Fagun
This is a little story about a very ordinary old Bodo woman who lived in a small village called Deborgaon on the outskirts of Kokrajhar town in Kokrajhar district in the state of Assam, India. Fagun, this was the old woman’s name. Any discerning reader may pause at this moment and wonder if reading further is going to be a profitable activity. Now in the 21st century when India has set her foot on the lunar south pole and leveraged herself as a leading voice of an entity termed the Global South, when Ram has been brought home from exile and old yet raw wounds have been sutured, is it at all pertinent to ponder over what, in this grand scheme of things, could matter the story of this Fagun? Let us see…
It was around 10 in the morning one day that Fagun stepped out of her hut. She had finished her daily chores. The morning meal was cooked, served and done away with. The pain in her knees hinted at the onset of arthritis or perhaps it was simply the inevitable consequence of a lifetime spent hunched over things. The smell of spent rain, fresh and warm, lingered in the air. Squinting as she walked out into her courtyard, Fagun let her eyes roam over her small patch of land. Her eyes swept over the sijou plant in the centre, the bougainvillea on the edges and the kopou tree that was largely left ignored until Baishagu when one of the Harsha girls would come and ask her politely to let them have its blossoms. Fagun’s eyes finally rested on the shiuli tree on the left. With a slight nod of her head Fagun walked over to the blooming fragrant tree, then she called out to Rabi, her eldest grandson.
He was a tall gangly fifteen-year-old who had stubbornly refused to attend school for the past few days. He had never done very well in school and now decided to stay home, permanently. Fagun and his parents tried to get him to go back but the boy’s mind was set.
At Fagun’s request Rabi climbed up the tree and started plucking and throwing the shiuli blossoms over Fagun’s head. Fagun opened a fold of her dokhona and let the blossoms shelter there. After her dokhona could hold no more Fagun walked back to her mud walled hut. She still lived in this hut, the one she had been brought to by Harangarhai as his newly wed wife, though over the years she had managed to replace the thatch with a tin roof and then build another small tin roofed hut as a much-needed kitchen/dining/guest room. Within a few minutes Fagun reappeared, now with a blouse under her dokhona and a small polythene bag full of the shiuli. On her way out she stooped to pick up a few of the shiuli that had dropped on the ground and stuffed them into the polythene bag.
Fagun walked with a slight bent stoop. Her stoop would only increase with time, yet she still possessed great vigour and strength for her age. She herself did not know how old she was with certainty but others guessed with good reason that Fagun was very probably in her 70’s. Slowly and evenly, Fagun arrived at the edge of the large enclosure at the centre of which was a small temple. Anyone who was in the habit of observing the life of a poor Bodo woman such as Fagun would remark that this trip to the temple was a recently started habit. Fagun walked up the steps of the raised platform and sat down near a pillar of the open verandah just beyond which was a small dark room lit with earthen lamps and which smelled of fruit and incense. This was her daily routine for the last few days. She saw the young-looking portly priest walking quickly past her towards the temple. He lived in one of the few tin-roofed houses that made up the Bengali settlement that had come up a little distance away from the Bodo village where Fagun lived.
Babul the pujari was young and perhaps even kind-hearted as he let someone like Fagun come and for all intents and purposes gawk at him as he went about his work. Today, Fagun noted to herself, that his quickness of pace was certainly in response to the two women already seated on the floor of the inner room. She had seen the women arriving in a car on her way to the temple. Their car had driven past her and stopped ahead at a tea shop. A young Bodo man, the driver of the car, had rolled down his window and asked directions of her neighbour who had been sitting in the tea shop. This young man was now standing near the car, parked outside the temple, dully rubbing the sides of the car with a cloth.
Babul had started chanting and tinkling the small bell in his right hand. The fragrance of the incense, the buzzing of his chants, the sweet sound of the bell and the gentle post rain humidity felt relaxing to Fagun. Resting her wizened frame on the cool cemented pillar of the temple, Fagun closed her eyes and let a wave of recollections shutter past her mind’s eye. Her childhood with ai and afa, playing with her siblings in the courtyard of their home, the meagre amount of time spent in the village school, getting married to handsome Harangarhai who already had had inside him the desire for self-harm that perhaps was the mark of everyone who gave themselves to drink, and her seven children, five of whom had survived to adulthood. But for the last few months all she had thought about, obsessively had been Jablang. Jablang the youngest, the cheeriest of her brood, helpful Jablang, generous hearted Jablang! Hai Jablang! Zamba Jablang! The sweetness of youth had failed to mature into the placidity of age! Fagun could not stop sighing. Her youngest had shown signs of being a bright student though he was not consistent in his efforts. He had graduated with a simple B.A. Pass Second Division. In other times and perhaps at other places he might have found success easily. But now since the formation of the BTAD, and the promise of political autonomy, young Bodo boys and girls had come in endless droves to Kokrajhar to get jobs, making even the jobs of security guards and keranis scarce. Jablang had had hopes of getting a clerkship at one of the many offices in Kokrajhar Town. But he had not been prepared for how hard getting a job would turn out to be and how deeply he would feel the sourness in his heart.
