Debasis Bose

Debasis Bose

He had to move to Bondel Road in 1970, when teenage was still four solid years away. But perhaps Debasis Bose’s formative years in his ancestral home in Shyambazar left an indelible mark on the future course of his life — as a researcher and recorder of urban and social history. Since his teens, Bose has been passionately engaged in tracing the genealogies of Hindu families.

If history is his persuasion, by profession he is a dermatologist. At 10, he asked his father about Dasharath Basu, primogenitor of the Basu clan. Without a satisfactory reply, at that age Bose tried to reconstruct his own family tree. An uncle helped him, as did a lesson in Class VI — Make your own family tree.

This nixed project gave Bose the chance to get his hands on the family tree of a classmate with the same surname. His family tree was not only complete, it was printed to boot. Thereafter, genealogies became an obsession, and by the time he had reached Higher Secondary, Bose had quite collection of these. A member of the Hathkhola Dutta family advised him to dig out the suppressed histories of family members and correlate these with social history. Bose took this to heart and worked accordingly.

While he was still underage, he copied genealogical texts in the Bangiya Sahitya Parishat collection. In 1981, when Bose was studying at the Medical College, he wrote a review article on Radharaman Mitra’s Kolikata Darpan, pointing out the flaws in it.

Coming from one so young, it created quite a sensation. Mitra acknowledged his mistakes and both became quite close. During the Medical College terjubilee celebrations, Bose got restored a “lost” oil painting by Madam Belnos of anatomist Madhusudan Gupta. He had earlier chanced upon it.

Bose had already started relating street names with their corresponding family histories. The finds were published in Ekshon. During the Calcutta tercentenary, Bose published two books entitled Kolkatar Purakatha, an anthology, and an annotated version of Prankrishna Datta’s Kolikatar Itibritta O Anyanya Rachana, both out of print. He contributed an article on College Street in Sukanta Chaudhuri’s anthology. In the National Library anthology, he wrote Bishoy Kolkata and on Kolkatar Circus in Desh. As his area of interest widened, Bose interacted with Tarapada Santra and now brings out the annual issue of Koushiki. He has recently completed a project on behalf of the Directorate of State Archaeology, documenting more than 104 thakurdalans. He has written about city brothels by virtue of working in the anti-AIDS project. It remains a mystery how Bose packs in so much in so little time.