I was a political journalist. I had been covering proceedings of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. One day Mr. Triguna Sen came to my house and asked me to do some political programme in English on radio on the line of what Mr. Debdulal Bannerjee at that time was doing in Bengali. My programme was destined to be a failure. Nobody, let alone me, could match the charisma that Debdulal babu had that time. Then Mr. Sen asked me to join sports commentary as I spoke English well. I asked how? He said it was simple and suggested I go to the Eden Gardens very next day to do commentary between visiting English side versus Bengal. I did that and continued to do that till 1997 when it was decided that only those who represented national team in tests could do the job of a cricket commentator. I was naturally omitted. …Yes, Harsh Bhogle is an exception, but he did a course to qualify for it. He is a good commentator.
Kishor Bhimani said that in an interview in his own authoritatively articulate way and in a voice that had a resonating male thing in it. As I turned on the radio, I found a voice speaking very familiarly from an eon, but I could not make out whose voice it could be. Even not after the interviewer addressed him as Kishor da. It was only after the interview, when the lady announcer said that this interview of Kishor Bhimani, who passed away, was taken recently, that I was forced to come to terms with the whole reality. Kishor Bhimani is no more.
Memories came tumbling down the rocks of Time. They came flooding in my mind. I became a school boy of primary section of Burdwan Town School when I opened the sports section of The Statesman and came across the name nearly regularly — Kishor Bhimani. As this name was written just under the head line, I realised that it was not an English word but a name of a journalist. I tried to pronounce it, spelling every letter loudly. I failed for umpteenth of times. It was only after some months, with more than a little bit help from father, that I could pronounce him. “Kishor Bhimani” were the first English words I learnt from an English daily, The Statesman in a way, outside my pictorial English text book. The name was embedded in me ever since from childhood and a part of my existence.
With his passing away, a tiny but significant part of my childhood existence was gone I feel hard to face to.
The bespectacled, bearded man, in ties and suits, looking, in every inch, a stylish weighty persona, giving voice to a dreaded Imran in-deeper played out tentatively initially, then with masterful solidity by Gavaskar on somewhat unpredictable pitch, in impeccable saheb English, in combination with Dr. Narottam Puri, was my part of boyhood appreciation of Kishor Bhimani in Delhi Doordarshan era; that was gone too.
Time is running like Rajdhani Express, to borrow, our yesteryear’s speed metaphor. As we are boarding it, we cannot feel. As one by one drops down wayside, we can realize post after post is left behind with a sense of despairing certainty.