Edited by: Geetanjali Roy
The village of Rolbha is lost now. It left no name on a map, no folktales in a child’s textbook, and no salty guavas in my eager hands. Yet it made itself a new room in my mind, snaffling shiny trinkets from my grandmother’s memory. I liked to think I inherited her stories, inherited Rolbha—the playground of her childhood, jungles of wild bamboo and tigers, the long stretching fields of paddy and vegetables, bordered by shrubs of turmeric, the garden in her backyard that grew jack-fruits, lychees and bananas. Mine to play around. In the summer heat, I treaded the cool currents of Baral river; and on clearer nights, I built houses with tin roofs and grey brick walls. Dry feet thumping on dusty floors, I scurried through the central courtyard, sniffing the smell of bay leaves and cumin popping in mustard oil wafting from the pot. On silent afternoons, I slept in my sisters’ arms on woven jute mats, limbs heavy and sweltering, soothed only by the fanning of tal pakha. Then I dreamt of cities in faraway lands with little girls in embroidered frocks.
But soon the heat dwindled; the skies became murky with clouds of kalbaisakhi storms. The threat of a torrential downpour loomed over the crops. Uncles wrinkled their foreheads and shook their heads in despair. Yet their children laughed gleefully in the rain, unconcerned. A reverie, then a moment of clarity—hundreds of thousands of rustling leaves, creaking branches and trunks, burbling drains, stooping and shivering crops—oh, so much noise. A flavoursome mixture of grains, there is no telling apart rice from pulses. And then, silence. A timeless silence. It neither stretched nor contracted. It didn’t threaten. It didn’t comfort. It waited for the brimming waters to flow downstream. Then it watched the floods erode the brick foundations of my house, year after year.
Later when the skies poured one last time, shedding their cloudy cloak to reveal a million lanterns, my eyes felt too small. Just like how we light the courtyard with deeps, the night hangs many lanterns to light “bigger darknesses”, so the sugar factory workers don’t stumble on roots or lose their way in the dark, narrow pathways of the jungle. Alas, you don’t see that many in the cities. Their air carries dirt and light. And so do Rolbha’s children—they carry it in and on their bodies. When they scream, they scream in colours of firecrackers. When they breathe, they breathe the earth of their village. And their lips? Perpetually sticky with sugar and jaggery sweets.
I once had my arms and legs covered in mud and turmeric, you know? My two best friends and I raced to the edge of the fields a little after dawn. We were near the turmeric shrubs when my friends tickled me to the ground. Even as an old woman now, I am still very ticklish, but my limbs aren’t strong enough to thrash about. But I was a hearty little girl then. Twelve, going on thirteen, just like you. So, I thrashed and kicked, laughing like there was no tomorrow. When I finally got off the ground, the turmeric shrubs had been trampled down. Baba scolded us the next day. But it was fun. One of my friends moved away to her mamabari the next year, in some far-away village. Oh, I don’t recall the name. The other got married. We never met again. But I still think of them sometimes.
Grandmother recounted many tales to me. I lost most of them to childhood. Yet the one with her two best friends in turmeric shrubs remains with me. Rolbha once bloomed with stories of eighteen years of grandmother’s girlhood. Decaying, withering, nurturing, and flourishing. One day, in the summer of 1966, Rolbha froze in time.
Forty-eight years later, I ransacked its remains.
I am far, far away from Rolbha. It is a village unheard of—tucked away in a different country, somewhere near the Indo-Bangladesh border. There were no such borders when my grandmother was born. Yet, there is a partition between me and Rolbha. It took me seventeen years to truly see that. That her long, black waves have grown grey. The strong fingers that laced with my little ones have shrunk. I can almost feel time running through us.
She is lost like a child’s memory—that carefree girl in turmeric fields. I wish I knew then, that there would be a last time I’ll hear her stories. I would’ve asked her questions, would’ve asked her to repeat them too. So, I hope she re-tells them soon. I’ll write them down this time, just like she once asked me to.