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Around the Youth Hostels of Great Britain
Dr.Rathin Datta
Around the Youth Hostels of Great Britain
PHOTO : Youth Hostel at Margate, England

It was the year of early sixty. I was on leave from my Job as the Registrar of Surgery in a Northern English hospital near The City of Manchester, where I had caught a lethal infection of viral jaundice & went into hepatic coma from where I was salvaged. As the infection was caught while on duty, the Hospital Board granted me, after discharge from the hospital, paid leave with full salary for 3 months with offer to go back to my post on 1st july. One of my colleagues had died and the second survived but became a hepatic cripple. I found accommodation in an apartment in London University flats, a very affordable, comfortable room with good facilities.

   I cleared my Primary FRCS exam in May, fully recovered my shattered health, went for harvesting Strawberrys with my Swiss friend Roger  and spent few days with my Tramp uncles, living in the Salvation Army hostel. Whole of the month of June was available to us, we i.e. Roger, my swiss friend  and  myself decided to explore the Youth hostels in Britain. We lay on the Grassy field inside our hostel, with the hand book on the youth hostels and started planning.

 --YOUTH HOSTELS OF THE WORLD---

Hostelling is not just about having a place to stay, it is about having fun, experiencing different cultures and meeting new people. Youth hostels are located in unusual and diverse locations & offer good value for money. Started in the Germany, have quality of  standards, provide a safe environment for the stay of youth, and provide a comfortable and safe night's stay. It is a place to discover new places, meet new people and make lifelong friendships.

Youth hostel movement was started in Germany in 1909 and made a slow start, reached Britain in 1929-30, slow progress of growth because of the Great wars and has now spread all over the world. In india, first Youth hostel was in Delhi and in north India that the movement started, later has moved to Rajasthan and Goa. There are now 41000 hostels world over and 1,26,00 associated hotels.
In India, membership fee is Rs.500.00 per year. There may be more in India (not known to me.)  We choose  Brighton which was  a  glamorous sea coast town, most popular, most fashionable, and full of facilities for tourists. Our need and desire was to see England, see the Great Britain as it is, known  more people, and make friends. Brighton is a coastal  town in the South coast of England in the county of East sussex. We reached there, in a  couple of hours from  London. The road was good but traffic was heavy even in the early hours, because it was a weekend and Brighton  was the most popular weekend destination for the Londoners and more over the summer holiday was on. If the traffic had piled up to 5 kilometres, one would know that at the head end of the pile up, there would probably is a little car driven by a little old women who forgets to put the car in the first gear after the traffic light turns green, busy either discussing or may be arguing with her front seat  passenger who is probably her cousin or sister or a friend. Little fat old women driver, driving an old little Morris or Austin car was a constant source of fun among the other drivers. After reaching our destination, checked in one of the youth hostels, which was nice clean and comfortable.

Brighton is a neat beautiful town,along with Hove is called  the City with plenty of small and big hotels and plenty of fine restaurants  big and small. Plenty of fun places, basically a  coastal town for the tourists, had a  fine long beach, and besides that there were  plenty to write to home about. It is a coastal town of English channel & is popular with the tourists, both foreign and domestic, the beach was long clean but crowded. It was a warm day and to be "with it" we reached the beach wearingmshorts and  nothing else  & a pair of sandals. In the early sixty, the deluge of Britain by the people of subcontinent- origin had not started and I became a person to notice -- a non-white, short muscular guy with hairy chest, some of the ladies even requested for a touch of my chest hair which I gladly obliged. Hairy chested man among the English is a rarity hence the craze.

Noticed an elderly man, semi nude but well built inspite of his age lying on a mat, head & neck under the shadow of an unusual looking little tent. He was basking in the sun and looked like a red lobstar. He was intently looking at me & when I went near, asked me in clear bengali " bangali?" "kolkatar??" had to disappoint him "Bangali kintu kolkatar na" Assamer. (bengali but not a Calcuttan, from Assam ). Disappointed, he asked "Rabindra sangeet jano?  I had to disappoint him again " Ami Assamer bangali , okhane Rabindra sangeet kew gayna"[ I am a bengali from Assam,where no body sings Rabindra sangeet"]. " Ami gaichhi-- tumi shono"  I would sing, listen.  It was a full throated 'pous tother dak thiyechhe, aye re tore aye aye aye'. There was a little crowd, holiday crowd enjoying the singing, for them 'It was an old Englishman singing in a strange foreign language. The main audience  was  a good looking muscular  non-white ( they prefered to call me a coloured man ) man, probably  an South Asian (I was clad in  shorts and  sandal shod)  and a continental European [Roger ] the Swiss.  The old man enjoyed singing  & more so,  the audiences'  attention. Gave me his visiting card , I kept the communication, but later in the same year he passed away.

Later, I traced his India connections. He was no ordinary man in British india. Director of the Shibpur Botanic Garden in Howrah, situated on the opposite bank of Hoogly river of Calcutta, retired in the150th anniverssary year of the garden in 1938.Lived [1884--1962] & was the last English Director of the Shibpur  Botanic Garden and was called the real architect father of the Botanic Garden, the largest Botanic Garden in India (313 acre) and one of the largest in the world, with one of the record number of  variety of plants  ( over 50000 variety), The Great Banyan tree {Pipul Tree], the largest (Bat Gach  in the world) is still alive [320 yr old] , spread over  14,500 sq meter, has, has over 2880 prop roots and of course the primary tree is dead, eaten up by fungus. He was Prof. Charles Cumming Calder, a greatman, I was fortunate to know him.

Across the channel was France, crossing was easy, so the occupents of the youth hostel were mostly of french origin, spoke little english. I could not speak french so it was sign language for me. Roger,a swiss spoke fluent french, made friends easily. In the evening went to a friendly pub nearby for a round of  beer drinking and fun.  For the readers who are not familiar with the term "Pub"  read part 11.

Dr. Rathin Datta, FRCS (England, Edinburgh & Glasgow).FFIMS (Athens) 

Surgeon & Sports Medicine Specialist

Padmashree Awardee, winner of the Bangladesh Liberation war honour 

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