I am much younger than Dibakar Bhai. I never studied under his guidance, never worked with him, and during most of my childhood, I did not even live in Odagaon.

Odagaon—My First Dream Destination

I grew up in Gaudaput, a remote village where my father worked as a clerk in the local high school. In the late eighties and early nineties, Odagaon was more than a nearby town to me. It was my first dream destination—a place that appeared larger, busier and full of possibilities.

I was somewhat weak in Mathematics and Science. To improve, I would ride my bicycle from Gaudaput to Odagaon every evening after school for private tuition—a round trip of nearly thirteen to fifteen kilometres. Those journeys were tiring for a schoolboy, yet that bicycle gave me something beyond tuition. It carried me from the limitations of a small village into a town where ideas, competitions, personalities and ambitions seemed to move with a different energy.

Almost all my tuition classmates came from schools in Odagaon. I would hear them speak about the town's young leaders—stories filled with sporting contests, rivalries, public events, courage, friendship and rebellion. One name appeared more often than any other: Dibakar Bhai.

A Man Who Had Already Become Folklore

Long before I knew him personally, I knew him through stories. There were tales of his courage, his influence over the youth, his sporting spirit and his instinct to stand at the front whenever Odagaon needed someone to lead. Some stories were probably embellished, as childhood stories often are. Yet every retelling added another layer to the personality I was trying to understand.

For a little boy from a remote village, approaching someone like him felt impossible. I had neither the identity nor the stature. I certainly did not have the courage. So I watched him from a distance.

I watched him organise events, lead teams on the cricket field and march in rallies demanding change. How could one person command so much affection and influence? I did not have the language to describe leadership then. There were no management books in my hands. Leadership was simply a living man whom I watched from across a field, a road or a crowd. For a child searching desperately for inspiration, Dibakar Bhai became a ray of hope—a quiet assurance that one could break free, grow wings and travel beyond the boundaries into which one had been born.

The Day the Distant Hero Spoke to Me

Reality has its own beautiful sense of timing. One day, I found myself participating in a debate and quiz competition at Odagaon's only library. Dibakar Bhai was the quizmaster.

A girl named Ajita won the first prize. I, Ajit, had to remain satisfied with the second. Perhaps half my attention was consumed by the competition, while the other half was trying to understand the leadership aura of the man conducting it! I did not win that day. I received something far more enduring.

“Kichhi haribara maja hin alaga. Kahinki na jie hariki baaji jite, sie hin lamba rastara ghoda hue. Tamara general knowledge bahut strong achhi. Parishrama kara, bahut agaku jiba.”

“Losing has a joy of its own. The one who loses and eventually wins the battle becomes the horse capable of travelling the long road. Your general knowledge is very strong. Work hard; you will go very far.”

That was it. Perhaps it was an ordinary moment for him—one competition, one young participant and a few words of encouragement. For me, those words became permanent residents of my mind. They travelled much farther than either of us could have imagined that day.

A Boy Searching for a Bridge

People often say that children from villages are innocent. I do not know how innocent I was. I was growing up amid enough darkness—manipulation, exploitation and predatory behaviour—to understand very early that not every adult deserved a child's trust. Somewhere inside, I was silently protesting. I was searching for my own voice even before I knew what that voice should sound like.

More than anything, I wanted a bridge. A bridge that could carry me far away from fear and confinement; one leading towards a place where my dreams could breathe and where I could become more than my immediate circumstances predicted.

Real, respected people became important to me. Their lives were evidence that courage could exist outside stories and that leadership could be practised in ordinary towns by people we could actually see. Dibakar Bhai became one such bridge. He did not know it. He did not need to.

When Odagaon Became Home

In 1993, our family finally shifted to our new home in Odagaon. Our belongings travelled from the old village on bullock carts. As that slow procession moved towards the town, perhaps my dreams were also widening their boundaries. Odagaon was no longer merely the destination of my evening bicycle rides. It had become home.

One of my closest friends, Santosh Uttarkabat, was an exceptionally talented batsman and one of Dibakar Bhai's favourite players. Uttarkabat became a human connection between the distant leader I admired and the world I inhabited. He spoke of Dibakar Bhai with enormous affection, making the heroic image I carried since childhood even stronger and more personal.

