Mago Jaio Na!

Picture Credit: Panchali Sengupta, Kolkata, India

Ma go Jaio Na – Don’t leave us and go away, Mother!

She visits us only once every year. It is looked forward to by Indians all over the world and for Bengal and Bangla people in India and the world, it is one festival that brings all and everybody together in celebrations. 

In Shillong too, for days before the pujas, there is an air of celebration in the air. When I was a child, I got over four new dresses for every day of the celebration. The dog in the house got a warm water bath and scrub and a new collar. Our dogs were registered with the Shillong Municipality Office and had a number given to them, in case they got lost or ‘stolen’.

For all four days of the celebration, our kitchen was closed and we all ate at the pujo mandol (tent) and our dog ate at house, his normal, meat soup and rice. Only Zarak was vegetarian – he ate only rice and dhal! Imagine, for the size of a lion, Zarak refused meat! Unbelievable!

The pujas happened in the Jail Road Boys High School and many other places. Our family, visited everywhere but participated at the Jail Road puja because it was closest to our house.

Every year, when the pujas were over, Shunu carried the gigantic idol of Durga ma, and her children, Ganesa, Lakshmi, Saraswati and Kartika, along with the asura and lion on his shoulders along with three other men on her journey to the river, where she would be immersed, to symbolise to her return to her ‘husband’s house, Sivaloka!

The earth visiting deity came once from her husband’s house to destroy the evil in the earth. The earth is her mother’s home! Symbolic of creation, the earth, is Ma Durga’s . 

That year, when Laika and I sat near the washing area, behind the kitchen to watch Shunu take Ma Durga on his shoulders, to the river, was the year, that finally put a stamp on my fate, as my Mashis, my mother’s younger sisters were going out of Shillong. I was to be sent to boarding school. My crime?

Laika and I were engaged in a kissing act, which had been banned! Needless to say, we were caught in the act by Shunu, as he was passing by with the goddess on his shoulder. Since our house was clearly visible from the road, Shunu had seen me and Laika ‘in the act’!

Actually, this cute participation between us was only an excuse. My family was worried that I may get an infection, but the fact is: where there is love, there is no fear of infection.

My mother had left for her first employment, my mashi was to be married and would leave for Bombay, my youngest aunt had got admitted to a College attached to the University of London and she would be leaving soon. Naturally, I was to be sent away to the boarding school in Shillong.

Like Shunu, who chanted, continuously as he carried the idol on his shoulders, I too had pleaded in tears, when I saw my mother, leave for her job:

“Ma go, jaio na! – Mother, don’t leave me and go!”




Memories from childhood, by Julia Dutta, in anticipation of Terry and His Little Brothers.

Picture credit: Panchali Sengupta in Kolkata, India

My family and other animals V

Laika, the first dog to go to space in a Russian spaceship

Chotomama was the real intellectual in the family. He loved books and read a lot. He was member to many libraries and brought home books and magazines he devoured in just a few days.

To me, he read loudly from Will Durant’s Story of Philosophy, starting me on to my own journey with philosophy.

“Do you know who the first dog sent to space was?”

“No, tell me.” I gawked.

Out came a magazine with the picture of a dog on its cover. He read out the name loudly, SPUTNIK

I stared at the picture and heard the natural born Orator, my Chotomama speak:

“Laika (whose name means “barker”) was a 3-year-old mongrel stray wandering the streets of Moscow when she was picked up and taken to a secret Soviet space laboratory. Scientists selected strays because they had already learned to adapt to cold and harsh conditions.”

In my mind I had already decided that my next dog would be called Laika. And so she was!

Mud brown, with light brown eyes, Laika was reaped out of the space under our bedroom floor where the neighbourhood dog, Lilly, always delivered her pups. It was always a very silence process and there was no warning before that Lilly would be coming in the night to deliver. When the first light of day, filled our mornings in Shillong, with its golden hue, the whole household was up. The Hour would be 4.30 am, even earlier. By 5 am it was broad day light and Shunu had already washed his face and brushed his teeth and stood by the verandah, coughing, which signaled out to the man servant in the house, to quickly bring in this pure Darjeeling Tea, in bone China cup and dish, with Thin Arrowroot buiscuits. But on days Lilly had done her delivery, he smelt it in the air and rushed to see where she was. And there, under the planks, Lilly would let us all have a glimpse of her babies. Before long, she would bring them out one by one, all in the night or early morning to sun them and the neibourhood kids would join in. With shrill thrills in the air, that time, I could only save one for myself, Laika.

