Circa 1980. The sun’s wrath had turned the whole city of Guwahati, the capital of Assam, a small state in India, into a humid, sticky chamber. My mother, my sister and I boarded a rickety bus to go to our cousin’s place. My sister perched herself on my mother’s lap and I sat next to her. Soon we (my sister and I) started to talk inanely in our mother tongue. My mother rolled her eyes at us, and tried to communicate in sign language to keep our mouths shut. But when we didn’t pay any heed to her, and continued with our chit chat, she pinched me so hard that I jerked my hand back. In a flash of a second my skin turned twilight blue. I didn’t utter a word during the rest of the journey.
Once we alighted, I could not hold myself back, I asked the reason behind her flare up. “In public, please do not speak in Bengali,” she said in a monotone.
Bengali was our mother tongue, even though we lived in Assam where the native language was Assamese. “Why, Ma? You always encourage us to speak in our mother tongue.”
“Yes, yes. But not in public, please. These are difficult times. You are too young to understand the situation.”
Yes, I was too young to grasp the true meaning of such strong words as hatred and hostility, but I could sense the tension in the atmosphere, it was close behind us, so close that I could feel its breadth on the nape of my neck.
The anti-Bengali movement was spreading across the state like ink in blotting paper. In the city, where we lived, everything seemed normal, but scratch the surface, and the undercurrent of hostility between the two communities was like a bubble waiting to burst. The Assamese people looked at the Bengalis with an eye of distrust and vice versa. One day I eavesdropped on my parents’ conversation. My father was explaining to my mother that the Assamese people were sick of the hegemony of the Bengalis over them, and the gnawing fear of losing their own identity and state had antagonized them against the Bengalis. There was a mass exodus of Bengalis from Assam, but our parents didn’t want to move, they wanted to become old and grey in this place. But I could see fear dancing like a madman in their eyes. My father came home early in the evenings, and late night outings were an absolute no. We stayed cooped in our house like prisoners. A vigilante party was formed in the neighborhood. The man of the family acted as sentinels and took turns in guarding the neighborhood at night.
I first thought I was in a dream. A man pounding on our door with his fists and telling us, “They are here. They are here. Run for your life.” My mother stuffing all her precious gold jewelry and hard cash in her bag, her face convulsed with fear. I realised it was not a dream but reality when I felt my father’s strong hands on me, trying to wake me up from deep slumber. I had never seen my father like this, cold beads of sweat were running down his face, his hands were shaking and he looked pale as a white paper. He lifted my sister from the bed, and threw her over his shoulder. Though her head was hanging upside down on his back, she didn’t move a bit. She looked innocent as an angel, oblivious to all the chaos. We had a small gate at the rear of our garden which linked our house to our neighbour’s. We slipped through the exit, the solid darkness all around us proving to be a perfect camouflage. Our neighbours were Nepalis, who sold milk for their living and had a stable full of dappled cows. My father knocked on their back door as we stood close to him as refugees. After some time a plump woman opened the door, we called her Nepali aunty. I couldn’t take my eyes off the colorful jewelry she was wearing. As she was talking to my father, I looked past her. The room was shorn of furniture. Men, women and children from other neighborhoods were sleeping on blankets, which were laid out on the floor, and the room looked like a crowded railway station.
“I am sorry. I don’t want to turn you back, but we don’t have any room for more people. But if you want you can take refuge in the stable.”
We sat huddled on a cushion of straw in the stable. The straw was prickling our skin and the smell of cows and cow dung were making me feel nauseous. It seemed to be the longest nigh ever. I became frigid with fear, couldn’t budge an inch. I thought someone would come and pounce on us from behind. After some time, my father said,” We can’t stay here. You people will fall sick. Let’s go to some other place.” My mother gripped his hand and tried to stop him, but he had already stepped out of the stable. We followed him to the next house, which belonged to a deranged old widow. She lived alone in a rambling house, which seemed to be lifted straight out of a spooky movie. Her house was an eyesore to the neighbourhood. I never saw her smile and she never talked at anyone. I thought she detested everything in the world. She also had anathema to children. One day when I walked into her unkempt garden accidentally, she came out running with a broom in her hand to shoo me away as if I was some stray cow. My father rapped on her door with his knuckles. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t respond but I was wrong. She opened the door after a while. Her moonlight colour hair framed her emaciated face, which looked like a crumpled paper ball.
“Please, can we stay at your place tonight. Our lives are in danger,” he said pleadingly. She gazed at us with a blank expression and indicated with her eyes to come in. We followed her as she climbed a staircase that led to the upper floor. When she opened the door to a small room a musty stench hit our nostrils and we all started to cough. She left us on the threshold and went down without saying a word. The room was sparsely furnished. It had a bed, a chair and a table. A thick film of dust covered the furniture, and cobwebs hung from every corner of the wall. But we didn’t pay any notice. For us the room was the best place on earth. Four of us lay on the same bed, staring at the ceiling. I didn’t realise when I fell asleep. But I know my parents didn’t sleep a wink that night. In the morning when we were leaving, my father went to thank her but she was nowhere to be found. When we came home, we realised it was a hoax call and no one had come to attack us.
After some years, the belligerence and hostility between the two communities died down, but I could never forget that terror-filled night. Nor could I forget the munificence of the old lady. Her behaviour towards us didn’t change, she remained cold as a slab of ice. But I always saw her with an eye of compassion.
Daily Dose of Shilpi 