My journey with Aajkaal as its Chairman has now been for a little more than the last two years, but I have journeyed with it on a regular basis as an ardent reader since its inception.

Three decades and a half, and the flames are flickering brighter with every passing year. 
The Hon'ble President of India Shri Pranab Mukherjee lit the inaugural lamp of 35 years of Aajkaal at the ITC Sonar on 19^th January evening, in the presence of the Hon'ble Governor of West Bengal Shri Keshari Nath Tripathi, Hon'ble Minister of State Janab Firhad Hakim, iconic sports personality Sourav Ganguly, Editor of Aajkaal Shri Asoke Dasgupta, and Chairman of Techno India Group and my elder brother Shri Goutam Roychowdhury.

The depth of every programme exists in the infinitesimal yet extraordinary things that happen within the ordinary schedule. Those are the things you take back from a successful event, and you cherish them forever. Amidst all the celebrations, handing over my latest book ‘The Way of Love – Saint Teresa of Calcutta’ to the President was a very special moment. There is another book I must mention about. A pictorial book consisting of a hundred exclusive photographs of Pranab Mukherjee had been designed as a special gift, and when I presented it to him, his soft smile stretched into a grin. He instantly began flipping through the pages. Staring at a cartoon of himself smoking his favourite Dunhill pipe and a real life photograph of the same on the next page, he seemed to have been transported three decades down memory lane.