A Hindu family (even with no inclination towards the religious deities) would have an extreme desire to visit Kamakhya Temple when they arrive in Guwahati. I am not sure if it is due to free will or the fear of being ‘slut shamed’ when they reach back to their native place by religious fanatics imparting their wisdom as "Jab tak maan ka bulawa nahi aata, tab tak darshan nahi hote”
This is the reason why this temple is always overcrowded. For the people living here, I guess there must be a race going on where they’d probably show off the number of times they have paid visit to the place.
Knowing all of it, I had to already make my stand clear when one of my distant relative was to visit this city. Little did I know that they had other acquaintances in the city as well. I thought it’d be impolite of me to leave them alone entirely, so, I did end up going to temple but made myself abundantly clear that I won’t go inside the temple premises. They insisted, they insisted while we were on our way up. After reaching there, they too shrugged off when they found that the special line is worth 1000 bucks each and the normal one would take the entire day.
This left me and their acquaintance together.
Don’t you want to go?, I asked .
No, I don’t want to, she sounded reluctant and hesitant while she said this. A little experience about the way the girls here pronounce the letter‘t’, I was quite sure that she isn’t sure.
Hence, my next question was, “Why didn’t you go?
I didn’t want them to spend 1000 bucks on this. Plus, I am a local here and have been here practically every Tuesday. She was very sure while she said this.
Every Tuesday! She’s among the one who keeps score I mentioned earlier about, I thought to myself.
What about you?, she barged her way in to the conversation.
Umm… Well, I don’t believe in Gods and Goddesses. A moment after I felt like a criminal while I said this knowing that she had faith. The venue ended up adding more effect to it.
“Oh!”. She neglected what I said and quickly moved to another question.
“Now that it has been four years, what are your views of Guwahati?”
“Four Years! How do you know that? Are you fond of me?”
Being an atheist does give you a certain advantage, for example, escape from the moral vindictiveness while flirting inside the temple premises.
“No, I wouldn’t say that. Uncle mentioned you and when you live in India, it is kind of hard to ignore the sentences once IIT, IIM or IAS have already been mentioned.”
“Such trend is decreasing though”, I interrupted.
“Decreasing like people’s faith in their religion” she jumped in.
“Maybe! The usual notion of us being nerds and boring is fading away. Then, the notion of us super intelligent and know it all is also being compromised.” I explained.
“The stereotypes will never die, you know” she insisted on making her point which made me storm my way in
“And yet here you are outside the temple premises.”
(Paused)
I realized that I had inadvertently hurt her faith. This remorse was quite visible on my face.
She: The exact reason why I didn’t go inside is that during certain days of a month, we girls are not allowed to enter the temple.
Me: I am Sorry
She: It’s all right.
Me: But this is strange and I don’t approve of it. This place is one among the Shaktipeeths and it is believed that the reproductive organ of Sati fell here and now the women are not allowed because their organs are working perfectly fine. This is hypocrisy. I think you now know, why I am not a believer.
She did not answer it. She herself was puzzled but the look on her face suggested that she doesn’t want to get in this debate right now.
“You still haven’t told me what you think of Guwahati?” she asked in order to ease up the conversation once again.
“Guwahati,
Guwahati, for me in one word has been like a Mistress.
There is a city where you are born and spend your childhood. It becomes your motherland, a motherly figure.
Then there is a city where you have worked honestly and the city in turn has rewarded you a better life ahead. You feel you’re married to that city. Kota has been like that for me. I stayed there for a year at a stretch without any homecoming in between. I was punctual, attentive and there weren’t any distractions. The only time I went out of my house was to attend classes and to have dinner and lunch. At the end of the day, like a good wife, it rewarded me.
Guwahati, on the other hand has been very naughty. If you look at it carefully, this city has all the quality to qualify as a mistress. The weather here gets a lot of mood swings which will sometimes please you and sometimes won’t. Once in a while, without any reason, the sky has to cry, thunderstorms included. I rarely attended classes. I picked up cigarette and alcohol for the first time here and no one seems to mind. No one scolds me for being this way. If it’d have been for my mother or wife, I’d have been slapped for sure but this city doesn’t care as long as you’re leading a popular life. The professors, unlike the teachers of my past don’t care much. If there is no financial constraint, I will go on travelling every time I get a bit upset. I held a few Positions of Responsibility and then I had to leave it. It then got occupied by some other people and now they seem to carry their duty well. They outperformed me in certain aspect and it appears like those POR’s at times are taunting me, “Look I am with a better man now.” Typical Mistress.
“Tell me about yourself? I asked her.
“Look! They’re back.” She pointed towards the distant relatives who weren’t that distant now.
“Oh! I would have said that it was good meeting you but I won’t.” I mentioned explicitly.
“Why?”
“Because you now know so much about me and I don’t seem to know anything about you.”
(Laughs)
“Let’s roam in the city today. We’ll spend more time together and for the record, you do happen to know a very intimate detail about me.”
“So, Aunty, where would you want to go next? “
Shopping, the girl in her jumped out.
