The Bengali community of Baltimore area lost an eminent member in January 2005. Barun passed away on January 15 after a 15 month long battle with cancer. Our community will greatly miss him.
Personally, it is even a greater loss for this writer. Several of us in the Bengali community came to the Baltimore area in early to mid 1970s and decided to call this our home. Barun was one of us since then. As it happens with any immigrant community we depended on each other and formed a special bond. In our need to support each other we decided to form an organization named PRANTIK. Barun immediately became an active member of PRANTIK. In our work for the organization we became close friends.
Barun was PRANTIK's Priest and Auditor. This writer had the opportunity to work with Barun as member of PRANTIK's Executive Committee and sometimes as his assistant priest. I observed with admiration his patience with members of the organization and his sincerity in performing his work for PRANTIK. He was precise as an auditor as well as a priest. Later I found out he had shown same qualities in all of his other fields of endeavor.
Barun was passionate about acquiring knowledge. He read books on religion, history, geography and current events. His ability to retain information was very impressive. On several occasion I had argued with him about certain facts and events and found him to be accurate all the time.
Barun left behind a loving wife and a devoted daughter. It is very difficult for any one to find the right words to console them in this great loss. We can only let them know that Barun's memory will always be with us as a wonderful individual who really cared for his family and friends.
