TAMAL KAMAL

Tamal Da

 

It is one in a million chance that maybe Tamal da, would ever read this small blog of mine. He might never come to know that today he inspired me, to which I should add, is not an easy task. I don’t know where he is today, what is he doing. Not sure whether he is alive or not. So Ttamal da in case you are still alive and reading this, I want you to know that you were in my head the whole time I was compiling this blog, and in case you are with us no more, which is very likely, the following is a obituary. For all others- have your laugh, but be respectful of the dead.

 

Ask some one what is their “thing” and they will give you puzzled looks. Allow  me to make this clear to you with the help of a few examples you can easily relate to. Atul’s thing is pakami, haramigiri; Sushant’s thing is localami; my thing is hitting sixes (I know I am being pompous, but its my blog); and as Phoebe pointed out in FRIENDS to Ross that his thing was divorce. I guess you have now got a hang of what one’s thing is. Tamal da’s thing was fainting ; as in losing conciousness. I can see all of your nodding. And in case you don’t know him very well, believe me because I am not shitting you.

 

For Tamal, fainting was not only his thing. He lived, slept, ate and breathed it. It was his fetish, to be more politically correct. It was in his persona, his style, his statement. Months seldom passed, when he would not faint. Pure clockwork. There was only very few places/spots where he had never fainted or where he had not made up his mind to faint. I have heard that he used to keep this small list of places in his shirt pocket where he wanted to faint. He would then one by one get there, faint and strike the place off the list. What a man? A pioneer in the true sense of the word. Very few have walked between us who were this determined. He was a role model for the faint hearted ones. I admired him for his single minded determination.  

 

Although it is an impossibly difficult choice to pick my favorite “faint”, but if I am pressed to choose one it would be the one in class 6. Kanak da, our history teacher had asked us to complete some map work in his class. Tamal was a famous scapegoat. He was asked to present his effort, but since he hadn’t, he was asked to kneel down next to Kanak da, facing the whole class. What followed is beautifully etched in my memory. This lanky dude from the happening city of Burdwan, fainted there itself. He had fallen face first to the hard solid, yet inviting floor. It was as if the floor was waiting with arms wide open. The reaction on Kanak da’s face was worth a million bucks. “Shayad muh main aana isi ko kehte hai”. Kanak da was petrified.

Some other days when Tamal da would faint in the morning assembly, it would create ripples of suppressed laughter, finger pointing, staring and extended but funny spells in the otherwise boring and painful morning assembly. He lost consciousness alike God R. would after watching white birds against the dark clouds.

 

We may never know how Tamal count faint on wish. Maybe it is a traditional thing. Or maybe his gene has that strong faint X chromosome. Whatever it is, Tamal, we all salute you. You have a fan following and you will always have one in me. The depth of his voice and strength of his body might have given him away, but mind you, a cornered animal is a very dangerous one, you never know what it will do, or in Tamal’s case, faint.

You will always be remembered as a guy who would fainted his way to glory. RIP.