Intelligence, strong will-power, hard-work , devotion, sincerity, passionate about work, righteousness, commitment, loyalty, sacrifice, perseverance, courage to experiment new ways to accomplish his goals, honesty, foresightedness, high discipline, naughtiness, innocence, love for food, clothes and sports are some of the endless virtues which describe my father. . .

This is the story of a man who had a very humble beginning but with his hard-work and courage became the Chairman-Cum-Managing Director of the largest populated subsidiary of Coal India.

Born on 16th of March in the year India received Independence, he was the eldest in a family of 6 children. A great lover of sports, he loved playing cricket the most. He completed his Mining engineering and married his childhood love, who is a Medical Doctor by profession. She was more than just a life partner and stayed committed to him till his last breath and even after.

He started his career in a private mine “Sawalesse” in Burhar. Those were the times of private mines; Government took over only in 1971. He spent the first 27 years of his career working in under-ground mines. Most of the time he spent working in Birshingpur- Pali and Nowrozab. Mines of Birshingpur- Pali were earlier owned by “Nagraths”. Their son was a great lover of cricket, so when their son died, Nagraths used to organize cricket matches in his memory. People of Birshingpur, thereby developed a lot of interest in cricket. After Nationalization of mines, since the Nagraths left, the cricket matches also stopped. Mr. Deepak Chakravarti, then working as Manager of Birshingpur- Pali Mines took over the job of organizing Cricket-matches there. People of those mines, worked without salary for a day and with that money, cricket-matches were organized. Big teams like Mohan Meckens, Nirlons, Air India, Steel Authority of India, Banker’s Eleven, Indian Railways to name few played there. Those were the times of test-crickets. Players like Hanumant Singh, Bisen Singh Bedi, Shalil Ankola, Moninder Amarnath were some of the few who played there. Vinay Nangia , Tournament Chief Curator of Eden Garden, Calcutta (now Kolkotta) was the in-charge of the pitch. It was one of the richest tournaments of those times. In one of his interviews, Bedi had commented that amongst the pitches that he played, it was one of the best turfs after Melbourne and Eden Garden. Birshingpur- Pali is a very small place without an air-port even today in Chattisgarh. Mr. Chakravarti (my father) use to organize these with such limited resources.

He was offcourse a very hard...