When his 62nd book and most likely his last one on Kolkata titled Gandhiji in Kolkata will be the released at the upcoming Kolkata Book Fair, P T Nair, the ‘barefoot historian of the city’ will have left the city. On Wednesday morning, the 86-year-old chronicler of the city had packed his Remintong typewriter on which he has typed all his books since 1960’s. Mr Nair also and made a customary visit to the National Library- a habit of his for the past six decades-before bidding adieu to the city.
“My children and grand children are pressing me to go back to Kerala,” was Mr Nair’s reply to everyone who asked him why he was leaving the city he loved and chronicled for over more than 60 years. He along with his wife will be leaving the city for good on Thursday.
While he may not recall the name of all his books, Mr. Nair vividly recalled his arrival in the city, penniless and ticketless on October 25, 1955 at the age of 25 in search of job. “I remember that I walked from Howrah station to Dalhousie to meet a person from my native village, whose address I remembered at my typing school in my village in Kerala,” he said.
Since morning, his two-room accommodation on the ground floor of an old building in 82/C Kansari Para Road was buzzing with people. Old friends, journalists and neighbours thronged to his dimly lit room with its cot, chair and desk. Mr Nair ensured that everyone seated before he would begin a conversation. “I will miss the city, but I am not sure how will I miss it. Since I am going I cannot be thinking about it anymore,” said the taciturn octogenarian.
U Ramesh, a retired archivist with the State Bank of India, was among the visitors. He said that Mr Nair has done seminal work on Kolkata streets and their history. Mr Ramesh was eager to tell an anecdote, which acquainted him with Mr Nair’s work long before they actually met. It was the year 1994 and Mr Ramesh was working with National Archives in organising on exhibition on 75 years of Jalianwala Baag massacre.
“We were looking for the office of Rowlatt Committee in Kolkata which was said to be located at Elsyum Row. When several sources failed to through light on where Elsyum Row was, it was Mr Nair book on the History of Calcutta streets which pointed the road known as the Lord Sinha Road is what used to be Elsyum Row,” Mr Ramesh said.
Years later, I had expected to meet a man in a big bungalow but I was surprised to meet him in this room wearing a dhoti and a vest, he said. Some of Mr Nair other well known books are Job Charnock: The Founder of Calcutta, a book on South Indian community in Kolkata and another on Origin of Kolkata Police.
Spartan Life
Since 1955, Mr Nair led a very spartan life, walking daily to the National Library for his research on old documents and publications. He would travel to the remotest corners of the city in search of unknown facts about the city's buildings and streets with almost no institutional support. Mr Nair admitted said that he tried hard to keep himself from being charmed by the love of Bengali language and cinema so that he could dedicate all his energy to his research and books. Money was not among his priorities therefore his books were published by smaller publishers who could deliver books within weeks.
“Since my home was only ten minutes walk from National Library. I decided to do something to the city,” he explained on what promoted to work on the history of the city. To a question whether the city has given its most prolific historian its due, Mr Nair retorted, “ But, I never expected anything. I have not done anything extraordinary,” he said, adding that those interested in the history of the city may have heard about him.
Mr Nair, has donated all the books authored by him to library at city’s Town Hall. “I have kept only one copy with me at my home in Kerala. I hear that some of my books got destroyed in the recent Kerala floods. I have to check what all has remained once I get there” he said.
House being demolished
“Even today he does not want to leave, the city he is so much in love with,” Sita Nair, his wife said, while packing the books. The 75-year-old retired schoolteacher said that she had tried to convince her husband to leave the Kolkata since 2009, but he would not go and then since 2015, she started staying with him. “I told him, I am not leaving you alone,” she said. One of the reasons precipitating his departure that the rented accommodation he has been living in has been given for development to a local land promoter. But, leaving the city the city does not mean an end to quest to uncover something new. In Kerala, he plans to continue with his research and writing books, and the subject that has caught his attention is history of printing in India.
