FACES
Human mind is indeed very unpredictable. Like the efficient ombudsman of a popular company it chooses to retain some faces, while at times like a demented soul it fails to register the features of certain people whom we come across on a daily basis. While there is no defined protocol to define how the collaboration between mind and memory works, I guess it’s a random selection of certain faces by the mind that remains embedded the memory, without any criteria or reason for doing so.
Today, as the chill seeps in slowly, I recall a few shadows from my past that somehow refuse to fade from the mind’s canvas.
I am talking about the time when I still enjoyed an afternoon’s nap in my maternal grandmother’s lap. I used to laze around in the noon time (while all the elders slept) after lunch. There was this man, Bhodiya, who used to come to tend to the garden and do odd chores outside the house. He came from the nearby tea garden where his father and his forefathers worked as labourers. Bhodiya used to regale me with ghost stories. He wore a jaapi (Assamese hat) and had a very bright smile that lit up his weather beaten face. I remember that I used to tell my father that I will marry Bhodiya! Academics, family and profession (not necessarily in that order!) slowly took over those carefree noon time away from my life, and a couple of years back I learnt that Bhodiya was no more.
Though I started my school life in Jorhat (Jonaki Sangha), my proper schooling started in Bal Mandir Sainik School, Goalpara. I used to be enchanted with the senior guys who did a march-past in their starched khaki uniforms. I had two best friends, Suman and Ivy, and all the three of us had the same surname, Chakravarty (spellings varied though). Suman and I continue to be together, but we somehow lost touch with Ivy. Ivy was a very beautiful girl, with curly locks and a sweet smile; I remember Suman and I used to bully her. I would like to meet her. May be some day soon……….
As I pull another curtain from my memory, I see Khuritiaita. She was my father’s aunt (Khuriti). I remember that she was always in the kitchen, either cooking or cutting vegetables. I also remember her visit to Goalpara, where we used to reside in the early eighties, when she seemed to relax.
All throughout my stay in Guwahati during school and college days, an old man with a thin beard used to come every Friday, without failure, and beg for food and money. I bet my brothers too must remember him vividly. Though a beggar, he was dressed in torn but neat clothes and had a very calm look and a beatific smile. I used to give him whatever I could lay my hands on, be it money, old woollens or rice. I remember my mother telling me a few years back that even after I came to Delhi, he used to regularly ask about my well being. But for the last year or so he has stopped coming. I wonder whether he is alive or not……….
Though I can continue this narration endlessly, practical issues like time and space restrains me. Wasn’t in Virginia Woolf who said, ““I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” “?
Today, as the chill seeps in slowly, I recall a few shadows from my past that somehow refuse to fade from the mind’s canvas.
I am talking about the time when I still enjoyed an afternoon’s nap in my maternal grandmother’s lap. I used to laze around in the noon time (while all the elders slept) after lunch. There was this man, Bhodiya, who used to come to tend to the garden and do odd chores outside the house. He came from the nearby tea garden where his father and his forefathers worked as labourers. Bhodiya used to regale me with ghost stories. He wore a jaapi (Assamese hat) and had a very bright smile that lit up his weather beaten face. I remember that I used to tell my father that I will marry Bhodiya! Academics, family and profession (not necessarily in that order!) slowly took over those carefree noon time away from my life, and a couple of years back I learnt that Bhodiya was no more.
Though I started my school life in Jorhat (Jonaki Sangha), my proper schooling started in Bal Mandir Sainik School, Goalpara. I used to be enchanted with the senior guys who did a march-past in their starched khaki uniforms. I had two best friends, Suman and Ivy, and all the three of us had the same surname, Chakravarty (spellings varied though). Suman and I continue to be together, but we somehow lost touch with Ivy. Ivy was a very beautiful girl, with curly locks and a sweet smile; I remember Suman and I used to bully her. I would like to meet her. May be some day soon……….
As I pull another curtain from my memory, I see Khuritiaita. She was my father’s aunt (Khuriti). I remember that she was always in the kitchen, either cooking or cutting vegetables. I also remember her visit to Goalpara, where we used to reside in the early eighties, when she seemed to relax.
All throughout my stay in Guwahati during school and college days, an old man with a thin beard used to come every Friday, without failure, and beg for food and money. I bet my brothers too must remember him vividly. Though a beggar, he was dressed in torn but neat clothes and had a very calm look and a beatific smile. I used to give him whatever I could lay my hands on, be it money, old woollens or rice. I remember my mother telling me a few years back that even after I came to Delhi, he used to regularly ask about my well being. But for the last year or so he has stopped coming. I wonder whether he is alive or not……….
Though I can continue this narration endlessly, practical issues like time and space restrains me. Wasn’t in Virginia Woolf who said, ““I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” “?
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