Maa (Mother)

I am sitting in class. Around me there are lots of people. Sir is delivering his lecture. I am not able to comprehend everything he is saying or maybe I don’t actually want to. Some boys and girls are taking notes very seriously. Shaheen, beside me, is fidgeting in her seat and groaning in apparent boredom. Occasionally she is writing down something. Some students are engaged in messaging among themselves.
I feel like flying out of the room like a free bird. Sit beside the mighty Brahmaputra and play in the sand with the balimahis. Sit atop the wings of a sohrali hah and visit unknown, distant lands. I am reminded of my playful childhood. How far have I travelled since those days?
Its evening and I am on a sand bank. Alone. The balimahis have gone home to their nests. In the distant skies I can see the sohrali hahs as they wing their way home. The dying rays of the sun meet the warm waters of the river in one last embrace and kiss each other unashamedly.

Who is that? There in the distance? Isn’t this mother? Sitting in the courtyard and making pithas for magh bihu .The mist of the cold January evening hanging in the air and the smoke from the hearth rise to meet in some unseen union. Surprisingly I am there too, sitting beside my mother, a small boy. My mother is busy making pithas on the Tawa. Her round face concentrated on the Tawa. I can see the small wrinkles that are starting to form on her face. I look at her hands; there are fine lines on her hands. She is growing old. We all grow old one day. Why do people grow old?

I am a small boy warming my hands in the fire and watching the embers from the hearth fly up in the night. In the darkness of the night the embers are flying around like fireflies and very quickly disappearing in the night. In the very same manner, I lost my childhood one day, to the dark bottomless depths of the night and today I do not know why I want to go in search of those long forgotten alleys of childhood again.

Balimahis – a kind of bird which takes a sand bath.
Brahmaputra - One of the longest rivers in India and sacred to the Hindus.
Sohrali hah – golden ducks
Bihu - State festival of the state of Assam in India
Tawa – frying pan
Pitha – a traditional Assamese delicacy made of grinded rice with coconut filling.