From Facebook:
Subroto Roy has the faintest recollection of arriving in New York on his second birthday (en route to Ottawa) on this great old ship….
My mother & her two daughters, my sisters, Bombay c. 1953
December 1, 2009 — drsubrotoroy
This is from about 1953 in Bombay, two years before I arrived in the family, with Tunu (Sucheta) holding the teddy-bear and Buju (Suchandra) looking sober and responsible on my mother’s left. There seems to be a radio in the background as well as a small bust of the poet Rabindranath Tagore.
Tunu lived August 12 1947 until January 26 1990. This is how I recall her last, c. 1988, after she had lost one breast to cancer and suffered other tragedies.
She, seven years older than me, was really my first teacher, telling my infant mind about the world it found itself in even before I ended up at Lady Evelyn’s kindergarten in Ottawa. There will be more of her here in due course — building a snowman together in the Canadian snows and other escapades. I wept much, far away in Honolulu, when she died in Calcutta aged 42. She would have been a happy grandmother today, enjoying her three grandchildren: 
Buju lived February 14 1943 until January 10 1998. She was 12 years older than me and loved me dearly and I wept much at her tragic passing — she had no children and I cremated her with the full honours that she might have received had she left a son.
I shall write more of her in time. Meanwhile, I remain grateful for Nana Mouskouri’s rendition of Amazing Grace as there is an uncanny resemblance.
December twenty years ago is when I last saw Tunu, having returned from Honolulu to say what we knew was our last goodbye; December twelve years ago was when I last saw Buju. “The wise grieve not for those who live or for those who die, for life and death shall pass away, and I and thou and those kings of men, shall live for ever and ever” advises the Bhagavad Gita as I recall; but perhaps the advice is wrong since the wise like the unwise do grieve and should.
My grandfather’s death in Ottawa 50 years ago today
September 3, 2008 — drsubrotoroyManindranath Roy, my grandfather, died at Civic Hospital, Ottawa, fifty years ago today, September 3 1958. He was the first Hindu gentleman to die in Ottawa and no cremation was possible there at the time, so we had to go to Montreal. I was three years old and my grandfather was the first person I knew who really “died” (as opposed to die from fake gunfire on TV in a cowboys-and-indians serial). His death meant something very sad and foreboding, the room where he slept at our home at 73 Riverdale Avenue becoming empty, and very scary indeed as if he was still there though he was not. Death meant leaving the living corporally — though obviously not leaving their memories or their consciousness, or we would not have been remembering him today.
The photographs below were at the funeral-home in Ottawa. My father was reading from The Bhagavad Gita. My mother and sisters were distraught as they had known him and loved him well. I only knew him as someone who urged me to fight back when bullied by an older and stronger boy who was our neighbour. “Dadu, mere dao, dadu, mere dao!”, (“Grandson, hit him back! Hit him back!” ) my grandfather would urge when he saw me being pummelled into the lawn — crossly tapping his walking-stick on the ground. And fight back is, I suppose , what I have done when attacked or attempted to be tyrannised ever since.
Manindranath Roy 1891-1958
June 16, 2008 — drsubrotoroy
Manindranath Roy (1891-1958) was a quiet enigmatic literary figure and artistic benefactor in Calcutta; he wrote very well and had excellent taste and manners (though was of foolish judgement in money and friends). This photograph is from about 1922 at Allahabad where he used to take his family on annual holiday. (The little boy to the left behind his mother would grow up to become my father.)
My grandfather is dressed in fine post-Edwardian fashion; at the time, his father, Surendranath Rai, was at the peak of his political career as first Deputy President and then President of the new Bengal Legislative Council. Surendranath was an orthodox Brahmin and chose never to wear Western-style suits and neck-ties, and he was thoroughly averse to the idea of dining with Europeans. Manindranath was the first to wear Western clothes, as well as to dine in Calcutta’s Western restaurants. There was tension between father and son due to such matters.
Manindranath’s notebook of poetry Mandakini (found in 2008) contains some 51 poems and poetic songs composed between 1914 and 1936, from when he was aged about 23 to when he was 45. Between about 1933 and 1943 Manindranath had found himself facing trials and tribulations of such gravity and magnitude (caused in part by his own foolish squandering of his inheritance from his father) that he may have wished to forget, ignore or even regret his creative period. Many of the poems are recorded as having been published in literary journals of the time, like Bharatbarsha and Bichitra, and some are recorded as having been sung or performed on the new radio service of the time, especially around 1931. Here is poem number 48 titled “Saratchandra” in honour of his friend, the novelist Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya. Manindranath as a poet would have been certainly inspired in his modernity by his association with Sarat — while Sarat benefitted economically by the association and also may have found characters and plots for his novels (he apparently dedicated one at least to Manindranath’s wife, my grandmother). When all of Mandakini is published in due course, it is not impossible Manindranath will come to be recognised as among the finest modern poets of his era in Bengal.
Independent Indian: Work & Life of Professor Subroto Roy 