During the next few days, peering out of the train window, riding on Jeetender’s auto and strolling around the university campus and the roads of Tezpur town with Anju, I would be reminded of this statement time and again. The vegetation was the same shade of deep green, complete with the same wayside bushes with their little yellow and violet blooms. Leaning on to the bamboo fences of their village homes, middle aged women chatted with each others, One end of the top piece of their off- white attire tucked around the waist and the other thrown over their right shoulders in a similarly careless manner. The bulky brown sacks piled inside the roadside shops of Tezpur, emanated the known ration shop smell. It was a familiarity that was at once exhilarating and slightly disturbing. For what the sights evoked was not simple recognition, but a faint nostalgia mixed with images from disparate sepia frames of old Malayalam movies.
Showing posts with label Assam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Assam. Show all posts
12 April 2013
The Tezpur Pin-Up: Kaziranga
“It will be just like Kerala”, is what quite a few of my friends told me before I started for Assam. During the next few days, peering out of the train window, riding on Jeetender’s auto and strolling around the university campus and the roads of Tezpur town with Anju, I would be reminded of this statement time and again. The vegetation was the same shade of deep green, complete with the same wayside bushes with their little yellow and violet blooms. Leaning on to the bamboo fences of their village homes, middle aged women chatted with each others, One end of the top piece of their off- white attire tucked around the waist and the other thrown over their right shoulders in a similarly careless manner. The bulky brown sacks piled inside the roadside shops of Tezpur, emanated the known ration shop smell. It was a familiarity that was at once exhilarating and slightly disturbing. For what the sights evoked was not simple recognition, but a faint nostalgia mixed with images from disparate sepia frames of old Malayalam movies.
During the next few days, peering out of the train window, riding on Jeetender’s auto and strolling around the university campus and the roads of Tezpur town with Anju, I would be reminded of this statement time and again. The vegetation was the same shade of deep green, complete with the same wayside bushes with their little yellow and violet blooms. Leaning on to the bamboo fences of their village homes, middle aged women chatted with each others, One end of the top piece of their off- white attire tucked around the waist and the other thrown over their right shoulders in a similarly careless manner. The bulky brown sacks piled inside the roadside shops of Tezpur, emanated the known ration shop smell. It was a familiarity that was at once exhilarating and slightly disturbing. For what the sights evoked was not simple recognition, but a faint nostalgia mixed with images from disparate sepia frames of old Malayalam movies.
28 March 2013
The Tezpur Pin- up
There once lived a young woman in possession of varied powers and an immense strength of character by the name Chitralekha. Her powers were paralleled only by her commitment for her friend Usha, daughter of the daitya king Bana. And as stories go Usha fell hopelessly in love with Aniruddha, grandson of Lord Krishna, who appeared to her in a dream. Chitralekha then undertook the long and arduous journey to the yadava kingdom, abducted Aniruddha and carried him in her arms all the way back to her friend. Then there was the inevitable war where the titans- Lord Siva, in aid of his devotee Bana and Lord Krishna, the Vishnu incarnate- clashed. Myth is that blood soaked into the battlefield and coloured its soil red and the town came to be known as Tezpur (City of Blood).
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