All of us went to Pantaloons to satisfy Aunt’s insatiable desire to shop while I painfully kept myself the entire time. She on the other hand kept talking the whole time. Therefore, it mustn’t come as a surprise when I asked, “Are you a close relative to them?” as soon as I got out.
“No, not very close. I was talking to them the whole time because I don’t want them to feel left out in a new city. I’m just being polite.”
“Hey! Hey! Hey! So, were you just being polite to me through all this time?” I implored.
“No! “(Laughing)
“Then Prove it”
“Aunty”, she called her a moment after, “Why don’t you people go shopping and while we have our breakfast. We’ll join you in half an hour.” She had to shout.
The sweet shop opposite to it seemed like a perfect place to quench our hunger. We ordered Samosas and Kachoris but knowing that the cook had just poured a fresh stock of oil in the utensil, I thought to resume my question about knowing her.
She was quicker than me, “Do you know that this place is called Rukmini Gaon?“
I was surprised, surprised because I knew this place as in between Ganeshghuri and Six Mile area and as a Marketing Member of my college fest, I should have known this. At that moment, I felt like a stranger in this place even though I have been a veteran.
“And you do know that Rukmini was the wife not the mistress?”
The high pitch laughter made everyone look at us.
Me : So, I assume that you do know the city quite well.
She: No, I won’t say so. Ever since IIT has been opened, the other side of the bridge is considered to be Guwahati itself and I have never been to the other side.
Me : Not even during Alcheringa
She: Especially not during the Alcheringa.
Let’s have a deal then. You’ll show me the city and I’ll take you to the other side.
“It appears to be a good idea but what about them, “She pointed to the Pantaloons building.
Now, I couldn’t like them completely nor I couldn’t hate them. They were the reason that I met her and now they’re the reason why we couldn’t go on.
“I think, we should ask them. Ask them what they want to do next? I can always make excuse for a project or an extra class which is extremely important.”
“What about me”, she uttered.
“You don’t seem like a girl who could play dishonest. I ask you to stay here while I go and talk to them explaining that one of your friend called and you had to go and meet her.”
“Won’t it be rude?”
“No, not at all. We waited while they were worshipping. We have already been polite.”
“And, how do you think they’d be able to find the guest house without us.” she raised her concern.
‘The cab, my dear. We now have plenty of them. Prime, Swiss, My taxi, Ola. I’ll brief them about it as well. You worry too much.”
I was back in little over 15 minutes and we began walking towards Ganeshghuri.
“Why is Ganeshghuri called so?” I inquired.
‘Oh! It’s simple. There was a tree, the bark of which resembled Lord Ganesh. They built a temple in the locality and hence the name.’
“It is interesting. Earlier, I knew of this place only as a very strategic location where two of the most important roads, G.S Road and Zoo Road merge.” I added.
“Yes, it is, in fact this road leads all the way to Shillong up ahead and Shillong has a G.S Road of its own. G.S Road is essentially an abbreviation for Guwahati Shillong Road.
We reached the beginning of the flyover and boarded the bus from there. I did try to get the conversation going in the bus but if you had been to the buses here, you’d know that it is a pretty hostile place to have a conversation. While she was about to say something, the bus driver put the pedal to the metal and her face buried at my chest. We were trying not to be deterrent against the hostility but this worked as a perfect conversation inhibitor for a while. We dropped at the Hub.
“What do you know about the city? She asked. I need to know in order to make a tentative route to show you around.”
“I have roamed here a lot and no matter where you are the end name of the location will always have ‘-bari’, ‘-gaon’ or ‘-bazaar’ in its name.”
“What about Christian Basti or Noonmati or Khanapara?” Her eyebrows were intense. “Don’t generalize my city”.
“Oh! There is one more thing that I do know.”
Chariali is when there is four ways and Teniali is when there is three ways from a point.” I tried to sound smart.
“Is there anything more left in your little lexicon”?
“Naah ! That’s all I could muster”, I shrugged.
Let’s do some window shopping and if we find something good, we can give them to Uncle and Aunty as a parting gift. I wanted to roam outside but I realized a piece of wisdom that one of my friend offered me a few days back. Never come between a girl and shopping, he uttered. Therefore, I went along with her without even hesitating a bit.
The thing with ‘The Hub’ is that once you enter inside, it shows promise. It appears as if you’ll definitely find the stuff that you’re looking for but after wasting a couple of hours, you do realize that it was just a false illusion. The same thing happened to us but before that she did try a hat while we were coming down from the stairs.
“Tumi dhuniya lagi se”, I whispered.
“So, you do know something apart from Chariali and Teniali” and then she burst into laughter.
It was afternoon now and both of us were starving. In addition to that, as per the deal, I had to show her the campus. Knowing that the city doesn’t have much to offer we agreed to go to the other side on ferry after having lunch at JB’s. The bus took us to the Fancy Bazaar. We went inside and since the restaurant inside opened up only at 6 in the evening, we cursed ourselves as both of us were at fault knowingly. We concluded that it might be a blessing in a disguise as we still have plenty of adventure left in us and plentiful of food will eventually make us lethargic and lazy. We ordered the items that are mainly breakfast items as our lunch and continued talking.
‘What’s the story behind Nepali Mandir’, I had this question since we crossed that while reaching here.
