SUMMARY

Bepin Choudhury’s Lapse of Memory is an interesting story about an aged man named Bepin Choudhury. Satyajit Ray wrote the story, which was divided into four parts. Bepin is the story’s main character, and he had a habit of visiting bookstores and buying books that he was interested in. On one of these visits, a man approached him and introduced himself as Parimal Ghose, an old acquaintance from his Ranchi trip. Bepin was initially persuaded that the man was mistaken him for someone else. However, Bepin was confused when Parimal shared some personal information about him. He had never been to Ranchi before, so he had no memory of any of the past incidents that the stranger was talking to.

Mr. Dinesh Mukerji, the man said, was also on the same journey as him. He also told Bepin that he might get immediate confirmation from Mr. Mukerji on the trip. Bepin, on the other hand, paid no attention to this and went about his business as normal. Later, the experience continued to bother him, so he checked with Dinesh, who verified the story’s truth. This puzzled him even more because he had no memory of ever visiting Ranchi. Meanwhile, his high school classmate Chunilal would frequently visit him in search of work, which Bepin would dismiss.

Bepin became greatly worried as time went on, thinking he had lost his memory. As a result, he requested medical assistance for his condition. After checking Bepin, doctor Paresh Chanda was puzzled because he had never faced a case like this before. Whenever the doctor examined Bepin’s mental state, he advised him to go to Ranchi and clear his doubts for himself. He thought that going to the same location may revive Bepin’s memories, which he imagined he had forgotten. Bepin went to Ranchi on the advice of Dr. Chanda in the hopes of recovering his memory of the previous incident, but to no success. He returned to Calcutta after his trip to Ranchi had left him completely confused. He contacted the doctor again.

Meanwhile, the servant brought Bepin a letter marked ‘Urgent and Confidential’ that had been left in the letterbox just before Dr. Paresh Chanda came for a regular check. He carefully opened the envelope and read the letter. He found that his friend Chunilal had played a prank on him as sweet revenge for not helping him while he was in urgent need of work. He mentioned that Bepin might have been able to help him, but that he decided to avoid him. Bepin was depressed after reading the letter and felt bad for avoiding Chunilal when he asked for support. However, when Dr. Chanda came, Bepin lied to him, telling him that he had recalled memories of his journey to Ranchi when, in reality, he had only asked for medicine for a hip problem.