WAKE UP, LUIT!

I sat in a corner of a coffee shop, the huge bay window giving me a view of the busy city life, while the speakers belted out one of my favourite songs, “Tum Mile”. So very apt for the situation, though I was not with someone special who I could hum this song to while I looked lazily into his eyes. It was drizzling while I munched a really warm sandwich, one of my favourite; a grilled garlic and cheese.

People were just not in the mood to work with the weather as romantic as the rain pelting down on the not so romantic rooftops of the high rise buildings of the city. Norah Jones might have had different lyrics in her mind if she had seen the scene here. Yet, Guwahati’s walking population never seems to slow down, come rain or snow, or hail for that matter.

Everybody was at their jobs. Persons walking busily as ever with their cells to their ears. School friends huddled together under one umbrella. Mothers tugging their children from school, always making it a point to be on the safer side of the road while the child was brazenly open to the unsafe and roaring city traffic. And when you tell them to take their child to the other side, they will literally murder you with their glare, “What’s your problem, it is my child!” I am sorry but I thought every child is important.

Anyway, the rain was creating a totally different ambiance for the young and old alike. The coffee shop, which was initially filled up with only a few young boys and girls from college and some looked like they had bunked school, soon gushed with a lot more people. From where I sat, I saw couples of various shapes, sizes and ages walk up to the shopping mall just next to the coffee bar.

I especially liked this pretty girl, of medium height, not very dainty, yet dressed in a soft powder-blue frock with a satin sash. She had a more than harsher look on her face, not commonly noticed at her age and she was talking very seriously about something intrepid that she might have done. She had put on some weight but will have to watch out so as to keep wearing the frilly dresses she must be liking so much. The boy was much taller with a happy-go-lucky look about him, somewhat flirtatious. He was looking around to see who was looking at them and spied me, looking at them through the huge bay window. There was a crack of a smile to tell me how proud of his girl he was. I liked it.

I was ravenous and dug another huge bite into the now lukewarm sandwich dipped in mustard sauce. I sugared the cappuccino, which had a little white heart in the middle. The sugar hung there for some time and then gently dipped through the middle of the warm coffee. I took a sip. Hmmmm…this is bliss!

The rain poured even more heavily. And then came the hail stones. Little round white balls which pelted randomly, skidding off in all directions, after hittng the ground. My mind flew back to Shillong.

The sky was overcast with dark heavy clouds in the morning. But I thought maybe the weather was going to get better towards the middle of the day.  I wore a brown knee length skirt with an off-white polka-dotted shirt teamed with a cropped faded denim jacket and a new pair of fawn coloured moccasins. I wore my wavy hair lose in a brown hair band. I picked up my pink umbrella, kissed Mom and started walking to the main road.

There was a light breeze blowing and I felt pretty good about myself. I met my class-mate Pallavi at the appointed place on the way and we got chatting about all and sundry. She started appreciating my new pair of shoes but commented that it might be a bad day to wear it. However, it was too late to think about it as we were by then just two minutes away from college.

 Class was good. I especially love the English Poetry classes. Takes me to a different realm. And then just as the short-haired, bespectacled, dusky Mrs. Mazumdar, our English teacher was explaining the second stanza from a poem, the rain poured in torrents. Mrs. Mazumdar’s voice could hardly be heard in the din of the rain hitting the tin roofs of the first floor class-room. She stopped and looked out of the door and immediately all of us started talking. The whole room hummed with our low-yet-highly-audible chatter. Only a few minutes had passed and there was enough material in our conversations worth a book.

“Keep quiet”, Mrs. Mazumdar shouted at the top of her voice and soon all of us fell silent, except for some stray murmurs. She sat down perplexed while the rain lashed outside, a little harder than the first time. We again started talking, a wee bit louder than before. This time Manisha quipped in with Pallavi about my new shoes and how it will get spoilt in the rain. By then, I was worried. Alright, I told them, it is fine with me to go home bare feet. What? Are you crazy? You are going to get your feet cut. They were aghast! They couldn't believe I could do that.

So we came to a settlement. I will go home bare feet, while they would treat me to an ice-cream sundae and hotdogs at Cafetaria, the restaurant in the Nazareth Hospital compound. Cool! The foodie in me was happy with such a deal.                     

This time the wind ripped at our umbrellas while the rain lashed down severely than before as we started walking along the footpath from Don Bosco Square to Laitumkhrah. The others were all huddled under their umbrellas holding their bags and trying not to get wet. I wrapped my moccasins in paper and stuffed them into my bag slung over my right shoulder and my umbrella in my left hand. I loved watching my red painted toes in the water flowing over the footpath. Pallavi who is the daintiest amongst the three of us stepped carefully to keep herself from getting wet, while I played the spoil-sport. I splashed water on her whenever I found a fairly big puddle on the footpath. She would glare at me, while I laughed in glee. At times, I even removed the umbrella so that I could get wet in the rain. By the time I reached the street near my home, I was soaking wet, with water dripping down my hair and making their way in tiny rivulets down my face. My friends thought I had gone loony and till this day they call me a “madcap”.

Never mind the name I earned but I sure enjoyed the simmering chicken hotdogs downed with the ice-cream sundae in strawberry flavour!

I was broken from my reverie with the waiter coming to clear the table. It was still raining, though the intensity had lessened somewhat. The sun peeked through the clouds and again went in. Looked like there will be another downpour, I thought. In a way, it's good. A blessing and why not!

