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# Bonku Babu's Friend ## Satyajit Ray No one had ever seen Bonku Babu get cross. To tell the truth it was difficult to imagine what he might say or do, if one day he did get angry. It was not as if there was never any reason for him to lose his temper. For the last twenty-two years, Bonku Babu had...

# Bonku Babu's Friend ## Satyajit Ray No one had ever seen Bonku Babu get cross. To tell the truth it was difficult to imagine what he might say or do, if one day he did get angry. It was not as if there was never any reason for him to lose his temper. For the last twenty-two years, Bonku Babu had taught geography and Bengali at the Kankurgachhi Village Primary School. Every year, a new batch of students replaced the old one, but old or new, the tradition of teasing poor Bonku Babu continued among all the students. Some drew his cartoon on the blackboard; others put glue on his chair; or, on the night of Kali Puja, they lit a chasing rocket and set it off right behind him. Bonku Babu did not get upset by any of this. Only sometimes, he cleared his throat and said, "Shame on you, boys!" One of the reasons for maintaining his calm was simply that he could not afford to do otherwise. If he did lose his temper and left his job in a fit of pique, he knew how difficult it would then be to find another, at his age. Another reason was that in every class, there were always a few good students, even if the rest of the class was full of pranksters. Teaching this handful of good boys was so rewarding that, to Bonku Babu, that alone made life as a teacher worth living. At times, he invited those boys to his house, offered them snacks and told them tales of foreign lands and exciting adventures. He told them about life in Africa, the discovery of the North Pole, the fish in Brazil that ate human flesh, and about Atlantis, the continent submerged under the sea. He was a good storyteller, he always had his audience enthralled. During the weekend, Bonku Babu went to the lawyer, Sripati Majumdar's house, to spend the evenings with other regulars. On a number of occasions, he had come back thinking "Enough