It started with a goodbye.
It became a beginning.
In 1987, a hundred and twenty of us walked out of the gates of Narendrapur. Twenty-five years later, we came back — and Uddyom was born.
Chapter One · 1987
A Hundred and Twenty Brothers
We were teenagers when Narendrapur shaped us — its unforgiving mornings, its discipline, its ideals drawn from Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. In the summer of 1987, a hundred and twenty of us sat for our Madhyamik and scattered into the world.
We became engineers and doctors, teachers and lawyers, businessmen and civil servants. We crossed cities, oceans, and decades. But Narendrapur never quite let go of us — and, it turned out, we never quite let go of one another.
Chapter Two · 25 December 2012
The Day We Came Home
On a winter morning in 2012 — twenty-five years after we had left — we returned to Narendrapur. Not to be felicitated, but to felicitate.
We gathered our old teachers and the non-teaching staff — the people who had fed us, cleaned our halls, and quietly held our world together — and we offered them our Guru-Dakshina.
Somewhere between the folded hands and the tears that morning, a question was born: if we could come together for a single day, why not for good?
That endeavour we named Uddyom.
“উদ্যম” — endeavour. The will to begin.
One of us gave it a name. Another of us drew its symbol. To this day, neither has asked to be credited.
That is, perhaps, the truest thing about us — the work matters, not the names attached to it.
Chapter Three · How We Work
No One Leads. Everyone Carries.
Uddyom has a committee, but no bosses. Our office-bearers are executors of a collective will — not commanders of it. Every decision of consequence is taken by mutual consent, argued over the way only old friends can argue.
The pyramid we never built
No one at the top. No one below. We left the hierarchy at the school gate.
The circle we did
Equals around a table. Our differences settle the way they did in the corridors of Narendrapur — as friends, or friendly rivals. Never as enemies.
Those Who Carry the Flag
Of the hundred and twenty who left in 1987,
more than forty still carry Uddyom forward.
From a Homecoming to a Movement
A Hundred and Twenty Brothers
We sit for our Madhyamik at Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Narendrapur, and scatter into the world — doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers, businessmen, civil servants.
The Day We Came Home
Twenty-five years later, we return to Narendrapur — not to be honoured, but to honour. We offer Guru-Dakshina to our teachers and the staff who quietly held our world together. Uddyom is born, and registered.
From Reunion to Resolve
The first students are sponsored and the first medical camps are held in the villages around Kolkata. The homecoming becomes a habit of giving.
When the Storms Came
A pandemic and Super Cyclone Amphan strike within weeks. We carry rations, sanitisers, PPE and medicine into locked-down streets and broken villages.
Yaas, and the Second Wave
Cyclone Yaas floods the coast; the pandemic returns deadlier than before. We reach 160 families at Rangafala, and source oxygen for the gasping.
A Place of Our Own
In its tenth year, Uddyom opens its first unit — the Uddyom Activity Centre at Garia — a home for learning, skilling and coming together.
Chapter Four · The Work
What Grew From That Morning
And When the Storms Came, We Went
A pandemic. Amphan. Yaas. When Bengal was brought to its knees, the batch of ’87 did not wait to be asked. We carried rations down flooded lanes, sourced oxygen for the breathless, and stood with families the world had forgotten.
Read How We RespondedWe have never measured ourselves in numbers. But if you must know a few —
The story isn’t ours alone. It could be yours too.
You don’t need to be from the batch of ’87 to belong here. You only need the will to begin — the uddyom.