Chaos in Cachar

In the summer of '81, I found myself in the hills of Assam. My dad had just been transferred to a little village is Assam called Cachar, and my mom had decided to accompany him with her three-month-old baby (my brother) and a three-year-old brat (myself).

Settling was a big ordeal. Water had to be brought in tankers and the servants refused to work in our house because we were Christians. A servant who finally found the guts to do so, pointed to a picture of a mermaid in my storybook and asked if the women in our region looked like this. My dad was in charge of the site and a majority of the Bengali population who worked under him didn't like the idea of having a Malayalee boss. My mom spent her time during the weekly get-togethers staring at the faces of women who insisted on speaking only in Bengali. But soon enough, she found a friend in our neighbour Mrs. Mookherji.

Slowly we settled down. The curtains were up, and the furniture was allotted space. The television and the record player were placed in the children's room, where I slept. But I remember the constant nightmares that woke up the entire household. During the day, when Dad was at work, Mom would play my favourite records. Meanwhile she would try sign language to communicate with the amused maid. Language was a big problem. Of the nursery rhymes I listened to regularly, I remember, "I know an old lady who swallowed a fly. I don't know why she swallowed a fly." In the evenings, we usually had guests. People from the neighbourhood would come over to watch TV, because only we had a television set at that time.

Soon it was time for me to join the kindergarten. Despite the screaming and begging, I was dragged to a nearby school. The kind teachers tried to entertain me with toys, but I wept and screamed till my mom decided to make a pact with me. She would sit with me in school for an entire week if I promised to go to school the following week without creating any problems. I agreed. So Mom came to school with the baby and the feeding bottles and sat with me in class. The principal was kind enough to even let her stand behind me at assembly time.

The week flew by and soon it was time for me to go alone. I wept, but it was of no use. So I sat beside the window and looked out for the car that would come and take me home. In the meantime the remaining children and the teacher busied themselves with a badly taught nursery rhyme - D-I-N-G, ding D-O-N-G, dong B-E-L-L, bell Ding Dong Bell...

I had perfected most of the nursery rhymes by then, so I looked down at these lower beings with disgust. The bell eventually rang and I'd run out happily and let the teacher complain to my mother, "She is a very unfriendly child." My routine after that remained the same for years, but I didn't hate it as much as I hated going to school. I'd be forced to sleep after lunch. I would get up in time for Spider Man. Quite often, Mom baked her special cakes that she gave exotic names. (A favourite with my brother even now is the Victorian Pollachi, which is another name for an ordinary marble cake).

Around five, I'd run out to play. This usually ended in a fight with the little monster who lived next door. By six, I'd be dragged inside for a bath, after which I'd have to do a bit of studying. Then after dinner and some storytelling, I'd sleep dreading the arrival of the next morning.

The scenic beauty of Cachar is unforgettable. The houses were built along the sides of a hill and we were surrounded by green jungles. The sight of a hyena walking across the garden was common. More common were the devastating cyclones. The rooftops were made of tin and usually during the cyclones, the tin sheets flew away. The next few days would be spent repairing them.

Once, Dad was away at a meeting when the rains began. We could hear the howling wind and the fierce rain outside. The electricity had also been cut off. I was terrified, and while my mom tried to pacify me, I howled and screamed saying that we were all going to die. The next morning, everyone was busy fixing their homes. A man was working on our roof and incidentally, that night we were hosting a party. In Assam, idlies were a delicacy, so Mom was busy making the sambar for the evening. After making the sambar, she left it in a big kadai and placed it over a crockery rack for it to cool down, not aware of the man working on top. He slipped and half a second later, he was in the sambar. The rack gave away and a lot of the imported crockery was shattered.

Nearly in tears, my mom screamed at the wounded man in English, explaining that the crockery held sentimental value. The man who was in a state of shock till then, got up and screamed back at her in Bengali, complaining about the burns and cuts in his body. We continue to tease Mom about that incident to this day.

Time flew. The cyclones had become part of life by then. While Dad looked into the repair work of the house, I'd look into the little shed where we kept our rabbits. We also had a violent parrot, who flew out of the window one day, never to be seen again. He was replaced by a pair of gentle pigeons whom we named Teja and Sheeba.

I finally finished with kindergarten and joined school. School brought with it more events, good and bad. But most importantly, something was always happening. Life wasn't as static and predictable as it is today.

To be continued...