Volume 35, Issue 6, March 2008 - Posoowa

In some respects, I struggled all my life to
accept his two sons and I still do, particularly
with the oldest one, as my nephews rather
than my younger brothers. My casual
relationship with them reflects that
ambiguity. It created internal conflicts
within me too. When my brother brought
home bars of Cadbury chocolate apparently
for his young son Raju, I would be the first
one to hurriedly step out of my room and
receive him at the door, and grab my share
of the bars as he was emptying his pockets
on the table. I was in my mid-twenties then
and was working. But, I was staying with
him. Staying separately was out of the
question.
I had seen my brother work hard both in
literary and ‘thikadari’ fields. He revived my
father’s faltering brick-manufacturing
business and successfully expanded it into
other areas to pay for the educational and
other expenses of the large family. He
splurged on buying books. It felt like the
lone bookstore Silk House in Dhubri
survived on the liberal patronage of my
brother. My brother liked eating good food,
preferably, cooked at home. He liked the
English translation of his stories by my wife.
He liked her simple style and formulation
of the essentials.
But, he needed a change of pace, in content
and style. Literature was the right choice for
him. Assamese, the language of the masses,
was his preferred choice of medium to
‘converse’ with real people like the
extremely lovable Ketu, Rajani, and many
others such as my grandfather who was from
Chenga.
He couldn’t express enough of his
indebtedness to both fellow litterateurs
Homen Borgohain and Chandra Prasad
Saikia for helping him out in many ways
during his literary career. He was all praise
for Monju Baruah, the owner and operator
of Wild Grass Hotel at Kaziranga, at whose
invitation he spent some days at the resort
hotel with his family and grandchildren. In
a quiet sitting in his house with my wife, he
spoke of Baruah’s love of literature and the
environment.
He was good in English and math. He wrote
an article or two in English back in 1954 in
the Assam Tribune when he was working
there as a sub-editor of the newspaper. One
of the articles was titled ‘On Smartness and
Intelligence’ written with the backdrop of a
tea garden mechanic who found himself lost
in Calcutta for training on a piece of
machinery. He regarded the English
language as a very powerful useful tool, tool
only, for exploration of new territories and
amassing knowledge. But, there the
usefulness ends.
He was good with mathematics. He taught
superbly ‘transmission lines’ to the electrical
engineering students at the Assam
Engineering College. He taught
mathematics (Analysis) at the Gauhati
University. He maintained with the owners
of the said newspaper a close and enduring
relationship.
Well done, my dear ‘Dada’! You taught me
mathematics when I was floundering, and
you always told me to write very simple but
correct English sentences instead of writing
sloppy, long and incorrect sentences. I never
had trouble with math since you started
teaching it to me. But, I’ll keep on trying to
improve my English. My regret is that I
couldn’t show you that I could write in
Page 11 * POSOOWA, March 2008
Assamese too. How could I divorce myself
from the beautiful heritage of my
grandfather?
The people of Assam in general, and
Gauripur in particular, will remember you
forever as a decent, responsible and sensitive
human being. The scholarships you have set
up at ‘your school’ in the name of our parents
and Niru Vinihi are in good and capable
hands. Goodbye!
Kalyan Dutta-Choudhury
Berkeley, California