Kalare patate kauri pore
Aglati sit murlore sore
Dumdum dabate kune kub mare
Aharar dawarar are are
Oooo jeuti tuloi mur monot pore
Oooo jeuti tuloi mur monot pore (By Khagen Mahanta)
(The crow alights
On a banana leaf, the crow alights
And my mind is restless, distracted…
I wonder who is beating the drums- doom…doom…
Under the clouds of this july month…
Oh Jeuti! I long for you
Oh Jeuti! I remember you).
As a child, I remember my father singing this song. Those initial years were in Digboi. I must have been two, three, four… perhaps five years old. It is a love song, about a young peon in a city office who is recalling his beloved in his village back home. Her name is Jeuti-meaning brightness, beauty.
Beauty. Jeuti. Jyoti. Jyotirekha-my mother.
She was married young. She must have been as young as I am today, perhaps a few years older. She had two older brothers. What choice did she have?
But I think, they were happy. They must have been. Because soon after, I was born, in Guwahati.
Small as a doll in my dress of innocence (Electra on Azalea Path, Sylvia Plath)
I was a month old when Dad got transferred to Digboi.
My mother bundled me in new baby clothes and because I was so small, Dad drove all the way to Digboi in his new Fiat Ambassador with her.
I imagine the small navy blue car meandering its way through the torturous serpentine highs and lows of the Jorabat road. It must have been dark when they reached their new house- the small black and white quarter bungalow. It was painted black and white and was a remnant of the British era. All the quarters and bungalows there were old, built by the British in that small Oil township.
Daddy had a car. This was 1987. Later, Daddy would tell me that not many people in those days had cars. Only the rich and the powerful had them.
Daddy was neither. So he was proud of it-he had one. To this day, he looks after his cars like babies. Like he must have looked after me then, I hope.
(P.S.- This will be continued. I wrote this as part of my creative writing workshop assignment conducted by Manju Kapur(of Difficult Daughters fame). We were told to write something about our childhood. Writing this bit was difficult. Halfway through it, I broke down, and had it not been for a friend's consoling, I would have found it extremely difficult to continue.)
