Summary of activities of Convergence
Once more it’s July and I am happy to look back at the year that has been at Convergence. On the positive side, of course, we have been carrying forward the mission that Professor Rita Chattopadhyay (my mother), its Founder-Director had envisioned. Here is a brief summary of the activities of Convergence during the last year:
Academic Work:
Online Courses: Like before, Convergence has been conducting online language courses (in English, German and Sanskrit) twice a year – January to June and then again from August to December.
And I am very happy to say that children from the Gurukul school have started attending online English classes from May this year. So their 1st session is not synchronised with the rest of the courses, but we will slot their 2nd session in a way that synchronises with the rest of the courses.
Library: Regarding the Library, I was in for a rude shock in February 2026, when I happened to find out by chance, that the long time help there, Sujit Maiti, had been misusing Library resources fraudulently. I dismissed him from all Convergence duties, and currently two other employees are stock checking and rearranging the books, and I hope to reopen it on the day of the 1st Annual Program of Convergence on 19th July 2026. They have been working during the weekends of the months of March, April, May and June to help make the collection of books once more available and accessible to researchers and scholars.
At the time when I stumbled upon the bitter truth, and while cutting off all ties with Sujit, I posted the following message in the WhatsApp group (on February 16th 2026 to be precise):
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It is with a deep sense of distress and disappointment that I am writing this message. Sujit Maiti was appointed by ma in August 2021 as an academic assistant of Convergence. He was required to type up her handwritten papers, look after the library, manage its online courses etc. At that time, he was pursuing his PhD, and ma started by giving him a starting salary of 6000/-.
In the meantime, ma is no more (left us in August 2022 and was hospitalised since June 2022), but since Sujit was hired by her, I let him continue in his managerial job at Convergence and increased his remuneration to 10,400/- per month (which I gave him for more than three years now, including this month). He has completed his PhD, in the meantime, and after some contractual appointments, now has a permanent position at Narasingha Dutt College at Howrah.
Often there has been instances when I have been very dissatisfied with his conduct (over inordinate delay in course announcements, not being prompt in answering queries, not being proactive in promoting our courses, not keeping to timelines, etc.). But I just put up with them thinking they were his inefficiencies, not deliberate attempts at undermining the ethics of Convergence and the vision of ma.
However, just this last weekend, I have come to know that his conduct has been rather dishonest. Here’s just listing some of them:
Convergence library is strictly meant to be a reference library (nothing could be issued). But it turns out that he himself has been taking books home without the slightest intimation or permission (knowing very well that there are rare manuscripts that are not available anywhere else). Often keeping them for long duration of time, and bringing them back only when someone asked for it. On the other hand, he strictly forbade anyone else using the library for reference to even touch any of the books. He often discouraged them about pursuing PhD and often harassed scholars for days before giving any resource. In fact, there are allegations that he used those references (that others wanted) to write books/use them for his own purposes, denying them to the scholars. It is deeply disheartening to know that he absolutely stood as an hindrance to all that ma wanted the library to be – a valuable resource for scholars of modern Sanskrit. There may have been a handful of other PhD scholars who were using the library violating the rules and knew of his misconduct too.
I had asked him about one book that was brought to my attention that was missing. On asking, he said there were seven, and the next day, he returned nine. So there is no sure way of knowing exactly how many items are missing from the library (just the catalogued ones, ma’s handwritten other documents may very well have just vanished). Someone even hinted that he was acting as a conduit for the library’s invaluable resources, including ma’s various unpublished manuscripts.
Ma had also given him an official mobile to be used for all official work of Convergence. Last Sunday, when all this was gradually unfolding, I had asked him to give that phone back to me. There, I discovered, that not only was he using this official number for his personal chats, but had created groups (found at least two) of students and was taking his own personal classes from it – which were not related to Convergence at all. Enrolment at Convergence courses dwindled, and it’s perfectly possible that he asked interested students to enrol in those (personal) courses (maybe he was making monetary gains out of those).
Since he has already got a job at a government college, it was illegal for him to get remuneration from somewhere else again (so he requested me to send money to his mother’s account for about a year now).
Relatively unimportantly, but the plan for the official phone was about 450/- per month. But for about a year now, he used to charge about 650/- per month, and when I had asked him he said he didn’t know why. But after I got the device, I found that there were constant reminders about payment deadlines which he violated every month, thereby paying 200/- as late fee for months together, which of course came from me.
So overall, Sujit has been unduly taking advantage of all the trust that ma and I had placed in him. He has deceived the very purpose and spirit of Convergence and caused great harm to its credibility, especially to people who did not know about ma and her unwavering support to the cause of dissemination of knowledge. I am deeply sorry that I did not monitor him closely enough to get to know of his maleficent designs earlier. However, since I have come to know of them now, I would not let him have any involvement with Convergence anymore. Kindly spread this word in your circles. And please get in touch with me directly for any queries (either at my personal number 9620933305 or the office mobile number 7044440145) pertaining to Convergence. I will be personally handling all course related matters hereafter.
As for the library, I had been in touch with the Chief Librarian of ISI and have been advised to keep the library closed till “stock checking” (check whether all the items in the catalogue are there in the library) is done by someone professional (who will be hired shortly).
Depending on the finding, the next course of action will be determined – in case there are missing items, I will have to take the matter to official levels. If not, I will open the library again under stricter monitoring and under someone else’s librarianship.
Ma had such unpleasant experiences throughout her life – causing her untold grief and disappointment, but nevertheless her nature remained just as kindly and trusting. I, too, have been spending sleepless nights over this issue, but I do hope that my nature isn’t affected by such experiences, and that my trust in the inherent goodness of people remains unscathed. I am thankful to Sujit for all the times he has been dutiful and helpful and respectfully carried forward the work of Convergence during these years.
Thank you all for your understanding and cooperation. I am sure we can work together towards keeping Convergence in the right path, with the vision ma nurtured for it.
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4th issue of Conversations:
Like the previous years, I am very excited to release the 4th issue of “Conversations” as an online journal on Ma’s birthday on 19th July 2026 at the 1st Annual Program event. I have invited several contributors to Conversations to attend this event and talk about their writings.
It has clickable links of all its articles, poems, stories and paintings which enables easy navigation across genres and pieces.
Please visit our website for details of all its activities and issues of Conversations:
Soumyanetra