I was born into an elite family in India with a diplomat for a father and a mother, descended from the royal families of Mayurbhunj and Coochbehar. I have been a part of the establishment and yet a rebel. Ofcourse rebellion is in the blood. My grandfather Nisith Chandra Sen a prominent criminal lawyer was one of the first Indian mayors of Calcutta. His predecessors in that chair were men like Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Nisith Sen stood out for fighting tooth and nail for Binoy-Badal-Dinesh at a time when no Indian lawyer would come. forward to defend them for fear of repercussions. He was a free thinker and a freedom fighter. My great aunt the poetess Kamini Sen, was one of the foremost intellectual pioneers amongst women in the time of the Bengal renaissance. She advocated literacy and empowerment for women and was herself the first honours graduate in India. My other great aunt, Jamini Sen, was one of the first women doctors in the country and chose a single life dedicated to serving the poor and the ill.
I spent my early years in Canada and the US where my father was India's representative to the Council of the ICAO of the UN. It was there that I did my early education. It was there also that I was invited to join a very select group of women who were studying ancient cultures of the world and the old ways. These were individuals who were lawyers, diplomats, politicians and showbiz people - part of the very worldly and material, and yet scholars, researchers and ascetics. There in Canada, at a chalet monastery in the Laurentians, I along with a few others learnt the ways of the ancients and the forgotten crafts. This was many, many years ago. The walls of the old chalet have by now crumbled. Some of my teachers are in another dimension. A few of those who had studied with me are still there, living in other parts of the world and following the traditions in their own ways. They are successful erudite women. And I am still here. Today, I teach a chosen few a little of what I had been taught of the ways of the ancients. This knowledge is rare and exclusive. Not for everybody – specially in this day and age. But maybe it is this day and age which needs it the most.
Keshub Chandra Sen, Coochbehar and Mayurbhunj
Ipsita is from Bengal's Keshub Chunder Sen family, through the line of Chuna, Keshub's sister. At the age of 10, Chuna's married Lakkhinarayan ,her elder brother -in-law when her older sister died, and went on to have two sons and one daughter. Their eldest son, Nareshchandra Mazumdar, had one daughter, Sovana. Sovana married Barrister Nisith Sen, the son of Bengali novelist and freedom fighter, Chandi Charan Sen. Nisith and Sovana's daughter Roma, married Debabrata Chakraverti, diplomat and civil aviation man, who represented India at ICAO Montreal. To them was born Ipsita. Keshub's daughters Suniti Devi of Coochbehar and Sucharu Devi of Mayurbhunj were cousin sisters of Nareshchandra. Suniti and Sucharu are related by blood to Ipsita through the family line of Keshub Chunder Sen. From the line of Nisith Sen, Ipsita is related to Kamini Roy, poetess and scholar and to Jamini Sen, the first female Fellow of the RCPS Glasgow, and long time family physician to the Nepal Royal Family.
Source : Keshab Janani, Debi Sarada Sundarir Atmakatha (1913) pp.40 and Beloved Witch, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, Harper Collins Publishers, 2000
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