It wasn't long ago, it was only a few years back which still looks like only yesterday. You must have seen me there lugging that duplicate Moreh Nike bag, eyes starry, body still hard and sinewy from days in the fields. There were special meals for me for twenty consecutive days in the entire district. Each one of the relatives and family friends fed me with the look on their faces saying: Oh boy, we will never see you again.
I was going away with the mask of the master in one hand while the another lugging the duplicate bag. I was too shy to put on that though; I wasn't so sure where I should start wearing that master's thing. My old man was full of emotions, my mother was devastated, so it was those people, who had once trodden the unknown patches, who kept telling me why I should wear that mask or from where I could start wearing. Someone said,"From Awang BOC." There were conflicting voices," No, no. People may say things. Don't listen to him, you can start from Guwahati." They wanted me to advance with that mask.
Years later that mask made me accustomed to wearing other masks as well. Somewhere at some points I was eaten slowly and constantly by the memories of the place I left behind. But that I couldn't show, for people here may say, "Why is that chink walking with that face as though he is the real chink in our armour?" For this I had to try another mask. But my problem was that those masks wouldn't sink into my face, instead they remained as loose as those masquerade masks which have to be held up, keeping my hands busy all the time.
When I visit that place to "see my folks" I fly in after late corporate meetings, lay slumped in my Keishampat armchair jet-legged, order around a bit, and they tolerate it as I do it in my meeting uniform. And when I have to change clothes the hatchback car is already in the courtyard purring for the airport. Inside the hatchback it is always noisy; they don't even let me see the dug out and potholed alleys, roads and streets below artificial fog. I am busy, in fact I am too busy with my life. You don't know that by the turn of next year I will be the senior manager. Wen I started this job I only had a plastic ball pen and a notepad, now I am a human tortoise. But don't call me hippie, for I am clean and write daily reports on my customised Dell laptop. And bedside I don't do weedy stuff.
But what I want to confess, which I have done several times with myself, is what I should never be saying. You know, my Tods shoes give me bloody blisters, the Samsonite straps dig into my pin-striped two-buttoned coat, and my seamaster Omega gives me sleepless nights. The other day I was planted in a suite, you know the kind of place with the thinnest and the widest tele on the wall-papered wall, side bar tucked in near the bathroom, strewn with settees and every corner gilded as though you are some czar. The tele was on for a while. I saw sun-tanned people in what they called khudei and phanek just blabbering away in my parents' language. They were filmed standing between the flames and thick smokes of used tyres, the young ones hollered at the top of their voices, while the old, creaky and defeated ones sat on their heels shrouded in winter shawls. And after what I saw I just groped for my smartphone, you know the kind of stuff that beeps all day long, and tweeted , and then booked a few lines next to my tuxedo profile photo. Those scattered across the surface of the thickest and hypocritical democracy as refugees or displaced people, which they never admit, started following me and hundreds retweeted and shared those lines. I don't know them, but they know me and that's vital to my existence.
As words spread I started getting e-mails asking if news channels could have my personal number. It was strange that I, who is always willing to exchange cards to advance my boss's interests, was, in fact ,asked if they could have my number. We settled for Skype, though. They asked important questions and I answered everything in my good BBC English. They liked the diction, and it was for the diction the video on YouTube was liked by thousands and subsequently it started trending in Google. After things ebbed a bit, there were educated folks who suggested I write books. Among them were sales folks from world-class publishers. I have long been thinking whether I should start with MK Ghandhi or MK Binolata, I could be rather detailed if could bring in how Tagore and Nehru created our beloved GitaPur
I was going away with the mask of the master in one hand while the another lugging the duplicate bag. I was too shy to put on that though; I wasn't so sure where I should start wearing that master's thing. My old man was full of emotions, my mother was devastated, so it was those people, who had once trodden the unknown patches, who kept telling me why I should wear that mask or from where I could start wearing. Someone said,"From Awang BOC." There were conflicting voices," No, no. People may say things. Don't listen to him, you can start from Guwahati." They wanted me to advance with that mask.
Years later that mask made me accustomed to wearing other masks as well. Somewhere at some points I was eaten slowly and constantly by the memories of the place I left behind. But that I couldn't show, for people here may say, "Why is that chink walking with that face as though he is the real chink in our armour?" For this I had to try another mask. But my problem was that those masks wouldn't sink into my face, instead they remained as loose as those masquerade masks which have to be held up, keeping my hands busy all the time.
When I visit that place to "see my folks" I fly in after late corporate meetings, lay slumped in my Keishampat armchair jet-legged, order around a bit, and they tolerate it as I do it in my meeting uniform. And when I have to change clothes the hatchback car is already in the courtyard purring for the airport. Inside the hatchback it is always noisy; they don't even let me see the dug out and potholed alleys, roads and streets below artificial fog. I am busy, in fact I am too busy with my life. You don't know that by the turn of next year I will be the senior manager. Wen I started this job I only had a plastic ball pen and a notepad, now I am a human tortoise. But don't call me hippie, for I am clean and write daily reports on my customised Dell laptop. And bedside I don't do weedy stuff.
But what I want to confess, which I have done several times with myself, is what I should never be saying. You know, my Tods shoes give me bloody blisters, the Samsonite straps dig into my pin-striped two-buttoned coat, and my seamaster Omega gives me sleepless nights. The other day I was planted in a suite, you know the kind of place with the thinnest and the widest tele on the wall-papered wall, side bar tucked in near the bathroom, strewn with settees and every corner gilded as though you are some czar. The tele was on for a while. I saw sun-tanned people in what they called khudei and phanek just blabbering away in my parents' language. They were filmed standing between the flames and thick smokes of used tyres, the young ones hollered at the top of their voices, while the old, creaky and defeated ones sat on their heels shrouded in winter shawls. And after what I saw I just groped for my smartphone, you know the kind of stuff that beeps all day long, and tweeted , and then booked a few lines next to my tuxedo profile photo. Those scattered across the surface of the thickest and hypocritical democracy as refugees or displaced people, which they never admit, started following me and hundreds retweeted and shared those lines. I don't know them, but they know me and that's vital to my existence.
As words spread I started getting e-mails asking if news channels could have my personal number. It was strange that I, who is always willing to exchange cards to advance my boss's interests, was, in fact ,asked if they could have my number. We settled for Skype, though. They asked important questions and I answered everything in my good BBC English. They liked the diction, and it was for the diction the video on YouTube was liked by thousands and subsequently it started trending in Google. After things ebbed a bit, there were educated folks who suggested I write books. Among them were sales folks from world-class publishers. I have long been thinking whether I should start with MK Ghandhi or MK Binolata, I could be rather detailed if could bring in how Tagore and Nehru created our beloved GitaPur
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