Be it the lives and times of the men and women living in the lanes and by-lanes of north and central Kolkata or the happening on the Maidan when a penalty is missed or a boundary is hit, there were very few who could match Moti Nandi in bringing out the sense and sensibility of the two divergent areas of Kolkata. Arguably, the secret of success of this journalist-author lay in the fact that he knew in detail what he was writing of. His first short story was published in Desh weekly in 1957.
A resident of north Kolkata himself, Nandi knew the emotions that would be at play in the mind of a father who experienced fear when he goes to the police station during the tumultuous ‘70s to vouch for his son who has been apprehended as a Naxalite. Nor did Nandi balk at penning the invectives flung at a promising footballer whose father had been under a shadow ever since he left the Maidan after failing to score a goal in a derby match.
His 88th birth anniversary was observed recently and a statue of the author was unveiled on this occasion.