Banamallika Choudhury

I had set out this morning, in peace and calmness, to write bad things about my mother. It was going so well that I felt, perhaps I should actually turn it into a novel. And for people who know what a novel is, you will know that it is impossible to write it in those 45 minutes you have till your 2 year old child wakes up from the last leg of her night long short naps. So I decided to take a break. I thought I would resume writing badly about my mother once I am done with my day and the 2 year old resumes nightly naps. But I made a mistake. I went to two Guwahati Municipal Corporation offices. Yes, you heard me right. TWO. And all you will get is this raving rant about the system once more. For reasons inexplicable logically and logistically, I have started two businesses at the same time. Both of these are things I have dreamt about doing forever – a small coffee shop and a small shop that sell all kinds of cool non-mainstream, environment and socially conscious products. ...

This madness is uncalled for.  I have never heard so much about money in my life. I bump into friends at the friendly market place rushing to the bank with waddles of cash. And I know very well he has not earned anything in a while. Somewhere else when I go to meet someone I am asked by the maid to wait for a while. ‘She is busy. They have to count all the money you see’ she tells me in a voice mixed with pride and innocence. I call my personal banking guy looking for change. ‘I have a crore to deposit. How do we go about it?’ - I joke. ‘Oh! Let’s see how we manage that’ - he tells me. ‘Can you wait till tomorrow till I figure out?’  He is serious and matter of fact. Obviously he has dealt with similar requests in the last couple of days. Frankly speaking, this has been the only good spot in this entire black money sweeping spree. The fact that the banker dude actually believed I have a crore of cash. The rest of the stories are grim and dark. Irking factors in this g...

On the big question of whether there is life after birth for a mother, I would say – there are good days and there are bad days. If you ask moms around the world there is not much difference between the two. Here is a comparative table: Good Day Bad Day Get woken up by a scream and a pull of the hair Get woken up by poke in the eye, kick in the nose and a bum sitting on your face Go to the bathroom and breast feed Breastfeed before you can go to the bathroom because the child is screaming the neighbourhood down Clean and dress child (deal with mild resistance if you follow her instructions) Clean and dress baby (deal with severe resistance and tantrum if you follow her instructions or don’t) Make breakfast while baby empties all your kitchen cupboards on to the floor. Make breakfast while baby catches the fridge open, brings out the milk box, spills it all over the floor, slips...

There are days when I feel like hiding under the bed and never coming out. Most inconveniently the bed is on the floor these days because of the monkey in the house. Today is one of those days. Facebook has that Pratidin Times ‘news report’ video to show me as soon as I wake up. I ignore it once. It keeps coming. Then I get a few phone calls. Reluctantly I open the video. I want to hide under my bed and never come out. What is it that bothers some people so much about what others are doing? What is this thing called culture that this super parochial hole of ‘Oxomia jati’ gets churned by so much? Why always only women? Who told you that women is a singular homogenous thing and you can make random general comments about them in media? The questions keep on coming back. I thought I had these answered couple of centuries ago. Or was it medieval period? I do not want to go to the details of what this reporter had to say about women wearing shorts these days on Guwahati streets....

I do not watch TV. To protect myself from knowing what is going on in the world. Ever since Imitha has taken to reading the morning newspaper, I have z class security from any kind of news. There is however no protection from mothers. Mine gives me several missed calls by the first half of one morning. I call back thinking the worst. Are you alright? – I ask anxiously. Her voice sounds tense. She tells me with urgency – Have you heard about Papon’s controversy? I sigh! She proceeds to fill me in with three controversies one after the other. Papon’s, Zubin’s and Zubilee’s. I beg my mother to not pass on worldly inanities to me. Who shall I tell then? – she demands. Talking about inanities, I have stopped watching Papon’s live shows for some years now because of it. He talks too much on stage and makes one wonder what he is on. I take it as a personal insult when he expresses random un-thought-through political opinions from the self-righteous moral height of the stage. Once he ...

So, the people of India have decided and the darkest fear of the progressive Indians has come true. Once again my facebook wall is busy busy busy. I hear so much despair that I actually dreamt being dragged by large machines of development (they looked somewhat like bulldozers).  People were running helter-skelter and I was being dragged away from a group of people for wearing shorts and being drunk. Strangely I was at an anti-dam protest and I kept on asking why I was being dragged. Is it because I was protesting or is it because I was wearing shorts? No one answered. Awake, I was confused. Was that dream a manifestation of the fear? Has this not happened already? Being from the North-East India, state oppression is something that I (and a whole lot of people) have learnt to live with. I was born in the middle of political crisis that led to a full blown armed conflict with state by the time I was a pre-teen. Growing up at gun points, restrictions on basic freedoms of speech ...

Last few months have been hectic in Assam. Apart from confirming my desire to live in South-East Asia valid, it has given us – me and some similar suffering souls - endless trouble. The good thing is humour is at ready hand. The bad thing is jokes are getting crueler as situation gets worse. Come June and come flood. Estimated 2 million affected. I had to walk through deep water pulling my pajamas up to indecent heights and reluctantly baring my Thai food fed midriff to complete strangers in day time at public places. Not good news for anyone. While we were busy figuring out relief work, a group of Indian experts on disaster insisted on visiting. They told us they can set standards of relief work for us. They ordered a meeting of all people who wants to do flood relief work and told us what happens to people during floods. They have seen that in Bihar it seems! In my father’s village I have seen people getting out of their home through the roof during the floods on a yearly basis...