“I am not quite sure, she said but it is perhaps because the founding priest was a Nepali but I am not sure.”
“Oh really, How do you differentiate between a Nepali or any other North Eastern”, I tried to funny.
“You know what, the North Indians are very much to India what Americans are to the world. They are rude, insensitive and have no respect to the indigenous culture. They won’t even learn new languages because they think that knowing Hindi is sufficient.” She sounded intense.
“I am Sorry, I didn’t mean to be mean and offensive.”
I concentrated on my food and tried to avoid her eyes. After a little while she spoke, “Are you going to be such a poker face the rest of the day?”
I didn’t reply to that.
“Come on! Be a man and uphold your side of the deal”.
Me: Why do you think everything is so screwed up, the racial discrimination in the central part of the country and the lynching of people in the interiors here?
She: It’s over. Topic closed.
Me: No, I want to know.
She: Really?
Me: Yes.
She: I think it basically arises from the fact that we do look a bit different. Our way of lifestyle is different. Now, in most part of the country, the differences are celebrated because we think of them as our own because of a common past but people in the rest of India don’t know if they have any common past with us. Pick up the history textbooks. It talks about the Magadha Empire, the Mauryan Empire. In the South it talks about Pala’s and Chola’s Dynasty. Then comes the Delhi Sultanate and the company rule. The common part in all of them is that none of these have ever reached the North Eastern India and even if they had, it is never taught to us. The Britishers arrived at Calcutta and went towards the fertile plains neglecting the difficult hilly terrain. The History textbooks treats us the same way. We appear as cameo when we talk about dance and the costume. If you were not with us in the past and are not cooperating much in the present, it is difficult to believe in the possibility of a future. Coming to the point the way why North Indians are sometimes treated roughly here. It is because the oppressions always have a retaliation and the retaliation most of the time is at a different place. Let me explain this to you in your lingo. It is very much like the Newton’s Third Law. Every action has its equal and opposite reaction but the action-reaction pair doesn’t act on the same body. They are applied on different body. During the 70’s and 80’s North Eastern India was full of possibility for the working class as this part wasn’t penetrated much and traders were able to get a huge profit margin. When they came here, they came without family and you know the urges of the working class people. Since, the society here has been quite open right from the independence, it was not difficult to get people married here but the problematic thing was that the girls were never really wife to them, they were more like a mistress and they left them here once the trade season ended. This resulted in great trust issues and even today many of my friends’ mother warns us when it comes to marrying a North Indian guy. They have their inhibition.
I couldn’t help but wonder the impact my sentence about Guwahati being like a mistress must have been on her.
‘Shall we proceed?, she asked.
“Yes, of course”, I was too stunned by her answer to be hesitating.
We sat on the small ferry and the as usual the Brahamputra looked magnificent. With the sun light falling at a particular angle at the time of the day, it appeared as a Golden River.
“My mother doesn’t likes travelling with ferry. She had hardly have ever been to the other side and she prefers the bridge. Do you think it is dangerous, the rickety ferry boat?” she asked.
“Initially, I used to think like you until one of my professors enlightened me. There is a thing called fatigue failure when a system fails at a much lesser load than it can actually bear because of the force distribution cycle. We take factor of safety of about 3 or 4 in such cases. Considering that, this bridge had expired five years back. The firm that built this won’t be responsible for any damage. We are at a safer place, Trust me.” I assured her.
Meanwhile, I called my friend who was there in the campus to arrange for a bike. I told him that I am with a girl and he didn’t ask anything further. It is interesting that on any usual date, lending a bike is only possible after a very arduous task of convincing but the moment you mention a girl, it becomes as smooth as you own the bike.
We entered from the Khokha Gate and I could tell her from her face that she wasn’t pleased with the way she entered. The Gate didn’t impress her at all. We raced through all the hostels. Her entry wasn’t allowed in the boy’s hostel and I couldn’t enter the girl’s hostel. This inhibited us from exploring all the hostels completely. After roaming around all the faculty quarters and the lake that accompanies, she was pleasantly flabbergasted. I parked the vehicle at the Administrative Building parking lot and began telling her about the buildings by pointing towards them.
“Bhupen Hazarika Auditorium”, she spoke to herself reading the sign that was put up. It was loud enough for me to hear.
“What is the reason that this city can never get enough of this guy?” I asked her. I had always wanted to know about this guy. He was the only person who was able to call off a sudden holiday out of all the working day in our college when he died. That to me was huge.
“Bhupen Da to an Assamese is what Rabindranath Tagore is to all the Bengalis in a way.” Her answer was short and crisp and I didn’t had to ask any further. She was very much impressed by all the buildings, open spaces and cleanliness and she kept appreciating till we reach the Academic Complex.
Me: This is the best structure that we have here and it is one of the most beautifully constructed building I have ever seen. Take a very careful look at the front. So, have you gazed enough?
She: Yes.
We entered the building through the side entrance that leads directly to the Mechanical Engineering department.
