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My aita's place




My aita's place (grandmother) has always been my personal favourite. I have spent all my vacations during my school days there. It's a remote village located in the banks of Brahmaputra. What makes the place beautiful is its resistance to change. The village aura remains intact till today. As you wake up in the chilly morning, you are sure to find a hearth sending forth tall frames which keep the house warm. The morning air is infused with the smell from mustard fields which overlook the whole village. The tall bamboo grooves run across the village which serve to build thatch houses which you spot at far off distances. Unlike our closely clustered suburbs, you find open fields in the village separating houses across distances.

My aita (grandmother) is a robust old lady who milks her cows, takes stock of harvest, has abundance of mustard in her fields, fishes in her pond and a opulent granary. She came to the village as a bride when she was barely of ten years and today after spending decades together at this place, she has become a guardian figure to the people there. She says that village has kept her moving and she can't fathom a life without it.

Most of the villagers there belong to the tea tribes. They have a radiant lifestyle. With colourful attires and minimalistic expectations, they enjoy the whims of life like no one else. Every Sunday you would see them boozing and planning out feasts. A lady who works in my grandma's fields offered me beetle nut and when I declined saying I haven't consumed it any day she looked at my grandmother and flashed her rotten teeth to proclaim that I was "townia".

My earliest memory dates back to the time when I went fishing to the pond at the backyards. Fishing there is a community event. The whole village fishes together in ponds and share their catch. They roast the fish add a dash of lime and some salt and that  makes it a sumptuous lunch. That platter is something to crave for definitely.

During humid afternoons, they pluck lemons from the grooves and rub salt and Chillies and that mixture is sure to leave you drooling. The cool shade from the bamboo groves, the calm of the village life and the mist settling in the trees is sure to touch every soul in the lookout of serenity.

The people there are resistant to changes. They hardly want to move out of the village in search of livelihood, they rely on agriculture. But, this time when I went there I met a lad who had gone to Bangalore in search of job, that interested me and when I asked him about his achievements, he flashed his ATM card shyly adding that this card would now fetch his family a concrete home. His father who is a petty farmer looked at me with beaming eyes and I could see how proud he was of his son. He took me around the village showing how the government had provided them concrete toilets. What makes those villagers special is they love their villages from their soul, they would toil hard across cities if required but would always want to return to their own place.

Each time I visit this place, it stays with me a little more for I never get enough out of it.

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