An Unconditional Love and a Grandson’s Dakshina (offering)
‘Lokra’ (In Bangla: লকরা ) is not a meaningful word in my mother tongue. But this was the name I called my paternal grandfather Dakshina Charan Bhattacharjee (1917−1989) (In Bangla: দক্ষিণা চরণ ভট্টাচার্য ) . Strangely he also addressed me by the same. The word was built from the lullaby he used to sing to me when I was a toddler. That lullaby, which was his own creation, had many such meaningless words including ‘Lokra’. My mother told me that I had easily picked up that word and uttered that repeatedly. My handsome, grey haired grandfather became synonymous with that strange word not found in a dictionary. Dakshina was the second son of an orthodox Brahmin family that lived in a remote East Bengal village Aamtali ( আমতলি ) . Born into a large family of three sons and four daughters, he was brought up well as a healthy child and was sent to a nearby primary school in the Kagdi village and later to Rudrakar Nilmoni Vidyalaya for formal school education. His elder brother Raj