“So, this is my department. What amazes me about this place is the way the two floors and three floors merge. It is so seamless that if you don’t pay attention to it, you won’t notice. Another thing that I have noticed is the complete disregard of the usual definition of first floor or the ground floor. Usually, the ground floor is the one which is at the ground level and the first floor above but because the buildings here are built keeping in mind the prevailing terrain, it turns out that a floor can both be described as the ground level and the first level. Consider the road which runs parallel to this corridor. It is at the same level. The HSS department here is unique because the stairs run inside the courtyard part. You can see the large stones which were not disturbed during the time of constructions and they add beautiful vibe to the building. When the buildings of a block face each other, they have connecting stairs and when they don’t face each other, they have a connecting path which runs parallel to the corridor. The Physics department here has a pentagon courtyard without any gradient in the vertical direction.”
“It has now began to look same as the starting point”, she said.
“Yes it is. That is why I told you take a careful look at the beginning.” I said. This building is an open and a closed space at the same time. You cannot go from one place to another without getting a feel of the weather outside.
We were now in the Civil Engineering Department where she was adoring the civility in which the plants were cut. And here she identified the merging of three floors and four floors herself. We made our way back to core I while she concentrated on each of the building trying to find patterns that I told her about on her way. She was fascinated when she reached the Department of Design and wondered the purpose of the conduit built in the courtyard. I didn’t have any answer to that but I did tell her about the sex ratio that we have in Mechanical Engineering and compared it with the Department of Design which is placed exactly opposite to each other. Even still, the female lavatory of the Core I is towards the side of Mechanical Department. This still puzzles me as why someone would put it this way.
The bench outside the Lecture Theatre was empty and I offered her a seat. She began talking.
“It is amazing that you explored the building beautifully. It is no doubt built with great care towards nature and it coincides with the terrain very harmoniously, something which is a rarity to find these days. The buildings of today have great functionality. There is absolutely no doubt about that but they lack personality. If you look at them, they all appear cube or cuboid. Even our city is slowly being that way. The reason why I wasn’t able to show you around much is because the city is losing everything it once had. You can find KFC, Big Bazaar, Shopping Malls everywhere. Is it functional? Yes. It makes our life very easy but it comes with the cost of uniqueness and newness. It was so good to actually see the architecture here.”
“The same thing can be said about our phones, I continued. They all appear the same. A Big Screen. Three buttons. A Back Camera and Front Camera. Even phones have lost personalities these days.”
This insightful tour and the intellectual talk had burned a lot of my grey cells. What about the eating joints here?” she asked.
“I’ll take you to the eating joint but before that the View Point.” I insisted.
I was the one who was showing her around. She couldn’t say no even if she wanted to. She loved the View Point. Everyone does. She was trying to locate all the buildings from there. She was impressed by the sheer size of it and her amazement reminded me of the first time I came to this place. I was as ecstatic as she was, perhaps more. I don’t remember clearly. The four years I spent here started coming as a flashback. The people I met here initially. How they drifted away. The new set of people who came close. The initial club meetings. The events, the thrill of winning and the sadness of losing. It was a cocktail of emotions and it occurred to me that I have hardly a month left to stay here. I’d lose everything that I have been bragging for years now. After she finished adoring the view, we went to the best food joint that the campus had to offer in the New SAC and silently finished my meal. Eating a mouthful of sandwich from Subway leaves a little room to talk, therefore, my silence wasn’t interpreted much.
It was dark now and she wished to leave.
“No matter how much you advocate the ferry ride, I want to take the bridge at this time of the day”, she urged.
‘Yeah! No problem. I have the bike with me for the whole day. I’ll drop you,” I replied in affirmative.
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After about one and half hour, I reached her home. She offered me to come inside and asked what I would prefer, tea or coffee.
“Coffee, I replied.
I was staring at the wall still saddened by the fact that all of it is coming to an end. My friends, My hostel, The fest that I worked, it was my first organization.
“Are you all right?” she inquired.
“Yes”, I replied promptly to avoid any room for doubt.
“I don’t think so. The guy who asked, Are you fond of me at the temple is somehow not present here. “Tell me what it is.”, she asked further.
“Nothing, it’s just that my college life is about to end. I cannot be reckless anymore. The new life shows promise but who knows. I don’t want to leave this place. I want it for eternity. I want to be with my lobby mates. I want to be in the team meetings. I want to see all the buildings once again. I want to sleep in my room. I want to…”
“Ssshhh..”, she interrupted and kissed my forehead.
I could now feel her breath on my lips. We stared into each other’s eyes and then we were so close that we had to shut our eyes.
We continued kissing each other passionately. A moment after I went further down and was kissing her collarbone. She was panting furiously and my lips were touching her body intermittently. I pulled down the lace of her bra from the side. It was now supported by the part of her arm a little below where the immune vaccination at the birth is injected. It is in this moment that I stopped.
‘What happened’, she asked.
“It’s embarrassing.” I said.
We were now sitting down comfortably but we still hadn’t adjusted our clothes.
“Tell me. Is there something wrong?” she demanded an answer.
“Well, for you it is the certain day of a month and I don’t have protection.” I muttered softly.
She rose from the sofa turned her back. She was now facing the kitchen area and while adjusting her bra back to her shoulders said, “Go on then! There’s a drug store a few blocks away. You wouldn’t want to leave anything behind. I forgot that this city indeed is your mistress.”