It saddens me and leaves me worried when I see the yellow and sometimes green auto vans parked at funny angles in front of people’s homes, while the pipes from the vans snakes their way into reservoirs, which will probably hold only that much water for three days, if the family is not too lavish. While the ‘paaniwallas’ are having quite a field day, getting richer by the day, it is taking a toll on the Guwahatians. Having to dole out Rs.200-300, the middle class now has a choice of water vans; whether to take a 1000 litre or a 600 litre. But when it comes to water, we don’t have much of a choice, do we? Either we use it, or as Shobha De in Superstar India says ‘be miserably relegated to dirty Indians’.  Well, at the rate the city is moving, we can’t much blame the middle class office going person when he resorts to his stylised ‘modus operandi’ to move a file. “Ki Korim, upai nai?”

Assam has been my pride and I carry this feeling wherever I go. A very close friend, disgusted with the traffic, heat, dust and what not just gave up; there’s no charm in staying in Guwahati anymore, she said. I begged to differ. I would rather be here than anywhere else in the world. This is my universe.

A couple of days out of Guwahati and my heart yearns to be back; back to the sunset over the Brahmaputra while taking a lazy walk on the sandy beach, while a cool breeze plays with my hair,  to the humid, sweaty morning and evening walks around the Dighalipukhuri Tank, the endless drive to the Kamakhya, the ride across the vibrating Saraighat bridge, when a train moves on the tracks below the road to North Guwahati, the visit to the Ganesh Mandir near Latasil Field, to the lady at the corner who sells milk chai with steamed pithas, to getting stuck in traffic jams on G.S. Road, while the FM stations belts out ‘cool numbers’ by the cocky RJs. The list is endless. And of course, dressing up in muga and paat for Rongali Bihu to the distant beat of the drums, pipe and the harp. Can anything beat this? I think not!

It was a couple of years back on 5^th of June. It was World Environment Day. The whole city was agog with seminars, workshops, while the news channels started the day early with the anchors gravely portraying the dismal crisis we are all going to face because of our lack-luster attitude towards the environment. Rightly said!

Gauhati Commerce College too was buzzing with activity. ADDA, as the name goes is a non-profit association of young people with a creative bend of mind. They teamed up with the college students’ union for a two hour programme, with exhaustive deliberations on how to save the environment. Jitul Sonowal and Debojit Saha were joined in a chorus by the team from ADDA; a song composed especially for the occasion by Jitul himself. The street play, enacted by five artists did not find many takers, more for the fact that most of the bystanders did not even understand its implications and rather tittered at the sweaty underarms of the only woman performer!

It was humid and I sneaked away for some respite to my favourite spot in the city; the road leading to the Governor’s house; the view of the Luit and the ambience at the turn of the road invariably has an intense control over my senses. I feel calm, collected and at peace with myself. The wind runs its fingers through my hair, lovingly and tenderly caressing it.

The river was in full spate, as if rushing to inform someone about the brewing storm. There was a distant murmur over the river. The view got smoky on the other side and I could visibly see huge pelts of water approaching me. The first few hit my forehead. I closed my eyes. Everything came to a standstill. I just stood there, in full view of the sky, the river and wind, oblivious to the world, while the rain came down on me and washed me from head to toe. It was close to eternity when I realised that the water had unabashedly made its way through the crevices and curves of my body only to join the rushing water from the top of the road. My clothes clung to me like a creeper to a tree.  I felt blessed and 

A couple of months later, the same year, Tirus, my son, all of three years then, missing the rains asked me, “Mom, where are the rains gone?” This left me speechless.Little did Tirus know that in spite of the endless, seminars, talks, workshops, news flashes and arguments about the environment, miniscule has been done for the growing green house effect and the depleting ozone layer. Hybrid conversations concerning ‘this layer’ in the sky have propelled some activity but on a scale too small to be considered appropriate enough to save the environment. Inaction of the people is the major deterrent, I would say.

There was a time when the whole of the Northeast was known for its green coverage. Trees, trees and more trees; a feast for the eyes. Now, a tour of the city, the outskirts and also the whole state shows a heartrending story. Miles and miles of barren hills, bereft of the green foliage. Rampant earth cutting, felling of trees and thoughtless building of houses in the hills is only taking a major toll on the changing climatic conditions of the state. And thanks to us, we show least humane emotions of what’s happening! On a trip towards Mongoldoi, Tirus asked me, “Ma, who has cut these hills? Can we build these hills back again? Can we use some gum and stick trees to the hills again?"” This left me speechless again.

It was 2004. I was part of the five member GSE team leaving for Canada. We were to visit three districts there- Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. It was a four weeks tour and we had a wish list of what we wanted to see. Apart from radio and television stations, I chose to see how they managed their forest area. What I saw left me impressed to the core.

One lady, maybe in her late 40’s, dressed in knee-length hunting boots, a pair of faded jeans, an off white warm shirt and a half jacket. When we met her, it was just 9 am. Cathy smiled warmly when we were introduced to her. She was driving a pick up truck and save for a couple of saplings of trees in the trailer; she had already planted a hundred in their respective places since the morning. And that too single-handedly! Cathy took up this job with the government because she was concerned about the forest. She told us that the trees planted in ‘her’ area were especially used to build houses. However, for every tree felled, three saplings of the variety were planted immediately. Canadians believe very strongly in afforestation. Only this process will keep them and their wild-life alive, Cathy said. And Cathy was looking after ‘her forest' as if it was the flower garden in her backyard!

The state government has time and again showed us ways and means for a greener Assam. With posters, hoardings, quickies and what not, they have tried to impress upon the people that ‘it’s time to heed the warning’. We surely don’t want to wake up one fine morning and find that our greens are gone, that there are just miles and miles of flat desert land and our women have to walk long distances for water and that the only sign of rain is for the next year! I am getting goose bumps. But if this is going to ultimately happen, then I would have to get new shoes to wear in the desert. So wake up Sid or should that be ‘Wake up Luit’!