A night at the Oscars

This was not my first visit since the award, but I had somehow never gotten around to popping the question. We are all movie buffs, and the first time I saw the statuette was at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, encased in a glass box. (Shelley Winters won the Oscar in 1960 for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mrs van Pels in “The Diary of Anne Frank”.)

The Ray residence was always a special place to visit and I did make the trip every time I went to Calcutta. The occasion this time for the trip to Calcutta was the celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary which also coincided with the silver jubilee of my graduation from IIMC.

December 2007 to be precise.

After chit-chatting with Sandeep dada, Sourodeep and Monku Ma; I sprung the question.

"Where is the Oscar? I want to see it."

The words were immediately followed by a commotion. Several people started speaking at once and a babble of voices broke out. Soon it became obvious that nobody present there knew where it was. Oh my God, have I opened a Pandora's box here?

But they knew the person who knew. Buni knew but she was out running some errands. Before I could say Uncle Oscar, frantic phone calls were being made to her to determine where it was kept, when she would be home and a multitude of other things. My feeble protests ("don't worry", "not a problem") were completely ignored.

We had the customary cups of tea and gossip, and Buni soon walked in. As it transpired, she not only knew exactly where it was, she also was the only person who knew anything that happened in that house! It only took a few seconds for her to fish it out of it's secret hiding place.

It was afternoon in Calcutta, but surely it was night time somewhere.

AK 09-Sep-2012