Lahiri, Pranab
LAHIRI, Pranab Kumar
Pranab Kumar Lahiri, born in Kolkata on February 9, 1932, passed away in Atlanta on November 6, 2022 after a brief illness.
Pranab lived on four continents and in five countries, including an almost forty-three year residence in Atlanta, his adopted home. Throughout his life, Pranab traveled the world, visiting at least sixty countries and all fifty states. He packed light – generally with a small bag, a ready wit, a bottle of whisky, and a head for computing foreign currency equivalents. For almost five decades, his late wife Jayanti Lahiri (née Chakravorty) was his fellow traveler, she providing the music and he keeping the books; partners in every sense and in every escapade.
An accountant by profession, Pranab had the soul of a poet and raconteur, the curiosity of the young, and competitive fire as a great tennis player. He was a card and board game aficionado, and had a boundless desire to read every good book in sight. In Atlanta, Pranab and Jayanti were leaders in a growing Bengali community, helping to found the annual Durga Puja celebrations. He aged with grace and without slowing down in the slightest. In retirement, he took college courses at Emory simply for the pleasure of learning, shared many meals and joys with friends, and acted in plays and a movie.
He could, and would, talk to anyone and everyone as his equal, whether that person was a five-year old child ("always say yes to anything small children ask you to do," he told his son-in-law), a drunken teacher encountered on the closed Tanzania/Zambia border on a cold winter night when his traveling party was in dire need of shelter (which he found for them), traffic policemen (whom he would either charm or evade by pretending to speak no English), or any friend of his children or grandchildren. His love of people and his genuine care for them meant that everyone he met became a friend.
Pranab is survived and remembered fondly by his two children, (Lali Watt and Yasho ); their spouses, (Ian Watt and Anne Barile); six grandchildren, (Rian, Dale, and Liah Watt; Ray, Susannah, and Isabelle Lahiri); a granddaughter-in-law, (Jenny Six); his partner of recent years, (Vimala Nikore); and many other dear friends. A Memorial Service will be held in Atlanta on December 11.
