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….
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