My heart skipped a beat.
(This is purely a work of fiction.)
This is the reason why this temple is always overcrowded. For the people living here, I guess there must be a race going on where they’d probably show off the number of times they have paid visit to the place.
Knowing all of it, I had to already make my stand clear when one of my distant relative was to visit this city. Little did I know that they had other acquaintances in the city as well. I thought it’d be impolite of me to leave them alone entirely, so, I did end up going to temple but made myself abundantly clear that I won’t go inside the temple premises. They insisted, they insisted while we were on our way up. After reaching there, they too shrugged off when they found that the special line is worth 1000 bucks each and the normal one would take the entire day.
This left me and their acquaintance together.
Don’t you want to go?, I asked .
No, I don’t want to, she sounded reluctant and hesitant while she said this. A little experience about the way the girls here pronounce the letter‘t’, I was quite sure that she isn’t sure.
Hence, my next question was, “Why didn’t you go?
I didn’t want them to spend 1000 bucks on this. Plus, I am a local here and have been here practically every Tuesday. She was very sure while she said this.
Every Tuesday! She’s among the one who keeps score I mentioned earlier about, I thought to myself.
What about you?, she barged her way in to the conversation.
Umm… Well, I don’t believe in Gods and Goddesses. A moment after I felt like a criminal while I said this knowing that she had faith. The venue ended up adding more effect to it.
“Oh!”. She neglected what I said and quickly moved to another question.
“Now that it has been four years, what are your views of Guwahati?”
“Four Years! How do you know that? Are you fond of me?”
Being an atheist does give you a certain advantage, for example, escape from the moral vindictiveness while flirting inside the temple premises.
“No, I wouldn’t say that. Uncle mentioned you and when you live in India, it is kind of hard to ignore the sentences once IIT, IIM or IAS have already been mentioned.”
“Such trend is decreasing though”, I interrupted.
“Decreasing like people’s faith in their religion” she jumped in.
“Maybe! The usual notion of us being nerds and boring is fading away. Then, the notion of us super intelligent and know it all is also being compromised.” I explained.
“The stereotypes will never die, you know” she insisted on making her point which made me storm my way in
“And yet here you are outside the temple premises.”
(Paused)
I realized that I had inadvertently hurt her faith. This remorse was quite visible on my face.
She: The exact reason why I didn’t go inside is that during certain days of a month, we girls are not allowed to enter the temple.
Me: I am Sorry
She: It’s all right.
Me: But this is strange and I don’t approve of it. This place is one among the Shaktipeeths and it is believed that the reproductive organ of Sati fell here and now the women are not allowed because their organs are working perfectly fine. This is hypocrisy. I think you now know, why I am not a believer.
She did not answer it. She herself was puzzled but the look on her face suggested that she doesn’t want to get in this debate right now.
“You still haven’t told me what you think of Guwahati?” she asked in order to ease up the conversation once again.
“Guwahati,
Guwahati, for me in one word has been like a Mistress.
There is a city where you are born and spend your childhood. It becomes your motherland, a motherly figure.
Then there is a city where you have worked honestly and the city in turn has rewarded you a better life ahead. You feel you’re married to that city. Kota has been like that for me. I stayed there for a year at a stretch without any homecoming in between. I was punctual, attentive and there weren’t any distractions. The only time I went out of my house was to attend classes and to have dinner and lunch. At the end of the day, like a good wife, it rewarded me.
Guwahati, on the other hand has been very naughty. If you look at it carefully, this city has all the quality to qualify as a mistress. The weather here gets a lot of mood swings which will sometimes please you and sometimes won’t. Once in a while, without any reason, the sky has to cry, thunderstorms included. I rarely attended classes. I picked up cigarette and alcohol for the first time here and no one seems to mind. No one scolds me for being this way. If it’d have been for my mother or wife, I’d have been slapped for sure but this city doesn’t care as long as you’re leading a popular life. The professors, unlike the teachers of my past don’t care much. If there is no financial constraint, I will go on travelling every time I get a bit upset. I held a few Positions of Responsibility and then I had to leave it. It then got occupied by some other people and now they seem to carry their duty well. They outperformed me in certain aspect and it appears like those POR’s at times are taunting me, “Look I am with a better man now.” Typical Mistress.
“Tell me about yourself? I asked her.
“Look! They’re back.” She pointed towards the distant relatives who weren’t that distant now.
“Oh! I would have said that it was good meeting you but I won’t.” I mentioned explicitly.
“Why?”
“Because you now know so much about me and I don’t seem to know anything about you.”
(Laughs)
“Let’s roam in the city today. We’ll spend more time together and for the record, you do happen to know a very intimate detail about me.”
“So, Aunty, where would you want to go next? “
Shopping, the girl in her jumped out.
All of us went to Pantaloons to satisfy Aunt’s insatiable desire to shop while I painfully kept myself the entire time. She on the other hand kept talking the whole time. Therefore, it mustn’t come as a surprise when I asked, “Are you a close relative to them?” as soon as I got out.
