For the Assamese version, please click here.
Tidbits Of
Life
Saurav Morikolongia
Some seemingly
small experiences give new perspectives, views and at times wisdom. Below are
some that came to my life in the recent past.
Fragrance of
Childhood
My younger one goes
to horse riding class. The stable is hardly 5 kilometers from our house in
Eindhoven but the surroundings there resemble the mini-forest next to our house
in Morikolong, my native village in Assam, India, with different trees and the
adjacent cultivation field. There is a long lake/wetland just like our
Morikolong beel. My daughter rides on horse by its side and I follow her walking.
At times, the horse trots and I try to keep pace with it. This goes on for an
hour. It takes me back to my childhood. No cow dung but there are horse
droppings. Types of trees differ a bit but it is the same lush green, same
muddy puddle below – when it rains.
On a winter day,
the stable owners were enjoying the warmth of fire as we do in Morikolong. At
the smell of smoke, my daughter screamed with excitement, “It smells like
Morikolong Aita (Grandmother)’s house!” True, it smelt like our house, it smelt
like our childhood.
Benevolent,
tolerant Mother Nature
I was in Bangalore
in July last year for office work. I was staying in Sheraton Grand in the
Rajajinagar area. Mom joined me there. My elder niece, doing computer
engineering in Chennai, was in Bangalore at that time, attending a training.
She came to meet us.
In the evening, we
went to the Orion Mall which is just next to Sheraton Grand. There was a tree
between the hotel and the mall. We heard a tremendous level of chirping and
looked up. On the tree, there were only parrots and parrots! Felt like more
parrots than leaves! We three from three generations were mesmerised at the
sight. In the entire length and breadth of that area, it’s only concrete jungle
– number of trees can be counted on finger tips. Mother Nature showered her
benevolence even there.
Dignity of Labour
Till some time
back, the art teacher (a PhD student here in Eindhoven) of my elder daughter
used to mop and wipe our house. Now she got another part-time job so she could
no longer do mopping, wiping. But I will be proud of this example of dignity of
labour, which happened in our household.
One day just before
entering the office building, I saw a man painting the front wall – a house
painter. He was wearing a special dress because of painting but that apart,
there was no difference between him and a university professor.
Also, it gives me
immense pleasure to see the bus drivers wearing suit-tie. They are proud of and
happy with what they do, just as the scientists are – for example.
There is no ‘big’
or ‘small’ in work.
Divorce
One of my close
friends got divorced after more than 15 years of marriage. Both my friend and
his now ex-wife are very dear to me. From Maitreyi Devi,
Szechenyi Bath to Bratislava, Lake Balaton, Bombay Palace – there are many
shared memories with them. Once upon a time, in their house, they made me
celebrate my 25th birthday by cutting a cake with 25 candles on its
top. That was the first time I saw a cake on my birthday. (We used to celebrate
our birthdays bit differently in our childhood.)
Now, they are not
there together.
They have moved on
their respective lives with new partners. But I am waiting somewhere to see
them together again.
The Pleasure of
Cooking
All throughout my
life, I have eaten like a glutton. I neither drink alcohol nor smoke. But food
– aha ! From Assamese ‘mati dali’
delicacies to different continental dishes – I eat sincerely and I eat too
much.
I have been eating
and eating but I hardly had any brush with cooking. But slowly, I am honing my
culinary skills – chicken curry, egg curry, biryani. Some time back, I even
made dal
with paas phuron. I
have a special respect for the making of the paas phuron dal – seems like an
easy but important art mastered by seasoned cooks. Just like Sachin
Tendulkar’s straight drive – feels like a shot played in defence but
before you realize it, the ball is outside the boundary.
I get a unique
pleasure from cooking – feel relaxed.
Patience and Hope
I take my younger one
to piano class – I perform this ritual every Saturday morning. I am not quite
sure about the progress though. But with a hope, I have been doing my duty.
This hope is not
completely baseless. When I first took her to swimming, for the first one and
half year, she could not do much. But teachers here have more patience than I
have. If I vent my frustration to them sometimes, they would say, ‘No, she is
doing well!” Yes – in the next one and half year, she completed six internal
levels and three diplomas. She is now a Netherlands security standard certified
swimmer. She is eight.
Discovery of a
container
Koraiguri is a
wonder – made of finely ground roasted rice powder in Assamese households. It
goes very well with butter, sugar and milk as breakfast or snacks at other times.
The connoisseur in me puts koraiguri in the same place as the one for the most
sought after snacks in the world. There is a supply of koraiguri from
Morikolong to Eindhoven that lasts for a few months in a year. Now my daughters
too like the taste. So the gap between demand and supply is increasing.
