengali comes from a family of six brothers and a sister, who are all Leftists. “Senior Communist leaders like Jyoti Basu used to come to our house at Tallah for meetings. But when our house was attacked by Congress goons, we took shelter overnight in our jethu’s house. He was with the CPI, which was in alliance with the Congress,” Anuradha said.

The family moved to Salt Lake after the house was built, in 1989. “Boudi (wife Pratima)’s loss (in November 2005) was a huge blow to him. In his later life, he would sit on the ground floor verandah and speak to passersby. He went to a few block picnics with us as well,” said Chanchal.

2009: Bidhannagar Municipality chairman Biswajiban Majumdar with Soumitra Chatterjee in course of the shooting of a short film Ek Shohorer Katha

Once his memory diminished, the social interactions lessened. A doctor who lived two buildings apart, Dr Anindya Kundu, was a mainstay of the family whenever he was unwell. In fact, even on the fateful morning, he rushed over when Anuradha feared the worst.

At his deathbed, if a red party flag was laid over his body, a copy of Rabindranath Tagore’s Sanchayita was kept by his pillow. The image defined Biswajiban and his ideology. The copy had been gifted by his daughter and inside he had scribbled: “Rabindranath amar sara jiboner abalamban. Emon patheya dui haatey tule nilam. (Tagore is my life support. I accept this travelling allowance with both hands)”

His hearse was taken to Poura Bhavan for a while, where minister Sujit Bose and others paid floral tributes to the former civic body chief, on the way to Ratan Babu Ghat crematorium in Baranagar.

A memorial meeting is being planned in the block community hall on Saturday evening.