Sadly, Santosh left this world far earlier than any of us could have imagined—in the prime of his youth. His absence remains painful. Yet some of the stories he shared survived him. Whenever I remember Dibakar Bhai's cricketing years, I also remember the friend who helped bring that world closer to me.

Distance Never Ended the Influence

Even after moving to Odagaon, I was seldom there for long. First came college, then employment, then jobs in distant places. Still, Dibakar Bhai's name remained present. My younger brother would speak about him. My father would speak about him. Friends carried new stories. Each account added something to the portrait that had begun forming during my bicycle journeys.

Without consciously imitating him, I began applying lessons absorbed from watching him: stand at the front when responsibility arrives; remain grounded when recognition comes; encourage young people, because a few words spoken at the right time can alter the direction of a life; carry pain without allowing it to destroy your ability to serve.

From River Sites to Microsoft

My journey eventually travelled beyond the dreams of that village boy. I began as a civil engineer working at river sites. Life later took me across nearly fifteen countries. Eventually, I joined Microsoft and served in a national leadership role.

The settings changed. The scale changed. Yet somewhere inside every meeting room, difficult assignment and professional milestone remained the boy who once cycled from Gaudaput to Odagaon. My feet remained tied to the soil. I believe Dibakar Bhai's example had something to do with that.

His influence did not arrive through formal teaching. It entered through observation—through scenes of him organising, playing, marching, encouraging and standing among people. Silently gathered lessons often become the strongest ones because they find their place before we learn to resist them.

Poetry, Pankaj Udhas and the Seeds of Music

There is another connection between us. We are both poets. I write essays on technology, stories, poems and lyrics. I later trained in music production at Berklee. Music became another language through which I could explore the emotions that ordinary speech fails to contain.

Yet perhaps some of those musical seeds were planted much earlier. Santosh Uttarkabat used to say that there was probably no Pankaj Udhas ghazal that Dibakar Bhai did not possess. At times, we would visit his home and listen. I may not then have understood the measured sorrow of a ghazal, the discipline of longing or the conversation between words and silence. But something entered me.

Perhaps Dibakar Bhai's love for Pankaj Udhas quietly planted a musical sensibility that revealed itself years later. The boy who listened from the corner eventually became a poet, lyricist and music producer. Some influences announce themselves loudly. Others wait patiently inside us until we become ready to recognise them.

The Enigma and the Phoenix

Dibakar Bhai remains an enigma to me. Behind the courage, public presence, sporting energy and forceful leadership, I sense a man carrying enormous pain. His poetry reveals fragments of that interior world—love, loneliness, disappointment, betrayal, friendship, resilience and the stubborn desire to continue.

Yet pain has never been the end of his story. I have watched him rise from the ashes more than once. Each fall seemed to awaken another version of the man. Each wound left a scar, but the scars did not silence him. That is why I see him as a phoenix—a man carrying fire and wounds together, a light in our dark nights, a hero who repeatedly found the strength to return.

This Tribute Makes No Claim of Perfection

I do not know every dimension of his politics. I do not know every conflict, decision or criticism directed at him. He must have shortcomings, detractors, baggage and scars. Who does not?

This tribute does not claim that Dibakar Bhai is flawless. It records the influence he had on one village boy who was looking for a real example of courage and leadership. Gratitude does not require us to rewrite a human being as a saint. It asks us to honestly acknowledge the light we received from them. And I received that light.

Why This Website Exists

For the boy from Gaudaput who watched him from a distance, Dibakar Bhai was among the first people to give leadership a human face. His few words encouraged me to work harder and travel farther. His rootedness remained with me as my journey crossed countries and entered institutions that once felt unreachable. His poetry strengthened my belief that sensitivity and strength can live inside the same person. His love for ghazals may have quietly contributed to the musician I eventually became.

My admiration slowly matured into gratitude. This website is an expression of that gratitude.

I bought this domain because stories like his deserve to be preserved. His poems should not disappear inside old social-media posts. His contributions to Odagaon should not survive only through fading memories. His voice, photographs, struggles, contradictions and acts of service deserve a home that can remain after all of us are gone.

Perhaps Dibakar Bhai never knew how deeply he influenced me. Now he will. This is my way of saying that those few words spoken after a competition did travel very far. The village boy kept working. He crossed rivers, professions, countries and continents. He also passed the light forward to hundreds of others. Yet he never forgot the man who first showed him, from a distance, what leadership could look like.