BUILD YOUR HOUSE ON THE ROCK [PART-II]

Listening to the radio in the evenings at Abo Mori’s house became a tradition in the village. People of all ages came as soon as the shades of the trees in the fields became long and faced east in the hot summer afternoons and wait for Nyanya Mami to operate the radio. How I wished then, to be like him, the expert one who could make the radio speak and sing, thereby getting appreciation of all present! But I was far from even touching the magic box then, for fear of being pulled by it and getting my ears bitten off!

Some months later, after completion of trans plantation of paddy in the fields from the Kothiya Tolis (plot prepared in the field where paddy saplings are grown by sowing paddy grains to germinate), some visitors came to our village from far off place. Elders said the they were from Lakhimpur in Assam. The visitors included a tall and huge white man and a woman of same kind and five or six Nyipak (plain land dweller) people who, we were told, would carry the belongings of the white couple on their backs in places where the car could not go.

The white people looked like giants to me, taller than all the people in the village and also the helpers who had come from Lakhimpur. Elders of the village told us they were Birtis (British)people who had come to bath in the river Igo that flows near our village. They had come on a motor car. Later we learnt that the motor car was called a jeep. In day time the owners would remove the tarpaulin hood while at night it was pulled over again.

The white couple had guns of various kinds and a lot of things to eat in their sacks. Obviously, they were rich people. Later Nyanya Mami told the villagers that they were tea garden owners in Assam. They remained in India even after all of their people left the country, because of their tea gardens. They gave us a lot of eatables including sweets, biscuits and a crunchy, salty thing which elders called Papor. We ran after the cloud of dust of their car upto the river and saw them swim in the deep waters wearing big, flat slippers for buoyancy.The troup camped in the river side for few days in make shift thatch houses built by our elders on payment and left, throwing sweets and buns at us again, making us children and the elders vie to get hold of the eatables on the sand of the river bank. 

Abo Mori was away from the village during the visit of the foreigners. He returned to the village after the visitors left. He was annoyed with them for hardening the soil of the ground adjacent to his house by the wheel of the car. The jeep car had made several trips across his plot of land near his house and made deep impression of its wheels on the ground. 

A few weeks later the visitors came again. This time with two cars and two more white people and as many additional porters. They did not stop in the village but drove straight to the river and camped farther upstream. They had brought 'ready made houses' (tents) this time, which were erected in no time before sunset and the adventurers settled down in the woods comfortably.

Some of our elders followed them and saw them killing wild animals including wild buffaloes. The villagers brought home large amount of raw meat on theircane made sacks called ‘Rache’s and ‘Chepa’s. The visitors had sent meat and fish to the Radio Wala headman of Dipa too. But the gift of wild animal flesh by the white Nyigoms didn’t satisfy Abo Mori. He disapproved killing of wild animals of our land by outsiders without performing the prescribed pre hunting rituals. He decided to teach a lesson to the intruders of the village on their way back.

After few days of camping in the woods, the visitors came to the village on their way back to Lakhimpur, with the cars filled with dried meat, fish, horns and skin of deers etc. unaware of Abo Mori’s anger and his plan for revenge. He got wind of the return trip of the visitors and kept his sword and axe ready for use if need be, in taking his revenge against hardening of his land. 

As soon as the convoy of two cars arrived in the village that afternoon, Abo Mori stopped them and questioned in broken Assamese as to who would plough the soil hardened by the jeeps, for him and who would compensate for the animals the Nyigoms killed without performing the rituals. The village would have to face the wrath of the gods and spirits of the wilderness for killing of wild beasts. The reply of the white man translated into Assamese by the porters did not satisfy Abo Mori. He took his axe and smashed the bonet of the jeep in the front. The visitors scattered and ran for their lives. Abo Mori tried to destroy the wheels of the cars so that they could not move, but his axe failed to even puncture the tiers. Instead, he broke the front wind shields and the tarpaulin covers.Later the porters pleaded with Abo Mori for forgiveness of the mistakes and sin committed by the Sahebs and offered to give anything he asked in lieu of hardening of his land and for killing of wild animals. 

Helped by his brother Rimi Riba (Nyanya Mami), the visitors succeeded in cooling down Abo Mori somehow and left the village with the broken cars without wind shield and head lamps. I did not dare to run after the jeeps to the edge of the village as I did along with other boys in the previous visit of the white people. Abo Mori was good at pelting stones to bring down Champak, a sour fruit of a tall tree, yummy when cooked with tiny raw fish. We feared that he might use his skill to hit us with his stone if we ran after the cars.

