Let’s Make Some Trouble: A Tribute to Shejo Kaka

 For Shejo Kaka

Some uncles buy you toys. Mine smuggled me into theaters with leaky roofs, slipped me warm biscuits off conveyor belts, and re-routed grocery runs into full-blown snack pilgrimages. A few short months ago, he passed away. This is my tribute—part love letter, part food tour, part mischievous field guide.

My Shejo Kaka didn’t just take me places. He revealed them.

(For the uninitiated: Shejo Kaka was my father’s younger brother—the third of four sons. But no family chart could capture what he truly meant to me.)

He opened doors into secret worlds. Picture a Bengali Willy Wonka—not in a purple coat, but in a soft white kurta, eyes twinkling, with a look that said, "Let’s make some trouble."

And trouble? He understood it intimately—from both sides. He was, shall we say, an early adopter of creative asset management. Imagine a schoolboy in rural Bengal, cash-strapped, needing some pocket money... maybe for a kite or a mutton cutlet. There’s a big drum of rice in the kitchen. If you make a tiny hole and take just a little—who’s to know, really?

There was always a little mischief in how he showed love.

Like the time he took me to the biscuit factory. Bengal’s beloved round biscuits, golden and scalloped, trundled along conveyor belts, fresh from the oven, their sugary scent curling into the air like a promise. Somehow, a warm, unwrapped packet always found its way into my hands. The kind that ruins you for store-bought anything. (Trust me: it's all downhill from there.)

Sometimes I was invited on errands. Or so it seemed. The destination was technically the mudir dokan (local grocery shop) for lentils or flour. But we never took the direct route. There was always a stealthy stop for crusty shingaras (those pastry triangles of fried genius) or rasogollas, still warm and bobbing in syrup like sugar-soaked buoys. He never asked. He just knew.

Books were part of his magic too. He’d reserve them months in advance, preparing for my annual summer visit to Kolkata. for me—treating new releases way others treated cricket finals—sacred, suspenseful, and worth planning for.

And films? A few times—definitely less than a handful, or at least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it—he snuck me into a cinema with a leaky roof, a bucket catching drips mid-aisle, and the occasional goat strutting through like it owned the joint. I was sworn to secrecy. His older brother—my father—was not to know.

(He still doesn’t. Unless, of course, he reads this. In which case... surprise!)

And then there were the fields.

We’d walk through the ones behind the house, swatting mosquitoes, ducking under banana leaves. He kept me company without needing words. I liked that.

To reach the deeper fields (the ones on Shejo Kaka’s side of the village), I had to cross a bamboo bridge that felt more symbolic than structurally sound. Two poles, no railings, held together more by optimism than engineering. No hand to hold. Just Shejo Kaka walking ahead in his kurta-pajama, me trailing behind, ponytail bobbing, heart pounding.

But once across, the world changed. He showed me the rhythm of the land: the quiet dignity of harvest, the hush of ripening grain. These weren’t just fields. They were stories. And I was invited in.

By the time we made it back, dusty and glowing, Kakima (his wife, also a snack sorceress) would have the muri (puffed rice) ready, still warm from the kadai(wok). The shingaras, rescued earlier, would reappear like magic. A secret feast. Just for us.

Apur Sansar is forever linked to him.
Not Soumitra Chatterjee’s luminous performance.
Not Satyajit Ray’s quiet genius.
Not even Bibhutibhushan’s aching prose.

And it takes serious mojo to outshine the charisma of young, über-handsome Soumitra.

But for me, it’s just Shejo Kaka—reserving the whole series months in advance, so I could read it start to finish one summer.
So I could create and envision my own world.

Some uncles give you gifts. Mine gave me mischief, snacks, stories, and a sense of wonder I’m still chasing.

And now, memory—tender, twinkling, and just a little hungry.