In a couple of days, we shall all be revving up our jingoistic engines to celebrate the wonder that is India’s Independence. 67th such day, they tell me on TV channels already selling you the idea of “…sabse aage honge Hindustani”. The last decade of rapid economic progress has given India some semblance of a foothold in international comparisons (whatever of). However, it was rich of Bollywood to churn such 2-days-a-year blockbusters earlier.
Nevermind.
By then, however, I would have sneaked out of Shillong, taken a flight from Guwahati and reached my room in Calcutta. After all, you can’t travel in the northeast on the 15th of August. That day stays reserved for corrupt politicians, small time bureaucrats and their ilk to unfurl the tiranga behind heavy police barricades. As Aruni Kashyap puts it here (http://goo.gl/qX054J), “It is during August that bombs explode in different parts of Assam.” It couldn’t have been put any better.
I grew up in Shillong and Augusts weren’t as bad here as they were in other parts of the Northeast. The only “free” memory I have of the 15th of August in Shillong though was that of being carried in his lap by my grandfather to put tiny tricolours on the entrance to our family restaurant. This was in the early to mid 1990s. Thereafter, the routine was well-known: you stayed at home, watched the ceremony at Lal Quila if you woke up early else caught the Doordarshan repeat telecast, stayed at home some more and heard stories about bad things that happened to people who ventured out. Often, these bad things were not committed by bad people. Instead, the perpetrators were panicked Indian security forces (the dreaded CRP) eager to keep everything quiet. As a child, it often struck me why these policemen wouldn’t let me celebrate the Independence Day of the same country they supposedly represent.
However, I do remember Guwahati to be a fidgety, anxious town in Augusts (and Januarys). Not only was one supposed to be “normal” but we were also advised not to speak in our eastern dialect of Bengali, and instead pretend to be Calcuttans speaking in shudhho bangla if ever the need arose to speak in public (for those of us who couldn’t speak Axomiya). In that anxious air, anyone could be the enemy, and different people were patriotic to different causes which made one person’s patriot another’s enemy. The right ethnic combination was hard to come by, and mine was as bad as it can get. But I survived all those fifteenths of August, no bomb exploded in my vicinity and I tiptoed around languages, dialects and identities without much noise.
Years later, I woke up in Hindu Hostel in Calcutta to a free fifteenth of August. Outside, there were children playing cricket. There were policemen too, but they were playing football for some tournament and not hiding behind heavy armoury carrying dilapidated weapons. In this country, the jawan was almost a friend. You wouldn’t find them patrolling down New Market as you shopped for the pujos, the rare military truck that you saw can be overtaken by a civilian vehicle. Damn! They don’t even use the term ‘civilian’ over here. Things are different.
Back home, little has changed. The militant outfits that called bandhs in the 90s and 2000s have dissipated, but the fear psychosis keeps people indoors. Nobody wants to be the one person to get into any sort of trouble. We can only hope no innocent lives are extinguished over the next 72 hours. As our cities and towns disappear behind police barricades, freedom is far from anyone’s mind.
As for me, I’ll take an earlier taxi ride to Guwahati so that the driver can return to Shillong before the self-enforced bandh kicks in. And then, to Calcutta and different unfreedoms.
(wrote this on the 13th of August 2013)
carvaan 