The cars sped away. This time smoke of dust was not visible due to darkness, but two bulbs glowed red at the rear of both the cars. The lamps at the rear were obviously missed by Abo Mori. I stood where the cars had been parked earlier and kept looking at their red tail lamps as long as they remained visible. A pang of sorrow grew in my heart that the visitors would never come back again, to give us sweets, biscuits and Papor.

To be continued....

Date : June 9 2014

BUILD YOUR HOUSE ON THE ROCK [PART-I]

It was late sixties of last century. I was then a child who had to keep tugging at his loose shorts to keep it from falling. My daily chore was to bring home Boga and Muga, our oxen used to til our field, home from their grazing grounds on the village, the name of which I fail to write correctly in English or any other language because of its Galo name derived from the symbolic idols made out of sacred plants and herbs during festivals and Ui monam (ritual for appeasing spirits to get rid of sickness and for seeking their blessings for wellbeing). In present day Galo script, it would be written as Dwp, but now it is officially written and pronounced as Dipa.

Located at the south eastern corner of present day West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh, Dipa is adjacent to today’s Dhemaji district of Assam. It is said that Indian national flag was hoisted in this village for the first time on the 15th of August 1947 by the freedom fighters Moj and Moji Riba. The villagers, young and old alike, speak Assamese well. The name Dipa in Assamese means a lady carrying a lamp. Perhaps this contributed to acceptance of the distorted name of the village by its inhabitants. It had ten or eleven households then. The tiny village being surrounded by thick forest, attacking of cattle by predators like tiger and wolf etc. were quite common then. So every evening I had to bring the beasts home before sunset as commanded by my parents.

At the eastern edge of the village was the house of Tago Riba, whom I used to call Abo-Mori. Abo in Galo means father. As per our genealogy, he was related as elder brother to my father. Therefore he was Abo to me. The title Mori (Mohori in Assames) was a tag he got from the days of early nineteen hundred sixties when he served the Taskers (GREF of BRO) as supervisor of laborers engaged in construction of Likabali-Aalo road post Chinese aggression of the then NEFA.

Abo Mori was a short, stoutly man who kept blowing his nose every now and then, making a hornlike sound. It was said that he had sustained injury on his nose years ago, leading to permanent congestion of the nose trills. He was a rich man with many cattle, pigs, got and chicken, a big cultivation field and a big house. His house had big wooden posts, thick bamboo wall and roof made of thickly affixed Tokou leaves. Always dressed in olive green trouser with shirt of same color and a round cowboy hat on his head, he looked fearsome to us children. He had only one daughter then, older to me by few years. We saw him performing Ui to appease his deities to bless him for more children but to no avail. Later of course he had more children from his second wife.

Reaching Abo Mori’s house in the evening from the fields with the cattle in the evenings gave me a feeling of relief and safety always as the fields were frequented by wild animals and their presence in the nearby woods was felt in the dusk. Boga and Muga would go to their shades at our house by themselves from Abo Mori’s house and I would stop over to share smoked roots or home made cake or rice with Anyi Kampu, his daughter.

In one such evening, seeing people sitting on the veranda, I climbed to Abo Mori’s house. A box like object was placed in the middle of the veranda, covered with a piece of cloth. And the box was making some weird sort of noise! Nyanya Mami, Abo Mori’s younger brother, a youth of perhaps mid twenties then, was fiddling with the box. He was turning a round object attached to the box slowly, sometimes to right and sometimes to left. The box kept making weird sound. After some time, suddenly human voice emanated from the box and it sounded like Assamese! 

People gathered. More children joined me. We were told to remain at least 10 yards away from the box as it could pull children to itself and bite off their ears! Afraid, I edged myself as far away from the box as possible. Nyanya Mami told us that the box was called a Radio and it could speak and sing. Tiny sized people lived inside the box who did the speaking and singing. They recognized him. So didn't harm him. He could make them speak and sing. We all looked at the Radio awestruck and mesmerized. Later it spoke in our own tongue and sang Ponu (traditional song sang in chorus while dancing) too! 

Thus began the series of my visits to Abo Mori’s house in the evenings. I would let the cattle go to our house by themselves and sit with other children around the radio, maintaining specified distance from it. Nyanya Mami would come and make it speak and sing for us. In many occasions, my mother came looking for me and would shout at me from a distance for not coming home in time to tie the cattle. Later she too enjoyed listening to the radio and told she had once seen a radio in Dibru (Dibrugarh of Assam). It was then when I heard the name of one Lijum Riba speaking in the radio. I thought Lijum Riba was a tiny dwarf who lived inside the Radio and spoke. But singing Ponu by groups of ladies made me wonder how so many people could remain inside the tiny box! It took a considerable time for us to understand that no one lived inside the Radio, but people spoke and sang from distant places which came to us through it.

To be continued….

Dated: June 9