Gayatri Chakraborty

Gayatri Chakraborty was born in 1938 Patuakhali, Barisal. She lived her childhood days with her extended family together at their ancestral home situated at Charadi village of Barisal district. The family had a business of tobacco cultivation. When Mrs. Chakraborty’s father joined the army and left home, the business could not continue, and the men of the family moved to Kolkata to look for new jobs. With so many family members now away, Mrs. Chakraborty was not admitted to school, and instead helped take care of the children and young mothers. She enjoyed her free time playing with her little brother, cousins and friends. In 1946, through a telegram message Mrs. Chakraborty's family came to know that her father had been sent to prison for taking part in the freedom struggle. Nobody in the family was aware that he had left the army. Soon after they heard of the incident, the senior family members decided to leave their home at Barisal and take a temporary shelter at her maternal uncle’s place in Kolkata as there was no other earning member in the family. Young Mrs. Chakraborty felt quite excited about moving to Kolkata.

In 1947, shortly after Partition, her father was set free from prison and came to Kolkata to reunite with his family. In 1948, only a few months later, ten-year-old Mrs. Chakraborty moved back to her ancestral home in Charaadi along with her parents and her little brother in order to elude the riots happening in Kolkata. A few months later, her father returned again to Kolkata in search of a suitable job, while the rest of the family stayed back. Mrs. Chakraboty's mother became ill and passed away in 1949. This, along with the tense social environment in the community, caused Mrs. Chakraborty to leave her home permanently with her younger brother and elder cousins in 1950, immediately before riots took place. She moved to Kolkata, reunited with her father, and stayed with an uncle who lived in a refugee colony at Belgharia. Moving from place to place for the next several years, Mrs. Chakraborty was not able to attend school. At the age of 21, she began studying at home privately. At age the age of 24, she married.