“No, not very close. I was talking to them the whole time because I don’t want them to feel left out in a new city. I’m just being polite.”
“Hey! Hey! Hey! So, were you just being polite to me through all this time?” I implored.
“No! “(Laughing)
“Then Prove it”
“Aunty”, she called her a moment after, “Why don’t you people go shopping and while we have our breakfast. We’ll join you in half an hour.” She had to shout.
The sweet shop opposite to it seemed like a perfect place to quench our hunger. We ordered Samosas and Kachoris but knowing that the cook had just poured a fresh stock of oil in the utensil, I thought to resume my question about knowing her.
She was quicker than me, “Do you know that this place is called Rukmini Gaon?“
I was surprised, surprised because I knew this place as in between Ganeshghuri and Six Mile area and as a Marketing Member of my college fest, I should have known this. At that moment, I felt like a stranger in this place even though I have been a veteran.
“And you do know that Rukmini was the wife not the mistress?”
The high pitch laughter made everyone look at us.
Me : So, I assume that you do know the city quite well.
She: No, I won’t say so. Ever since IIT has been opened, the other side of the bridge is considered to be Guwahati itself and I have never been to the other side.
Me : Not even during Alcheringa
She: Especially not during the Alcheringa.
Let’s have a deal then. You’ll show me the city and I’ll take you to the other side.
“It appears to be a good idea but what about them, “She pointed to the Pantaloons building.
Now, I couldn’t like them completely nor I couldn’t hate them. They were the reason that I met her and now they’re the reason why we couldn’t go on.
“I think, we should ask them. Ask them what they want to do next? I can always make excuse for a project or an extra class which is extremely important.”
“What about me”, she uttered.
“You don’t seem like a girl who could play dishonest. I ask you to stay here while I go and talk to them explaining that one of your friend called and you had to go and meet her.”
“Won’t it be rude?”
“No, not at all. We waited while they were worshipping. We have already been polite.”
“And, how do you think they’d be able to find the guest house without us.” she raised her concern.
‘The cab, my dear. We now have plenty of them. Prime, Swiss, My taxi, Ola. I’ll brief them about it as well. You worry too much.”
I was back in little over 15 minutes and we began walking towards Ganeshghuri.
“Why is Ganeshghuri called so?” I inquired.
‘Oh! It’s simple. There was a tree, the bark of which resembled Lord Ganesh. They built a temple in the locality and hence the name.’
“It is interesting. Earlier, I knew of this place only as a very strategic location where two of the most important roads, G.S Road and Zoo Road merge.” I added.
“Yes, it is, in fact this road leads all the way to Shillong up ahead and Shillong has a G.S Road of its own. G.S Road is essentially an abbreviation for Guwahati Shillong Road.
We reached the beginning of the flyover and boarded the bus from there. I did try to get the conversation going in the bus but if you had been to the buses here, you’d know that it is a pretty hostile place to have a conversation. While she was about to say something, the bus driver put the pedal to the metal and her face buried at my chest. We were trying not to be deterrent against the hostility but this worked as a perfect conversation inhibitor for a while. We dropped at the Hub.
“What do you know about the city? She asked. I need to know in order to make a tentative route to show you around.”
“I have roamed here a lot and no matter where you are the end name of the location will always have ‘-bari’, ‘-gaon’ or ‘-bazaar’ in its name.”
“What about Christian Basti or Noonmati or Khanapara?” Her eyebrows were intense. “Don’t generalize my city”.
“Oh! There is one more thing that I do know.”
Chariali is when there is four ways and Teniali is when there is three ways from a point.” I tried to sound smart.
“Is there anything more left in your little lexicon”?
“Naah ! That’s all I could muster”, I shrugged.
Let’s do some window shopping and if we find something good, we can give them to Uncle and Aunty as a parting gift. I wanted to roam outside but I realized a piece of wisdom that one of my friend offered me a few days back. Never come between a girl and shopping, he uttered. Therefore, I went along with her without even hesitating a bit.
The thing with ‘The Hub’ is that once you enter inside, it shows promise. It appears as if you’ll definitely find the stuff that you’re looking for but after wasting a couple of hours, you do realize that it was just a false illusion. The same thing happened to us but before that she did try a hat while we were coming down from the stairs.
“Tumi dhuniya lagi se”, I whispered.
“So, you do know something apart from Chariali and Teniali” and then she burst into laughter.
It was afternoon now and both of us were starving. In addition to that, as per the deal, I had to show her the campus. Knowing that the city doesn’t have much to offer we agreed to go to the other side on ferry after having lunch at JB’s. The bus took us to the Fancy Bazaar. We went inside and since the restaurant inside opened up only at 6 in the evening, we cursed ourselves as both of us were at fault knowingly. We concluded that it might be a blessing in a disguise as we still have plenty of adventure left in us and plentiful of food will eventually make us lethargic and lazy. We ordered the items that are mainly breakfast items as our lunch and continued talking.
‘What’s the story behind Nepali Mandir’, I had this question since we crossed that while reaching here.
“I am not quite sure, she said but it is perhaps because the founding priest was a Nepali but I am not sure.”
