Kolkata: Nearly eight decades after Partition separated her family from its ancestral home in Bengal, a 52-year-old woman from Khulna in Bangladesh has finally traced her roots to Krishnanagar — raising hopes of a reunion with relatives this Puja.Laxmi Rani Ghosh began searching for her ancestral family nearly a fortnight ago, armed with little more than the name of her grandfather’s brother, Manoranjan Ghosh who had stayed back in India. Her grandfather, Panchanan Ghosh had migrated to Bangladesh with his family before Partition.“My grandfather Panchanan Ghosh and his family were milkmen. They owned cows and sold milk in the market. My grandfather was barely an adult when the trouble started. He had to leave India while his brother Manoranjan Ghosh stayed back,” said Laxmi Rani over phone.“I heard that they were staying at Bongaon when my grandfather left India. But I was clueless if they were staying in Bongaon anymore. They even don’t know my name. I decided to get in touch with the HAM radio operators and try their network,” Laxmi Rani said.Over the next two weeks, amateur radio operators began tracing the family across Bengal. “We didn’t have any photograph of the person. We had a name only. We decided to search along the bordering villages,” said Ambarish Nag Biswas, founder of West Bengal Radio Club.After drawing up 15 possible locations where the Ghosh surname was common, the operators searched areas including Ranaghat, Shantipur and Bethuadahari. A possible match eventually emerged in Subhasnagar, Krishnanagar.“We decided to visit that place and spoke to Paritosh Ghosh. He confirmed that Panchanan Ghosh was a brother of his grandfather Piyarilal Ghosh. While most of the family members moved to Nabadwip, Paritosh stayed in Krishnanagar,” Biswas said.“I could never imagine that I will be able to find out my cousins and their parents. All these years I considered them dead and prayed for the departed souls. This puja will be different if I manage to get the visa and visit India,” she recounted.
