Howrah News Service -  Latest news and headlines on Howrah,West Bengal and World: The Pied Piper

The Pied Piper
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editor on 17 February, 2008 11:12:00
 
Meet the thirty-two-year-old man Ashok Mondol. Those who frequent Nandan must
have seen him. From 2 pm till 8 pm, this gutsy man stands in front of the
Academy of Fine Arts.
Ashok Da, as he is fondly called, is visually-challenged. He has been drawing
customers to Chalantika, a food stall in front of Academy of Fine Arts for the
past 13 years. Anyone who visits this place from 2 pm to 8 pm will come across
Ashok shouting “tasty fish roll, fish cutlet, chicken pakora, veg
chops” to woo customers. Chalantika is run by the Society for
Comprehensive Rehabilitation Services to physically handicapped persons in
India, an NGO.
Ashok is a good Rabindra Sangeet singer. He is a regular in some of the reputed
choir groups of Kolkata. His job ends at 8 in the evening. And then his world of
passion with music beckons him. An admirer of Paul Robson, Hemanga Biswas and
Ruma Guha Thakurata, Ashok provides free music lessons to many boys and girls in
Belanagar and Uttarpara, his home town.
“I love music and recitation. To me life would have been a drab desert
without music,” said Ashok. His job with Chalantika is a result of his
passion. “I was chosen for this job as I had a good voice and could recite
well,” added Ashok.
Ashok lost his sight when he was barely two-and-a-half years old. “I lost
my eyesight after suffering from chicken pox. I was a victim of wrong
treatment,” said the thirty-two-year-old man. He passed his Higher
Secondary examination from Louis Braille Memorial School for the Sightless in
Uttarpara, Howrah.
He has completed his fourth year in Indian Classical music from the same
institute. Ashok’s father, Amarnath Mondol, and twenty-five-year-old
brother are factory workers. Fighting poverty was not easy with Ashok’s
physical disability as an added pressure which was the result of a wrong
treatment.
“I had to earn my living and support my family comprising my parents and
siblings,” said the gutsy man. Travelling a distance of 30 km from
Belanagar to Kolkata is a tall order for a visually-challenged person like
Ashok. His job at Chalantika is from 2 pm to 8 pm —- the time when Nandan
is most crowded.
“It is difficult for a blind person like me to understand the presence of
a customer. I can do so by sensing his nearness through his voice,” said
Mondol. Ashok has been working at Chalantika for the past four years. His
colleagues, Dipak Moyra, Bablu Pradhan and Tapan Pradhan, call him the
“customer service executive.”
For college students like Sumanta and Trishit, who are frequent visitors to
Nandan, “Ashok Da” is an essential part of Nandan, as it were.
“The mouth-watering fish rolls and fish chops of Chalantika are, to say
the least, simply fabulous. But perhaps the best part of Chalantka is Ashok da.
Sometimes we crowd around him to hear him sing,” says Debashis Biswas, a
third-year student of Jadavpur University. “I have been in this placefor
four years. I have heard the performance of reputed singers. Someday I wish to
perform in Rabindra Sadan. But I don’t know when that day will
dawn,” said the singer.