Desmond had decided to have a roof party with dancing and singing and laughter followed by some slides he had found of his first trip to Bhutan, back in the days when there was no road. He was one of the only joutnalists escorting Nehru's daughter, Indira Gandhi on her official visit there.
We had to wait for the night sky so everyone was talking and drinking when suddenly, spontaneously a friends of Desla and my mother jumped up on one of the service pipes that crisscrossed the roof of Minto Park. It took awhile for people to stop talking and that made it all the more real.
His voice rang out, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend my you ears" and he gave the speech with such passion and belief that we were no longer on a hot roof top in West Bengal but transported to Shakespeare's Rome and the anger and the fury at the death of Caesar. For me it was an awakening - to Shakespeare who I promptly went off and read cover to cover, skimming the bits I could not understand but loving the language that I could.
Dean Gaspar was his name - another renaissance man, he could paint, draw, act and write. He was exciting and wicked - so much so that his parties were ones that I was never allowed to go to. He was another of the men who set me free with books - no question was too trivial and I adored him as some form of exotic uncle.
I have never seen Mark Antony played better and he gave me the greatest gift anyone can give an impressionable child - Shakespeare.
After he had finished we sat in the dark illuminated dimly by candles and watched as Desmond took us to another place and another time when the way into Bhutan was on foot and the journey took days not hours, It was a night of magic lantern slides and an all too brief glimpse of a man who, in different circumstances, would have ranked with the Richardsons, Oliviers and Gielguds. But my Calcutta was like that - always roses blooming from unexpected places. He did achieve celluloid immortality appearing in Attenborough's Gandhi and doing so very well.
We had to wait for the night sky so everyone was talking and drinking when suddenly, spontaneously a friends of Desla and my mother jumped up on one of the service pipes that crisscrossed the roof of Minto Park. It took awhile for people to stop talking and that made it all the more real.
His voice rang out, "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend my you ears" and he gave the speech with such passion and belief that we were no longer on a hot roof top in West Bengal but transported to Shakespeare's Rome and the anger and the fury at the death of Caesar. For me it was an awakening - to Shakespeare who I promptly went off and read cover to cover, skimming the bits I could not understand but loving the language that I could.
Dean Gaspar was his name - another renaissance man, he could paint, draw, act and write. He was exciting and wicked - so much so that his parties were ones that I was never allowed to go to. He was another of the men who set me free with books - no question was too trivial and I adored him as some form of exotic uncle.
I have never seen Mark Antony played better and he gave me the greatest gift anyone can give an impressionable child - Shakespeare.
After he had finished we sat in the dark illuminated dimly by candles and watched as Desmond took us to another place and another time when the way into Bhutan was on foot and the journey took days not hours, It was a night of magic lantern slides and an all too brief glimpse of a man who, in different circumstances, would have ranked with the Richardsons, Oliviers and Gielguds. But my Calcutta was like that - always roses blooming from unexpected places. He did achieve celluloid immortality appearing in Attenborough's Gandhi and doing so very well.
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