He was given a plaque, books and a shawl among others by the civic body. “We are ashamed of the fact that we did not accord him the reception earlier. I must apologise to him for this,” said Mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, who presided over the function.

Gangopadhyay was at his jovial best lampooning himself for receiving the honour at a place where Rabindranath Tagore was accorded a civic reception after he had won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.

He said, “I was sitting with the mayor at the room adjacent to this and saw a portrait of Rabindranath Tagore. Looking at him, I wondered whether the poet would chide me for coming here today for this occasion.”

While addressing the gathering, the author admitted that after he had turned 70, he has started to feel old. He read out his poem — Janalar Kachee Dariye Shikarokti (confession by the side of the window)— in which, he talked about death, fundamentalists and all those, who shed human blood for their narrow cause.