Hills of Dust

My granny, I remember, used to pamper me a lot with her love filled eatables made and prepared by her, all assembled for display before me after every accomplishment of the aroma cooked by her tender hands. However, of all items, sira-doi never failed to earn my concentration of licking up even its leftovers lying clung to my little bowl. After every heavy meal, my granny always ordered the servants to clean up the mess that I had made and then her authoritarian look vanishes in a puff whenever she turned her direction towards me and then holding me high up in her arms tightly, her steady legs carried the both of us to the verandah where my grandpa always sat like an old porcelain ruminating thoughts of his youthful days and his brave encounters with the terrific ‘Nagas’.

After my granny, it was my grandpa’s turn to pamper me with his kisses which made me giggle at the ticklish pinches of his beard. He had encountered many adventures in his youthful days, but his adventures did not lose its splendour even a few years before I was born. However, in my 5 years journey of life, I haven’t had the chance to see the adventurous spirit of my grandpa, although my ears had the advantage of perceiving that beauty from my grandpa who saw his adventurous days come alive while narrating it to me. I heard the word ‘Naga’ for the first time from my grandpa who never failed to answer any query of mine regarding the Nagas. He said that they live in the Naga pahaar, beyond the border of our large fields in the jungles where no people of my village, Merapani, dared to cross. The adventures of my grandpa with the Nagas overwhelmed me a lot and I used to wonder what the Nagas were; often, I depicted them as the asuras from the Mahabharata. Many vivid pictures of the Nagas came into my mind and they terrified me a lot which I perceived my granny could see for she then started taking advantage of my fear of the Nagas. She would force me to eat my food by frightening me telling about the terror of the Nagas who took away small children who didn’t listen to elders. The Nagas fascinated me a lot and even though I was afraid of them, I wished to know more about them. The fear was hidden not only in me but in every heart of young and old living in Merapani. I wondered how the Nagas look like…

“Punakon! Punakon!” my granny shouted from the verandah when she saw me plucking raw mangoes with the aid of Kanta, granny’s servant boy in broad day light.

“Come inside Punakon, it’s too hot outside, have lemonade with grandpa here. Grandpa will take you today to the railway station for a walk.”

The offer was too much, my greediness exploded and leaving Kanta to himself I ran off to granny. The lemonade cooled me and I rested myself on granny’s so called luxury chair. I fell asleep and even before I could know, I had a dream and in it I saw myself being chased by a something that was a giant having red balls for eyes and fierce looking long teeth, not forgetting to mention the majestic green ears. I cried to grandpa for help who in no time made his appearance, slaughtered the wicked and rescued me crying-“I killed the ‘Noga’!”

I woke up in the evening; my grandpa all dressed up was smiling at me. My granny came and took me inside, she dressed me up and combed my hair. She then praised me that I looked very handsome that day. Walking with grandpa was a pleasure, for, unlike granny, he let me walk on my own but never once leaving my hand. In no time we reached the station, we then had a cup of tea with peanut biscuits and sat for a while, but with dusk felling, we resolved to head homewards. While walking I asked my grandpa if the Nagas were monsters who love to devour the flesh of people. My grandpa laughed at this question of mine. He told me that they were not cannibal-monsters but were no different from them as they had driven many villagers away from the village and forcefully encroached upon their lands. He showed me the pahaar, the Naga pahaar, which was on the other side of the railway station, facing opposite to the east of the station. The Nagas lived there and seeing the sight of the dark woods I imagined of them as sorcerers or giant snakes. My grandpa told me that many years before I was born, the Nagas had wanted to take away the land beholding the station on which I walked on. The Nagas had claimed themselves as the rightful owner of every land which had hills and jungles on them, so the station which stands on near the Naga pahaar was no exception. My grandpa proudly took part in that fight as recounted by him and recovered some of the lands taken by them of which the station was also a crown of victory.

As we walked on further, Tapan, the local fisherman with some of the villagers came running towards us. My grandpa asked them in surprise,” What’s hurrying you so much?”

Tapan with bated breath said to my grandpa,”O koka, we have nabbed a ‘Noga’ in the ‘pothaar’. There were others too, but they ran away before we could get hold of them.”

“Why, what happened?” asked my grandpa.

“O! That Digen, the local fisherman had gone to town to sell off his day’s catch, but on his return, he was verbally harassed by some of the ‘Noga’ youths who were drunk and had crossed the border. Puniram and Mohen happened to pass by that way and saw Digen being hassled. In no time, they gathered some villagers and went to help Digen. The youths managed to run away, except the one who is now held captive in the village.”

My grandpa who was bewildered said,”o! It is a serious matter. Tapan, hold Punakon in your arms. Let us rush to the village as soon as possible.”

We were all flying, my grandpa who looked like an old porcelain when resting on his rocking chair looked like a superman flying above the sky. There was an eagerness running through me which excited me with the urge to entertain myself of seeing the Naga from a safe distance. I never saw the villagers hurrying with such a rush, seemingly the Naga might have been in a rage whose wrath the villagers feared to death and in order to subdue their fear of the Naga’s wrath, they were heralding for a kind of mad rush. However, the eagerness to see the mighty Naga was killed forcefully when my granny came in a hurry towards me and took me away home. That night I could not sleep, I kept thinking about the Naga. I sketched his picture in my mind- long hairs on his body, large big teeth, big red eyes and long dragon tail, running after my grandpa as grandpa was still not home. I fell asleep and woke up late in the morning. I asked my granny where grandpa was and she told me that he was in the field behind our house. Before she could catch me, I ran off to the field behind my house and saw lots of people, young and old gathered before a very young man, very fair who was shirtless and held captive. My grandpa saw me and shouted,” Go to granny, don’t come here. ‘Noga’ is here!”

I didn’t listen to him and went straight to kanta, the servant boy and asked him,” Where is the dreaded Noga?”

He pointed at the shirtless man held captive and said,” There he is.”

My heart was animated and a sort of feverish smile covered my lips when I saw a Noga for the first time. I whispered to myself,”o! Can it be him, the Noga? The so called noga who kills everybody barehanded and whom the villagers fear to dead?”

I looked at him once again and saw that he was barely a man, very fair with tiny slanted eyes; I wondered…what makes him a monster? Was it because his eyes were very small? Or was it because he was the fairest of all? Or just because he was shirtless?

I was amused by this dilemma; I came to realize that except the small differences, he was nothing but just like Kanta, the servant boy…

The discovery aroused my curiosity deeper, there was a rebirth of my urge to know more about the Nagas because the Naga I saw that day was a complete contrast from the one depicted to me by my granny and other household servants. There was no difference between the Naga youth held captive and other village boys with whom I used to play marbles and plucked raw mangoes. The sight of that Naga boy opened wave of thoughts in my little mind, I wondered if every Naga living in the ‘Naga pahaar’ looked like him and if there was any possibility of children residing over there who shared the same age I was undergoing. I also dared to think the possibility of playing marbles with them in the near future if the other Naga kids were also human like the one held captive.

There has always been a problem between the two communities which were handed down from the past historical events to be gulped down by the ever updating generation. The problem which now seems to me meek and worthless is nothing compared to the problem I used to imagine in my influenced mind. My mind was passed down with images of demons as the Nagas which was completely ruled out at the sight of that fair face Naga youth. That face built a kind of strange resolution in me which even I could not understand may be because I was too young to identify it. However, that incident has since then lured me to explore the Naga pahaar and if the result of the exploration was such that it benefited my idea of human Nagas residing there, I was determined to take my grandpa and granny for a holiday over there and plucked raw mangoes if the pahaar bears any.