Shyamali Mitra
Lovingly known as “Shyamali-di”
2 December 1938 — 29 June 2023 · aged 84
Beloved Bengali teacher at Bethune Collegiate School and quiet poet of the monsoon
Kolkata, India Born in Bhowanipore, Calcutta (now Kolkata) Resting at Ashes immersed in the Ganga at Babughat, KolkataAbout Shyamali
Shyamali Mitra taught three generations of Kolkata girls that a comma is a breath and a full stop is a decision. Born in Bhowanipore in the winter of 1938, she grew up in a house of books and borrowed harmoniums, and took her M.A. in Bengali at the University of Calcutta, where she discovered that she preferred poetry to the examinations it was supposed to prepare her for.
In 1962 she joined Bethune Collegiate School, the city's oldest girls' school, and stayed for thirty-six years. She taught the syllabus faithfully, but her pupils remember the Friday afternoons when she closed the textbook and read them Jibanananda or Tagore, letting the monsoon outside the windows do the rest. She published three slim collections of poems in the little magazines of College Street, the most loved of them Brishtir Pore (After the Rain), and she was the first reader of every poem her students dared to write, marking them in pencil, never in red.
Her house in Bhowanipore filled at Durga Puja with relatives, neighbours and former students. She sang Rabindrasangeet badly and with total conviction, set her own mishti doi in earthen pots, and could not pass a bookstall on College Street without losing an hour. She cheered Mohun Bagan with the same fierceness she brought to grammar. Her husband, Subrata, a bank officer, died in 2012. Shyamali passed away peacefully in her sleep on 29 June 2023, as the first monsoon rains reached the city. She leaves her son Arindam, her daughter Tuhina, and grandchildren who still recite her poems.
“A poem is just an ordinary day that someone paid attention to.”
- Faith
- Hindu
- Place of birth
- Bhowanipore, Calcutta (now Kolkata)
- Resting place
- Ashes immersed in the Ganga at Babughat, Kolkata
- Passed away
- 29 June 2023, Kolkata
Cremation & Shraddha
Friday, 30 June 2023 at 12:00 UTC
Add to calendarLife journey
B.A. (Honours) in Bengali
Presidency College1954 – 1957 · Calcutta
Won the college prize for Bengali verse in her final year.
M.A. in Bengali Language & Literature
University of Calcutta1957 – 1959 · Calcutta
Wrote her dissertation on rain imagery in modern Bengali poetry.
Teacher of Bengali
Bethune Collegiate School1962 – 1998 · Kolkata
Thirty-six years in the classroom of the city's oldest girls' school.
Married Subrata Mitra
1964 · Bhowanipore, Kolkata
A marriage of forty-eight years.
Published Brishtir Pore
College Street little-magazine press1983 · Kolkata
Her best-loved collection of monsoon poems.
Cultural programme organiser
Bhowanipore Durgotsav Committee1970 – 2019 · Kolkata
Curated the Puja evenings of songs, recitation and children's plays for nearly fifty years.
State Teachers' Day Award
Government of West Bengal1989 · Kolkata
For excellence in teaching Bengali language and literature.
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Family & connections
Shyamali is survived by
- Arindam Mitra· Son
- Dr. Tuhina Mitra· Daughter
- Sudipta Chatterjee· Sister
- 4 grandchildren· Grandchildren
Tributes & memories
6 people have shared a memory of Shyamali.
Knew Shyamali? Share a memory with the family and everyone who loved them.
Sign in to write a tribute- SD
Former student, now a professor in Boston
I teach at an American university. Every semester I give my students Mitra Miss's rule: a comma is a breath, a full stop is a decision. They write it on their notebooks in pen. I wish she could see how far the rule has travelled.
- PD
Editor of a College Street little magazine
Her poems arrived by hand, in pencil, on the backs of attendance sheets. Never a typo, never a complaint about the pay, which was a cup of tea. She told me editing was a kind of hospitality. I have never forgotten it.
- RM
Childhood friend
We shared a bench at Bethune in 1951 and a single umbrella in every monsoon after. She read me her first poem on the tram home and made me promise not to laugh. I did not laugh. I wept. I am weeping again.
- RB
Colleague at Bethune Collegiate School
On rainy days in the staffroom she recited Jibanananda softly while the rest of us corrected copies, then said, 'Sorry, I distracted you.' Nobody ever minded. We will read her poems at the school assembly this July.
- DS
Former student, class of 1984
She never gave marks for showing off, only for noticing. In Class IX she returned my essay with one pencilled line: 'What did the rain actually sound like?' I have been trying to answer her ever since. I teach Bengali in Siliguri now, and I use her question every term.
- TR
Neighbour in Bhowanipore
For forty years her balcony was our Durga Puja judging stand. She would sing Tagore, badly, from the second floor while we hung the lights, and the whole lane joined in. The rains arrived the very week she left us. It felt like her handwriting.