Both Laika and a subscription of the magazine Sputnik, were literally gifts from my most learned mama, my Chotomama.

To read more about Laika in the Russian Space Craft, you must read here:
http://www.rocketcityspacepioneers.com/space/first-dog-in-space

Stories from childhood by Julia Dutta, in anticipation of Terry and His Little Brothers

Photo credit: http://www.rocketcityspacepioneers.com/space/first-dog-in-space

My family and other animals Part II

My tears for Tiger had dried up fast, licked away by Bagha’s frequent ‘kisses’. Clumsily I would pick him up only to be smothered with kisses all over my face. In an effort to save my face, I would drop him on the floor and a sharp yelp would denote a hurt little puppy. No sooner though, he would forget his hurt leg and jump behind me wherever I went.

Again, in traditional houses like ours, dogs were not allowed inside the house. They had their own kennel. Bagha and I sat on the steps leading down from the main house, with him brushing hard against my side to engage in talks that only children and dogs do.

“Tomorrow is my birthday, Mamoni said. You must have heard the many things I wanted for my birthday.”

He wagged his tail and stretched his neck to kiss me.

“I am getting a new dress and you a new collar around your neck. Shunu is getting one from Barabazar. It is brown in colour Mamoni said, because, you are shining black.”

Indeed, Bagha was jet black with a wet black nose. Despite the many warnings, including instilling the fear of being sent away to boarding school for kissing his nose, I would always, always kiss his soft black nose, hiding away from elders in the house.

Bagha grew very fast and in a matter of two months, he was a strong big dog who turned out to be possessive and jealous of anyone else who took the attention away from him. Such as the chicken.

We had over fifty white leghorns in our house which lived inside a very large hen pen. Around 9.30 every morning, my mama would go place food in their feeding long dish. You should have seen them at that time. The whole hen pen was full of birds flying and landing up on my mama’s shoulders and head. There was so much sound with all of them calling out at one and the same time that the pandemonium could be heard from the streets way above our house.

Bagha was forever alert at these times. He monitored them from far and in the afternoon when they were let out of the pen to roam around to pick up worms and such things, he chased them endlessly. While the hen and cock scraped the ground with their feet to look for worms, Bagha prepared for the prowl. Slowly and stealthily he approached them like a tiger on his bait and as soon as he was close enough, the hen was alarmed and he began the chase. Mostly, he got one of them by the throat! But he never ate them, he just left them on the floor, his anger and jealousy avenged.

The next day was a day of tomb-like silence in the house, when my angry mama bit his teeth planning for the punishment to be doled out to Bagha.

At last, when I was away at school, my mama did the worst thing any man can do to an animal. It was an act that proved that man is worse than dog, because when dog kill he does it from his natural instinct to prepare for his meal; when man kills an animal, he does it to prove that he is the Lord of the human jungle, which is bereft of all love, loyalty and fellow-feeling.

The day, Bagha was shot dead by my mama’s rifle, Bagha could not rush back to attack my mama – he had been tied to the pomegranate tree by the side of the ‘toilet’ in our traditional home in Shillong.

Bagha died but the guilt of killing his own pet never left my mama, not even after he took sannyas and lived for twenty-five years at the Ramakrishna Mission at Luxa, Banaras, till he died.

I was told by those who were at his bed-side when he was passing on, that he craved to say something, nobody could understand because he was delirious and I wondered if it was a confession he was making to someone.

I also wondered if Bagha was at his bedside, like a true and loyal friend, come to take his Master home?

I would never know, because, I was not there to hear His Mater’s Voice at his dying hour.

Stories from childhood in anticipation of Terry and His Little Brothers

Picture credit: http://cdn.cutestpaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Cute-Black-Dogs-l.jpg