Today Babul’s helper was young Pratima. Fagun knew her as old village Headmaster Thebla’s daughter. Pratima had been sent away to stay with her aunt in Bongaigaon for her schooling. She had gone on to study English Literature at Bongaigaon College. When she returned to the village for short periods and vacations, the villagers were quietly proud of her. Pratima could even speak Asamiya without the hard accents that characterised the speech of the Bodo villagers whenever they had to converse in Assamese.
Babul was busy giving instructions to the two women seated in front of him. Fagun could see that they were a mother and daughter duo. The mother was wearing a Dokhona and the daughter pants. They were conversing with the priest in fluent Assamese. It was evident that a boon was being negotiated for the young girl. Suddenly Babul looked at Fagun, smiled and said something in his Bengali inflected Assamese to Pratima. Pratima nodded and scooted over to where Fagun sat.
Pratima asked Fagun, “Have you brought something?” Fagun shook her head. “Well then, what are the flowers for?” Fagun looked at the polythene bag full of shiuli flowers. “Come and offer!” Saying thus, Pratima scooted again to the inside of the temple. Fagun squatted just inside the threshold of the temple and untied the knot of the polythene bag. Pratima looked at the flowers, smiled at Fagun and said in a quick hurried whisper in Bodo to Fagun, “Flowers that fall to the ground are not offered in the temple!”. Before Fagun could say anything, Pratima had deftly brushed off soil flecks from some of the blossoms and put them on a bronze tray. She then put a clay lamp on the tray, poured oil into it, moistened a wick with oil and put it into the lamp. She brought out a matchbox and offered it to Fagun. Again, in Bodo she whispered, “You have to light it now”.
Fagun looked at Pratima, then at Babul the priest who was now again busy instructing the two women, and then at the garlanded deity before whom lay trays of fruits and flowers. Several of the bananas in those trays had incense sticks poked and inserted into them, there was also a plate of coins and rupee notes. For a moment Fagun looked abashed, she grinned, looked away and then giggling, said to Pratima, “You light it”. Pratima smiled an exasperated smile and replied, “Just try”. The young woman in pants had turned her head in the midst of all the prayers and chants directed at her by Babul and gave a long stare towards Fagun. When Fagun and her eyes met, she gave Fagun a sunny smile that showed off all her front teeth. Fagun smiled back and with hands that trembled a little, she lit a match. The flame hissed and brightly sparked. Three pairs of eyes, Fagun’s, Pratima’s and the young woman’s, looked worriedly at the match nestled between the tips of Fagun’s thumb and index finger. Before it even had a chance of blowing out, Pratima had quickly turned, lifted the lamp off the tray and brought the wick to meet the burning match. The match died out but the wick had been lit. Three gentle sighs were sighed. Fagun looked at the burning lamp and felt the warm gaze of Pratima and the young woman upon her.
The picture of Jablang came to her mind’s eye but at this decisive moment so did that of others, her husband Harangarhai, her grandson Rabi, her children and grandchildren, her parents, the rest of her family! She recalled even the faces of those young Bodo men and women she had sometimes stopped and stared at while shopping in Kokrajhar town on market day. She remembered her neighbours and the young Harsha girls who always came asking for her Kopou flowers. Unbidden she reflected on Pratima’s courage and Babul’s kindness and the friendly smile of the young Bodo woman in front of her. Much like the little butter thief⁕ who showed his mother the whole universe nestled inside his throat, in this one moment, the expansive heart of this old woman told her what she longed for, she understood what she really desired. And so, despite not knowing the words or the incantations, the rituals or the right way of offering prayers, Fagun simply closed her eyes and thought the thought, “For us!”
Notes:
Fagun – pronounced fuh-goon.
Sijou (Euphorbia Splendens) – plant that is revered by the Bodos.
Kerani – a peon or a low-level clerk.
Kopou – a type of orchid that is worn as a hair ornament by Assamese women dancing the
Bihu dance.
Shiuli – night jasmine flower.
Baishagu – Bodo word for Bihu (there are three types of Bihu, a much-loved cultural festival
of Assam with its roots in agriculture).
Harsha – a term used by Bodos to refer to the Assamese.
Ai/Afa – Mother/Father
BTAD – Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts
Dokhona – dress worn by Bodo women
Zamba – Bodo term to refer to a stubborn man. The female equivalent is Zambi.
⁕Reference to the story of Krishna showing his mother Yashoda the universe ensconced in
his throat.
Michelle Brahma is a Assistant Professor of English literature at Ambedkar University, New Delhi. Her research interests include self-fashioning in digital media, Borderland Studies, Northeast India, and Creative Writing.
