THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A hardcore Communist, C K Chandrappan’s better half too is a true Communist. Or it was the Communist ideals that brought them together. Women rights activist and writer Bulu Roy Chowdhary, a Bengali, is the wife of Chandrappan.
The duo met in 1968 in Delhi when Chandrappan was AIYF secretary and Bulu Roy, a party member. Mutual respect as comrades and human beings brought them together. They got married in 1978.
A poised, grief-stricken Bulu Roy briefly talked to Express on Thursday. Her voice was filled with deep love and respect for Chandrappan. She said that her grief was unfathomable and that she did not know how she could live without him.
“He was a good person, a parliamentarian, a comrade and an intellectual,” she said. Based in Delhi, Bulu Roy has worked to help party MPs from 1959 to 1980. She was associated with S A Dange, Bhupesh Gupta, C Achutha Menon, AKG, K Damodaran, P Ramamoorthy and PKV among others during that time.
Bulu Roy and Chandrappan had many things in common. Be it the concern for the down-trodden, humanitarian values, love for books and cinema, both had similar interests. Bulu Roy had high regards for the self-effacing nature of the senior CPI leader.
Bulu Roy belonged to a middle-class landlord family. After completing her degree from Indraparstha College for Women in Delhi, Bulu rejected a job offer from Agriculture, a journal of Union Agriculture Ministry, to became a fulltime party member.