“Oh really, How do you differentiate between a Nepali or any other North Eastern”, I tried to funny.
“You know what, the North Indians are very much to India what Americans are to the world. They are rude, insensitive and have no respect to the indigenous culture. They won’t even learn new languages because they think that knowing Hindi is sufficient.” She sounded intense.
“I am Sorry, I didn’t mean to be mean and offensive.”
I concentrated on my food and tried to avoid her eyes. After a little while she spoke, “Are you going to be such a poker face the rest of the day?”
I didn’t reply to that.
“Come on! Be a man and uphold your side of the deal”.
Me: Why do you think everything is so screwed up, the racial discrimination in the central part of the country and the lynching of people in the interiors here?
She: It’s over. Topic closed.
Me: No, I want to know.
She: Really?
Me: Yes.
She: I think it basically arises from the fact that we do look a bit different. Our way of lifestyle is different. Now, in most part of the country, the differences are celebrated because we think of them as our own because of a common past but people in the rest of India don’t know if they have any common past with us. Pick up the history textbooks. It talks about the Magadha Empire, the Mauryan Empire. In the South it talks about Pala’s and Chola’s Dynasty. Then comes the Delhi Sultanate and the company rule. The common part in all of them is that none of these have ever reached the North Eastern India and even if they had, it is never taught to us. The Britishers arrived at Calcutta and went towards the fertile plains neglecting the difficult hilly terrain. The History textbooks treats us the same way. We appear as cameo when we talk about dance and the costume. If you were not with us in the past and are not cooperating much in the present, it is difficult to believe in the possibility of a future. Coming to the point the way why North Indians are sometimes treated roughly here. It is because the oppressions always have a retaliation and the retaliation most of the time is at a different place. Let me explain this to you in your lingo. It is very much like the Newton’s Third Law. Every action has its equal and opposite reaction but the action-reaction pair doesn’t act on the same body. They are applied on different body. During the 70’s and 80’s North Eastern India was full of possibility for the working class as this part wasn’t penetrated much and traders were able to get a huge profit margin. When they came here, they came without family and you know the urges of the working class people. Since, the society here has been quite open right from the independence, it was not difficult to get people married here but the problematic thing was that the girls were never really wife to them, they were more like a mistress and they left them here once the trade season ended. This resulted in great trust issues and even today many of my friends’ mother warns us when it comes to marrying a North Indian guy. They have their inhibition.
I couldn’t help but wonder the impact my sentence about Guwahati being like a mistress must have been on her.
‘Shall we proceed?, she asked.
“Yes, of course”, I was too stunned by her answer to be hesitating.
We sat on the small ferry and the as usual the Brahamputra looked magnificent. With the sun light falling at a particular angle at the time of the day, it appeared as a Golden River.
“My mother doesn’t likes travelling with ferry. She had hardly have ever been to the other side and she prefers the bridge. Do you think it is dangerous, the rickety ferry boat?” she asked.
“Initially, I used to think like you until one of my professors enlightened me. There is a thing called fatigue failure when a system fails at a much lesser load than it can actually bear because of the force distribution cycle. We take factor of safety of about 3 or 4 in such cases. Considering that, this bridge had expired five years back. The firm that built this won’t be responsible for any damage. We are at a safer place, Trust me.” I assured her.
Meanwhile, I called my friend who was there in the campus to arrange for a bike. I told him that I am with a girl and he didn’t ask anything further. It is interesting that on any usual date, lending a bike is only possible after a very arduous task of convincing but the moment you mention a girl, it becomes as smooth as you own the bike.
We entered from the Khokha Gate and I could tell her from her face that she wasn’t pleased with the way she entered. The Gate didn’t impress her at all. We raced through all the hostels. Her entry wasn’t allowed in the boy’s hostel and I couldn’t enter the girl’s hostel. This inhibited us from exploring all the hostels completely. After roaming around all the faculty quarters and the lake that accompanies, she was pleasantly flabbergasted. I parked the vehicle at the Administrative Building parking lot and began telling her about the buildings by pointing towards them.
“Bhupen Hazarika Auditorium”, she spoke to herself reading the sign that was put up. It was loud enough for me to hear.
“What is the reason that this city can never get enough of this guy?” I asked her. I had always wanted to know about this guy. He was the only person who was able to call off a sudden holiday out of all the working day in our college when he died. That to me was huge.
“Bhupen Da to an Assamese is what Rabindranath Tagore is to all the Bengalis in a way.” Her answer was short and crisp and I didn’t had to ask any further. She was very much impressed by all the buildings, open spaces and cleanliness and she kept appreciating till we reach the Academic Complex.
Me: This is the best structure that we have here and it is one of the most beautifully constructed building I have ever seen. Take a very careful look at the front. So, have you gazed enough?
She: Yes.
We entered the building through the side entrance that leads directly to the Mechanical Engineering department.