Sometime back, we
finished the last servings of koraiguri from the last supply. There was a pall
of gloom. But then, a few days back, my wife found a small container which had
koraiguri and we completely forgot about it! An atmosphere of pomp and gaiety
replaced that pall of gloom.
Friendship
One day morning – I
was taking my bike (bike means bicycle in this part of the world and not motor
bike) out to go to office. It was drizzling and then started raining harder. I
dropped my bike plan and took out the car. Reached the first small road
junction from my house and saw that a boy, aged probably 14/15, cycling in
front of me, with a big smile on his face not caring about the rain at all.
Then I saw another boy of similar age coming from the other side. They both met
at one point and went ahead. I was left behind in my four wheeler.
No talk. Work.
‘Thinking’ – yes,
that is what I do most. Then I talk. Only then, work. As long as I was in
India, this strategy worked. Many a helping hand was available there. I hardly
did many of the stuff and some I never did. One of them was changing a tyre. It’s
been 16 years since I have been driving a car. Got flat tyres so many times in
Bangalore. Don’t remember if I got any Ravi or Hari but an Ismail bhai or a
Riaz bhai was readily available for help. So never got a chance to do it.
A few months back,
a tyre in my car got punctured for the first time in Europe. Forget about Ravi,
Hari – there were no Ismail bhai, Riaz bhai – not even any Gary or Denis. So,
the best help - self-help. Saw a video
in YouTube and did it.
Never thought in
life that I would be so happy after changing a tyre!
Love Thy Neighbour
The boundary wall with my neighbour Arun (the real
Dutch name sounds so much like Arun hence naming him Arun) was getting damaged
by a creeper from my side. So we decided that we would remove the creeper. One
fine day – Arun’s father (who stays nearby) too came and we all three started
removing it. It was quite a stubborn one and it became a hell of a job. Anyway,
eventually it was done. Then came the question of plastering the damaged wall.
I asked them whom I should approach. Arun’s father said,”Why to call anyone
else? I am there for help.”
A month or so
passed. I thought he forgot. But no – he informed through Arun and next day, he
was at our house with cement, sand and all the required tools. He did
everything by himself. Me and Arun were standing behind him like two useless,
jobless guys.
I was amazed by
this care shown towards neighbours. Normally, there is no invitation even for a
cup of tea or coffee but in need, this much help !
Survival of the
Fittest
Until Corona came
to our life, there were big hue and cry and protests against the Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA) (I am talking about the protests in Assam which
is completely of different nature from that of rest of India. Protest in Assam
is against pushing ethnic Assamese, regardless of religion into existential
crisis whereas pan India protest is against the preferential treatment based on
religion). But these series of events was somehow bringing back all the good
memories of all the hardworking so-called illegal Bangladeshi immigrants whom I
met in my life. Without them, our life would have come to a standstill.
Particularly, there is memory of a lady – amiable and diligent. She would do
the household chores sincerely, would bless us before we went for exams, with
her broken Assamese.
There are flaws
in the law. We should protest and we are protesting. But at the same time, we
should realize that Mother Nature has only one law regarding existence –
survival of the fittest! We are leading a movement in Assam which is important
but at the same time, we should also focus on work, hard labour. Otherwise, no
CAA is required to destroy us, we will be anyway doomed. And, no NRC
can save us then.
Also, harmony
across cast, creed, religion, ethnicity is key. God has created us all as
humans. Humanity is the supreme religion.
Corona and Life
Without Dad
Corona has shaken
the entire human civilization up. We thought we kissed pinnacle, we were at
zenith but Mother Nature has shown once again how insignificant and vulnerable
we are.
But this crisis
has brought us a new perspective to look at life – to throw the ‘wastes’ out of
our life, to focus on things which are truly valuable. This way, corona is a
boon. Nachiketa’s
Bengali poem on corona
and Manoj Kumar Goswami’s
Assamese one sum it up all.
Before this
tsunami of corona, there came a cyclone to our lives and took our father away.
Loss of father – inexplicable in words. I am a completely independent person in
forties. Still, Dad’s absence has made me feel like a rudderless boat. An
irreparable loss.
Amidst this
profound grief, there is also a feeling of liberation. Dad’s death has made me
more fearless. Probably, because it is my closest experience with death – or probably
because my sub-conscious mind is preparing myself – now that dad, an ocean of
strength, is gone out of my life. Wise men say, “Fear is not good for great.”
With fear slowly fading out, I see light of something bigger, something better.
I don’t know
whether that something bigger, something better will happen or not. But I am proceeding
with a strong hope. And, hope sets us free.
