(I wrote parts of it in February, parts of it in March, and the last part in April. So, when I say 'last month', it may mean Jan/Feb/March! As usual, grammatical bugs & typos may please be excused.)
Moran is a small town in Assam, split between Sibsagar and Dibrugarh districts. It lies on the primary national highway NH-37 that runs through the state of Assam like its spinal cord.
About a month back, in the soft sunshine of a late February morning at Moran, as I was inclining against a white Toyota Innova decorated with flowers, an elderly person in his 60s approached me in his rather simple attire. I was part of a bride's envoy that was cruising between two districts separated by 7 hours' of road trip on either side of the mighty Brahmaputra, the bride in this case being my (cousin) sister. She was going to be dropped off at her in-law's place, a classic 'bride adieu' trip in our culture. The envoy had stopped at Moran to get tea and snacks, and our custom dictates that the bride & the bridegroom shouldn't get down from the car. So, I had taken two cups of tea and some snacks on a plate from the restaurant where we had stopped, and walked toward the Innova where my sister sat with her newly wed husband. They both thanked me for getting them tea, and as I was about to have a chat, this elderly person approached me who I thought could be a homeless or at best, a directionless person in life who stopped by our car to get some money or stuff. We were just outside a big hardware store as the bride's car stopped a bit away from the restaurant.
"Going with the bride's troop?" He asked me. I felt irritated, partly due to being sleep deprived. "Yes", I replied in a cold tone.
"Where to? And from where?"
"From Golaghat. To North Lakhimpur." I was being crisp.
"Where do you stay in Golaghat?"
"Well, my parents live there, but I work and live in Bangalore."
"Oh, Bangalore! My so and so relative lives there. And son's in-law's so and so relative also lives there."
I gave an expression which indicated - how do I care?
He continued - "Actually, my son and daughter are both settled in the USA with their families and children. This hardware store is mine. I have a few tea gardens of my own. And a few other businesses. But I have no one to talk to. So, if I get a chance, I stop by random cars and talk to strangers."
--------------- ------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------
North Lakhimpur is a remote district in Assam, north of the Brahmaputra. People there speak textbook Assamese, using words which are often difficult to understand unless one has proficiency in the language. For an adulterated Assamese person like me who speaks half of the words in English even while conversing in Assamese, engaging in talks with people from North Lakhimpur is a surreal experience because it tickles my brain cells to dig out the meaning of words which i hadn't used or read for decades and which people there speak effortlessly.
While dropping my cousin at her in-law's place which lay a few km from the primary town, I realized that I had not visited this place since 2002. That is 19 long years. My cousin's in-law's place was only a couple of km from a place where a part of me belongs to. It is where my mom was born and where she grew up. It's the place where my mom's siblings and their families live. And I had not visited them for 19 years. Was I so busy in my life? Did I have so less time that visiting them was not possible for two decades?
Well, until recently, the only way to reach Lakhimpur from Golaghat (where my parents live) was via a bridge called Koliabhumura, over the Brahmaputra, which was about 12 to 14 hours of drive. This was a primary deterrent, I guess, now if I look back. But it can't be an excuse for not visiting them for 19 years! More recently, another bridge (Bogibeel) was built to connect the two banks of the river, and it takes about 3 hours to reach Lakhimpur via Bogibeel from Dibrugarh. And Dibrugarh is where my in-laws live. So, during my stay at my in-laws place soon after my Lakhimpur trip, I decided that I'd visit my mom's family without fail, no matter what. We hired a driver, and took the trip, finally. This was my wife's first trip to my mom's place. It was a visit soaked in nostalgia and regret for me.
"Mama, I am visiting you after 19 years", I told one of my mom's brothers when I met him. "Not years, you're visiting us after an era (after a yug)", he replied.
The rustic life is still preserved in those places. The village ambiance. The naturally simple-minded folks. The unadulterated love which is in scarcity these days. A rush of nostalgia for me, and a bit of pride/happiness to see that my wife assimilated in to the families as if she always lived there, and to hear spontaneous statements from my relatives that they felt so connected to my wife.
When I got married in 2016, we were supposed to visit my mom's relatives as well, as a tradition, which always got delayed until this time. Mom has (had) three elder brothers, the youngest of whom I could have met if I had visited Lakhimpur at this time, last year. A gift for him was packed back then too. I could never give it to him. He passed away last April. When I visited his home last month, I remembered the lunch I had with him in 2002 when I last visited his family. Back then, I never knew I would never see or meet him in my life again.
What did I gain by studying, pursuing professional growth and being super busy (?) in the last 19 years that I had to lose my mom's elder brother without meeting him for two decades? Where am I headed?
------------------------- ------------------------------------ ------------------------------
'Luck' is very much real. If you're religious and/or a theist, you'd call it 'God' or 'destiny' or 'fate'. If you're not religious like me, you'd call it a 'random probability'. When I drive, I often think that there're probably at least 10 different ways in which I could die on the road right now despite being very careful & alert. You know, a branch falling off a tree on my car/bike, a speeding car driven by a drunk driver hitting my car/bike, a bridge collapsing, etc. And yet, I didn't die (so far!). That is 'luck' in the sense that there is always a probability that a truck, having lost control, crushes my bones into a million pieces. When I end up being alive, that probability was too low which kept me alive. If I am dead, that probability was high. Anyway, quite a few things in our lives are not in our control, death and diseases being two of them. One day in the future, perhaps - hopefully - technology and science will give us sufficient armor against incurable diseases, death and old age, probably with insanely advanced A.I. powered and self-learning nano-swimmers in our blood that can selectively any type of cancer cells at any stage, and make all kinds of cancer completely curable even at the last stage, or probably with absurd vehicular technologies that will prevent almost all kinds of road accidents or flight crashes. But until then, we are very much vulnerable to 'luck' causing our deaths.
If we look objectively, a god that punishes the evil doers and rewards the good people, certainly does not exist or else we wouldn't see really innocent people - including kids and children - dying from painful/incurable diseases/ghastly accidents nor would we see corrupt people/homicidal rapists live luxuriously till a ripe old age with riches & comfort. We know really good people suffering from abysmal pain/misfortune for no fault of theirs. And vice versa. If I say this to deeply religious people, they have a very concrete answer to this asymmetry in sufferings and 'luck' -- it's all due to karma from earlier lives, previous births.
And I laugh so hard that it aches. We human beings, can not accept that evil goes unpunished and innocent suffer. So, if we invoke concepts like re-birth, earlier lives, soul etc. - then it gives us a purpose, a reason, and it helps us feel assured that karma does balance things out across multiple life/death cycles. It is in line with our internal 'wish' or 'hope'. So, we believe in it. People did believe it was 'karma' from previous lives/births which made some suffer from and die due to incurable diseases like tuberculosis/polio/leprosy/pox - a few centuries to a few millennia back. Until of course, modern medicines, vaccines and surgeries cured/eradicated these diseases. And now we don't say karma from our previous births make us get chicken pox or leprosy. The hope is that my kid or perhaps my grandkid will live in a society where any type of disease is totally curable at any stage. (To be contd.)
Comments
Post a Comment