By Matters India Reporter
Kolkata, April 28, 2022: Journalists across India have mourned the sudden death of a senior colleague, who reported interfaith matters.
Shyamal Baran Roy, a disciple of the Ramakrishna Math who attended Mother Teresa’s canonization in Rome in 2016, died April 27 in Kolkata, eastern India. He was 58.
Roy was staying alone after his mother’s death in February 2021, says a press note from Snehasis Sur, president of the Press Club of Kolkata.
“Press Club, Kolkata, deeply mourns the sad and sudden demise of Club’s former president and senior Journalist, Shyamal Baran Roy (SBR), who breathed his last at his Salt Lake residence April 27,” says Sur, a senior director of Doordarshan News.
The club flag was flown in half mast April 28 as a token of respect to Roy, one of its past presidents.
“He had a flair for writing and was very knowledgeable on various issues, including religion and inter-faith,” says Sur.
Roy was known for his somber nature and friendly behavior. He was liked by his colleagues for his amiable and helpful nature, he added.
Roy studied in Kolkata’s Don Bosco School and St. Xavier’s College. For journalism, he went to New Delhi’s Indian Institute of Mass Communication. He worked in Press Trust of India, the then top national news agency, for several decades and took voluntary retirement some years back.
He then turned his attention to book publishing and brought out some serious titles.
One of his historic news reporting was on Cardinal Telesphore Toppo of Ranchi, the first tribal cardinal from Asia, going for the papal election after death of Pope John Paul II.
Roy’s longtime friend Salesian Father C M Paul recalls the journalist’s close collaboration in filing Church related news reports for PTI spanning a period of some 30 years, especially at the time of Mother Teresa’s death, beatification and later, canonization.
“Roy’s help was most essential during the controversies that erupted in 2003 leading up to the first Mother Teresa International Film Festival held in Kolkata,” says Father Paul.
The festival had screened three controversial films on Mother Teresa such as “Hell’s Angel,” “In the Name of God’s Poor,” and the first 1969 documentary on Mother Teresa “Something Beautiful for God” for BBC Television.
After Mother Teresa’s death in 1997, Roy showed keen interest in the Missionaries of Charity, John Paul II and the Vatican, History of Papacy, and Church in India, recalled Father Paul.
I deeply regret the sudden demise of my friend Mr. Shyamal Baron Roy, a senior journalist and a publisher in Kolkata. He took a keen in my book entitled: Swami Vivekananda and his Idea of Man without Frontiers. It was a large work of 700 pages. We remained always friends. He was a Hindu, a disciple of Ramakrishna Mission, but was universal at heart. He loved Christians and their works. He introduced me to the top level monks in Belur Math on the banks of Googly River in Kolkata. May his sincere soul rest in peace.
Shyamal Baran Roy’s sudden demise is unexpected. He was liked by all. A good soul like him will be a loss to many.