Kolkata bids final adieu to its beloved chronicler

Kolkata: In 1955, he arrived in Kolkata seeking employment and fell in love with the ‘City of Joy’.

Parameswaram Thankappan Nair (91), a renowned Malayalam researcher and author who earned himself the nickname ‘Barefoot Historian’ for his detailed documentation of Kolkata, passed away on Tuesday in his hometown of Ernakulam, Kerala.

Nair has as many as 61 books to his name and mostly wrote them on his 1964-make Remington typewriter.

Fondly addressed as PT Nair by his acquaintances, he is learnt to have donated his life-time collection of rarest of rare books, manuscripts, maps and directories on Kolkata to Calcutta Town Hall Society for a nominal honorarium despite a foreign university supposedly making him a better offer.

Out of his ineffable love for Kolkata, Nair wanted all his works on the city to be easily available to the research scholars. Born in Kerala, he arrived at the then Calcutta in 1955 in search of employment. He worked as a steno-typist in a trading company at Ganesh Chandra Avenue for a while. He was also the senior research professor of the Asiatic Society from 1989 to 2000.

For over four decades, he lived in his humble abode at Bhowanipore’s 82C Kansaripara Road.

The doors were always ajar for anyone interested in Kolkata’s history.

After nearly six decades long association with the city, Nair had left for Kerala in 2018. Even as many close to him were heartbroken at the news of his departure to his home state then, on Tuesday, Kolkata bid its final adieu to its beloved chronicler.