THUMBPRINTNE SERIES: CHILDHOOD TALES
ANANYA S GUHA reflects on his Shillong childhood
Childhood means the school, the house in Laitumkhrah and the strolls in Laitumkhrah. These are the first things that come to mind when I recollect childhood but there were associated images. Eleven years in school, in St Edmund’s, was a home away from home. The two great events were the Sports Day in March/ April and the School Concert in September/ October. Shillong was the capital of Assam and in1972 that of Meghalaya. It is a picturesque hill station. But what I remember of childhood was its serenity, its slow-moving traffic, the hills that could be seen from my house. But how does one forget the winter season, and the three months of holidays, beginning December. That meant cricket in the school fields, the fire lit in the evenings, in the chimney and the unending peeling of oranges.
Christmas would come, preceded by carols and singing groups of boys and girls. As they passed by the house on the main road, I would rush to the window to listen to the songs: ‘Silent Night’ or “Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer”. Looking forward to Christmas Day and the day itself were epoch making events. The day itself, came and went with church bells chiming and solemn groups of people going to Church. And of course, the New Year was coming…
The winter season meant biting cold, frost in the morning and breakfast in the verandah. Evenings meant the fire place and a scramble to grab the chair near the chimney. In the meantime, cricket matches were planned everyday with clubs. We had a group and we would be pitted against other clubs of different localities. Two bats, one bat for one person and an old cricket ball. These were our spartan requirements for the matches. The matches would end when the sun would take a dip and darkness would descend by 4.30 pm. Winter would mean December to February, as school would re-open by the first week of March. But the hot water bags and the lit chimney would continue, till it was felt that the evenings were warm enough for us to get rid of the caps, mufflers and hand gloves.
That reminds me of another story. It was so bitingly cold in the evenings, that caps, gloves, jackets and mufflers adorned our sartorial presence and even pretensions. All may not have been required but it was considered debonair to wear them. Choosing the caps, the hand gloves and the mufflers was to discern the attractive ones in the shops. Shillong in those days and, I am reminiscing the days in the sixties, seventies and eighties had a winter season which was quaint but exotically beautiful, not much people as students from different parts of North East India would go back home, and some to escape the winter would go out. If we were lucky and father’s pecuniary situation was up to the mark, we would be lucky enough to travel to Calcutta and visit relatives.
And who could forget Grandma’s house in Gauhati? A routine visit to it during the winters, was mandatory. The Gauhati house in Panbazar had fruit trees all around it and from jackfruits to berries were a feast for all. But all this time whether in Gauhati or Calcutta or Delhi, Shillong’s beautiful winter season with its misty afternoons, sunny mornings, and the dew or the frost in the early mornings would be sorely missed -- a definitive and fairy tale like charm, spinning yarns by the chimney side…
My father was a doctor. His patients would come and I would spend time observing them, it was like a fairy tale with characters who were quixotic or gnomic. I loved to romp around the gardens, play with the dog and simply stand by the window watching, as the camera of the eye unfolded filmic scenes.
Summer was another story prefacing the gushing and inexorable monsoons. It used to be pleasant in April May, and we would be taking treks to Upper Shillong, collecting and eating wild berries all the way. Nothing could be sweeter than those berries, not even some of the oranges in winter, and our faces smeared with purplish smudges, we would carry some of our spoils home. And then April and May came. In school we could not go out to the fields and were confined to the corridor running up and down its length. Now the attire was gum boots and mackintoshes. The scenario from winters had drastically changed and there were torrential rains 16 or 17 days at a stretch. In the corridor an Alsatian dog of a teacher chased us. I wrote these lines much later in life:
There is a sunless corridor
sinking cavernous deaths
somewhere the mind recalls…
where we chased haunting illusions
and howling dogs…
April also meant Easter and Bihu holidays. But the monsoons put us in fetters, no walking around the school premises, only the ubiquity of umbrellas…
Sports Day and Concert Day were the two big events of the school. Studies took a slight backseat, and the atmosphere especially that of the former, was that of a carnival.
Let me go back to the story of my home. We had a dog and a cow. They were the two matrices of my life. And when they died, I bowed deep in reverence and paid obeisance to their remnants. Sundays meant cricket in school, house matches. But there was a rider -- if it did not rain. But at the end of the match or if it was abandoned, we had to carry the mat into the pavilion, with the help of stumps! Wednesdays was movies in school and I saw some of the best movies there, including part of the Laurel and Hardy series, Ben Hur, The Old Testament, To Kill a Mockingbird etc. And after that we would rush home to listen to Ameen Sayani’s “Binaca Geet Mala”. The next day we would anatomise our likes and dislikes of the songs.
All this while the story of the undulating Shillong hills was present, as they stood steadfast among rocks and pines. Lovely, undulating hills with tinge of greenish blue:
Let my morning cup of tea
greet you (from my poem)
Childhood memories are woven around the flotsam and jetsam of life: Shillong, St Edmund’s, my father’s pharmacy and memories of the dog and the cow. Again, there were the tall monoliths, figuratively speaking imprints of Shillong’s hoary tradition and history.
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