A lifetime in solitude after husband denied recognition

Incidentally, the couple were childless.  “Somebody asked my brother-in-law why he had no children when he brought joy to millions of childless couples,” Amitava Banerjee, younger brother of Namita, tells The Indian Express. “My brother-in-law said the space under the lamp always remains dark. He was 50 when he died and my sister was about 45, so they could have had a child. Why they chose not to have one remains a mystery to us.”

After the death of her husband, Namita, who had an honours degree in history from Oxford University, stayed on in the flat and worked as a teacher at St Agnes Convent at Howrah until 1994, when she retired. In 2002, she fell ill, and from 2007, she was almost bedridden. “Primarily what kept her company was books and people,” says Banerjee, a resident of Howrah who regularly visited his sister. “She used to read a lot, fiction, non-fiction, travelogues, biographies. However, during the last few years somebody had to read books and newspapers to her.”

Except for the present Trinamool Congress government, which created a chair in his name at the School of Tropical Medicine, no other government in the state or at the Centre did anything for him. “Dr Subhas Mukherjee should have received the Padma Vibhushan, if not the Bharat Ratna. Instead he got harassment, and was transferred to the opthalmology department of SSKM Hospital. It pained my sister,” says Banerjee,

“Recognition came from as far as Brazil. But here never did anybody come from the central or state government to check how she was doing. She was so ill. Whatever money she had was mostly spent on her treatment. Even this government conferred so many awards on so many people, but Dr Mukherjee or his wife got nothing,” says Sumit Mukherjee, who used to look after the family. A former professor of biochemical engineering at Jadavpur University, Mukherjee used to assist the doctor.

Rajeev Sarkar of NGO India’s Smile, which helped take care of Namita, says, “Much of her money, her husband’s pension and the dues from her school, used to be spent on her treatment. Two ayahs were kept for her as she remained bedridden for the last seven years. But no help from any quarter, government or private, came to her,” Sarkar said.