“So, this is my department. What amazes me about this place is the way the two floors and three floors merge. It is so seamless that if you don’t pay attention to it, you won’t notice. Another thing that I have noticed is the complete disregard of the usual definition of first floor or the ground floor. Usually, the ground floor is the one which is at the ground level and the first floor above but because the buildings here are built keeping in mind the prevailing terrain, it turns out that a floor can both be described as the ground level and the first level. Consider the road which runs parallel to this corridor. It is at the same level. The HSS department here is unique because the stairs run inside the courtyard part. You can see the large stones which were not disturbed during the time of constructions and they add beautiful vibe to the building. When the buildings of a block face each other, they have connecting stairs and when they don’t face each other, they have a connecting path which runs parallel to the corridor. The Physics department here has a pentagon courtyard without any gradient in the vertical direction.”
“It has now began to look same as the starting point”, she said.
“Yes it is. That is why I told you take a careful look at the beginning.” I said. This building is an open and a closed space at the same time. You cannot go from one place to another without getting a feel of the weather outside.
We were now in the Civil Engineering Department where she was adoring the civility in which the plants were cut. And here she identified the merging of three floors and four floors herself. We made our way back to core I while she concentrated on each of the building trying to find patterns that I told her about on her way. She was fascinated when she reached the Department of Design and wondered the purpose of the conduit built in the courtyard. I didn’t have any answer to that but I did tell her about the sex ratio that we have in Mechanical Engineering and compared it with the Department of Design which is placed exactly opposite to each other. Even still, the female lavatory of the Core I is towards the side of Mechanical Department. This still puzzles me as why someone would put it this way.
The bench outside the Lecture Theatre was empty and I offered her a seat. She began talking.
“It is amazing that you explored the building beautifully. It is no doubt built with great care towards nature and it coincides with the terrain very harmoniously, something which is a rarity to find these days. The buildings of today have great functionality. There is absolutely no doubt about that but they lack personality. If you look at them, they all appear cube or cuboid. Even our city is slowly being that way. The reason why I wasn’t able to show you around much is because the city is losing everything it once had. You can find KFC, Big Bazaar, Shopping Malls everywhere. Is it functional? Yes. It makes our life very easy but it comes with the cost of uniqueness and newness. It was so good to actually see the architecture here.”
“The same thing can be said about our phones, I continued. They all appear the same. A Big Screen. Three buttons. A Back Camera and Front Camera. Even phones have lost personalities these days.”
This insightful tour and the intellectual talk had burned a lot of my grey cells. What about the eating joints here?” she asked.
“I’ll take you to the eating joint but before that the View Point.” I insisted.
I was the one who was showing her around. She couldn’t say no even if she wanted to. She loved the View Point. Everyone does. She was trying to locate all the buildings from there. She was impressed by the sheer size of it and her amazement reminded me of the first time I came to this place. I was as ecstatic as she was, perhaps more. I don’t remember clearly. The four years I spent here started coming as a flashback. The people I met here initially. How they drifted away. The new set of people who came close. The initial club meetings. The events, the thrill of winning and the sadness of losing. It was a cocktail of emotions and it occurred to me that I have hardly a month left to stay here. I’d lose everything that I have been bragging for years now. After she finished adoring the view, we went to the best food joint that the campus had to offer in the New SAC and silently finished my meal. Eating a mouthful of sandwich from Subway leaves a little room to talk, therefore, my silence wasn’t interpreted much.
It was dark now and she wished to leave.
“No matter how much you advocate the ferry ride, I want to take the bridge at this time of the day”, she urged.
‘Yeah! No problem. I have the bike with me for the whole day. I’ll drop you,” I replied in affirmative.
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After about one and half hour, I reached her home. She offered me to come inside and asked what I would prefer, tea or coffee.
“Coffee, I replied.
I was staring at the wall still saddened by the fact that all of it is coming to an end. My friends, My hostel, The fest that I worked, it was my first organization.
“Are you all right?” she inquired.
“Yes”, I replied promptly to avoid any room for doubt.
“I don’t think so. The guy who asked, Are you fond of me at the temple is somehow not present here. “Tell me what it is.”, she asked further.
“Nothing, it’s just that my college life is about to end. I cannot be reckless anymore. The new life shows promise but who knows. I don’t want to leave this place. I want it for eternity. I want to be with my lobby mates. I want to be in the team meetings. I want to see all the buildings once again. I want to sleep in my room. I want to…”
“Ssshhh..”, she interrupted and kissed my forehead.
I could now feel her breath on my lips. We stared into each other’s eyes and then we were so close that we had to shut our eyes.
We continued kissing each other passionately. A moment after I went further down and was kissing her collarbone. She was panting furiously and my lips were touching her body intermittently. I pulled down the lace of her bra from the side. It was now supported by the part of her arm a little below where the immune vaccination at the birth is injected. It is in this moment that I stopped.
‘What happened’, she asked.
“It’s embarrassing.” I said.
We were now sitting down comfortably but we still hadn’t adjusted our clothes.
“Tell me. Is there something wrong?” she demanded an answer.
“Well, for you it is the certain day of a month and I don’t have protection.” I muttered softly.
She rose from the sofa turned her back. She was now facing the kitchen area and while adjusting her bra back to her shoulders said, “Go on then! There’s a drug store a few blocks away. You wouldn’t want to leave anything behind. I forgot that this city indeed is your mistress.”
My heart skipped a beat.
(This is purely a work of fiction.)
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