A gift from the Assam of my youth

I TOLD HER ABOUT MY PARENTS WITH WHOM I LIVED IN A RENOVATED OLD STEAMER ON THE BANKS OF BRAHMAPUTRA; I IMPLORED THE GIRL TO SING THE SONG AGAIN ALONG WITH ME

Upon returning from America, I found an addition in my daughter’s house. She had a new house help. The girl impressed me with her good work and pleasant manners. She took her duties seriously and kept busy throughout the day, catering to the needs of everyone in the family without saying much.

When my jet lag was over, I was ready to leave for our farmhouse nearby. My daughter suggested that I take her maid along to help me unpack and clean the house that was locked for six months.

Daughters always mean well, and mine, being a doctor, really knows what is good for me or so she thinks. My logic that I belong to a generation, which believes that physical work is good for health doesn’t gel with her. She admonishes me and warns me against indulging in over adventurism at the age of 67.

“Mom, one cannot afford to get any bone fractured as it is difficult to get it in shape again,” she cautions me time and again.

The house help got to the business of cleaning the house as soon as we stepped in. Much to my chagrin, whenever I tried to lend her a helping hand, she gave me an admonishing look and asked me to sit down.

Sitting idle makes me jittery so I wanted the girl out of my way. I wanted to rearrange the house according to my own way.

Her presence in the house started getting on my nerves and I wanted to call my daughter to tell her that the girl had finished her job and should be taken back to the city.

That evening, I found the girl in the garden, watering plants and humming a tune that sounded familiar.

I strained my ears to catch the lyrics. Much to my astonishment, I realised that she was singing a popular song of Assam.

I ran out, eager to know from where she had learnt the song. She was taken aback and told me that she was an Assamese and loved to sing the song. “Me too,” I blurted out.

In response to the strange expression in her eyes, I heard myself go back 50 years. I talked non-stop, telling her of my youth spent in the beautiful countryside of Assam, the college I went to where I was the only non-Assamese girl and where my college mates had great fun at my cost while teaching me Assamese.

I told her about my parents with whom I lived in a floating accommodation made by renovating an old steamer named Dogra on the banks of the Brahmaputra.

I implored the girl to sing the song again along with me.

The quiet surroundings of a village in Tarn Taran echoed

with the Assamese song, “Hondiar akakhot boguli uray, ayee re ghoro loyee mono te porey (In the evening when the birds fly in the sky, Oh! mother, I think of home)”.

My eyes welled up as I longed for the house that no longer existed and for the parents, who made it a home with the warmth of their love but were no more.

I called up my daughter that night to tell her that the cleaning at our farmhouse was not yet finished.