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| And life goes on |
| Tuesday November 24, 2009 |
| When you are in a small bureau which also happens to be your hometown, it can prove to be a double edged sword. While it's all nice to be invited to your favourite aunt's place for a weekend afternoon lunch, it can be a torture to have obligations of attending 'mundans' and Satyanarayan pujas which is of course politely refused with the excuse of a job which follows no strict routine and schedule. But that day happened to be a Sunday and my weekly day off. Generally the militants operating here prefer weekdays to carry out their job, because a crowded market place makes for more impact. But that was only my convenient assumption and in the morning of my day off, two blasts shook Lower Assam. Here I forgot to mention I was clad in my best traditional attire and attending a 'logundiani' (thread ceremony) of my only nephew on that fateful morning. It's considered to be an important ritual and his parents and grandparents had been planning this day over the last few months . The tradition didn't hold much significance in my mind except that several hundreds of guests would arrive for the feast and coming from a close knit nuclear family, I was delegated with the responsibility of ushering in the guests. The ceremony was halfway through and guests had started filtering in for lunch when I got a phone call. Two explosions just 60 kms away from the city. My instant reaction was oh no, not again, not today. Worse still, it wasn't a far off remote area, so it's obvious that someone would have to travel there for the reportage. The phone stated ringing frantically, and I could see that it was a Delhi number. In such a situation there is no way I can say it's my day off and mentioning something like a thread ceremony would seem ludicrous. Luckily my colleague decided to take off to the Lower Assam town . But that didn't mean the phone would stop ringing. And soon I was on line with the Hindi studio which connected me on air without any notice. I held the phone and heard the Chief Minister was on line too. I strained hard to hear what he had to say and when they cut to me I rephrased the chief minister's byte and added bits of what I was told by my colleague. I was not updated with the latest on the ground because I was carrying out my social responsibilities. With the result, that my reportage was embarrassingly poor. Done with a poor phono, I was sure the desk will avoid calling me again. I was wrong. In desperation they would make even a cow speak. They called up again and I moved to a corner of the hall away from the crowd to give a better performance after having collected all the details. But just when the anchor addressed me and asked me something, a relative spotted me from a distance along with their little son who ran towards me and started tugging my hand, holding the phone. The relative started speaking in a loud warm voice saying he hasn't seen me for a long time. My mind drifted, my thoughts got lost midway, and hence it was a repeat performance which now infuriated me. The anchor hurriedly thanked me before I could go on making a fool of myself. I looked at my relative , upset that his overbearing nature has just destroyed my sincere attempt at a phono on a blast in the middle of an Indian celebration. I told him that there's been a blast and stopped short of saying that he has undone my great effort. His eyes reflected shock, he gestured something which appeared like he is helpless and even a little angry. But his hands moved to a nearby table with a spread of sweets and while condemning the incident he popped a rasgullah into an unusually wide mouth. I could see the rasgulla rolling around on his tongue and his teeth breaking it into small pieces with the sugary syrup dripping from the corners. As I excused myself, he had just begun describing the anatomy of a good rasgulla to the man standing next to him. |
Gayatri Bhattacharjee is a correspondent with NDTV from Guwahati.
