Passing Through a Prism

As the lethargic evenings of the national lockdown against the global pandemic pass by, I seem to be more and more comfortable in my hide-out under the cozy blanket. Besides one or two books, my escapade from boredom takes me to the movies and web-series in Netflix. My brother who is half my age has asked for my mobile for more than ten times today and it has been not less than nine times that I have refused him. He hardly goes out to play. I always see him engaged in playing some online games or watching YouTube videos. If nothing works out, he goes to the drawing room, switches on the TV and watches the same episodes of Ninja Hattori over and over again. He is nothing of the type that I was when I was of his age; although both of us share lot of similarities now.

Lately, I watched an Assamese movie titled ‘Maj Rati Keteki’ which, in one of its aspect celebrates the nonchalance and joviality of childhood and friendship. The movie made me reminisce my days of childhood and the incidents or kaands that I was involved in. Just then, I thought of sharing one of those kaands with you all.

It was the seventh summer of the 2000s. The sun had finally risen tearing apart the traffic of clouds after three long days of continuous rain and mist. As it was Sunday, I woke up late, completed my homework and headed for the breakfast. While I was having my breakfast, my cousin Hemanta, who is 125 days elder to me, entered the dining room. He came to me and whispered something in my ear. I asked him to wait outside. After completing my breakfast, I went to him and both of us got ready for the mission. I picked a thin bamboo stick of around 4 meters which we had already collected the day before and hid it in our cow-shed in the courtyard. Hemanta had also brought a cotton thread; the thread which is used to sew or mend clothes, some bread-crumbs and a polythene bag. We went along the road, crossed the undergrowth and soon reached a nearby pond around 100 metres from my house. Surrounded by tall bamboo covers on one side, betel-nut trees on the other and a small hut towards the end, the atmosphere of the place was dark and ghastly enough to terrorize the tiny hearts of two seven-year old kids. But our strong determination could not be shaken off so easily. Hemanta took out the thread from his pocket and tied its end on the side of the bamboo stick. He also fit some bread crumbs on the other end of the thread. And then he threw the bait into the pond. The fishing-adventure plan was working perfectly as planned.

I had conceived the idea of embarking on a fishing-adventure when I was watching a movie where the protagonist goes for fishing in his holiday a week before our plan was put to action. I discussed this with Hemanta and suggested that we should also undertake the same adventure. Despite being a vegetarian, that he still is, he agreed. To my dismay, he began looking more excited than me and started planning about everything. The whole week was devoted to collection of materials and daydreaming. We did not exactly know what to fit at the end of the hook as the fodder for fish and hence went with the remaining bread crumbs left for dogs. We would dream and talk about how great we would feel after catching a dozen of fishes. We would take the fishes to the market, sell them and earn surplus which would be our pocket money for the whole year.

We waited for a fish for the next one hour but no fish seemed hungry enough to taste a bread-crumb. Tired of holding the stick for too long, I handed it over to Hemanta and began looking around. Suddenly, I noticed a snake creeping on one of the branches of a tree on the other side of the pond. I was terrified and told my partner about the serpent. He replied, “Dhurr, What’s so big a deal? You have come for adventure mera bhai… adventure…Don’t you remember the famous dialogue from Dilwale Dulhaniye…Bade bade desho mai chhoti chhoti baatein hoti rehti hai… The snake will do nothing..Now let me focus”. Two more hours elapsed but no fish could be trapped. The three and a half hours during the fishing expedition was accompanied by discussions on various topics including the price of the latest toffee to the new episodes of ‘Bongo’ in DD National. Disappointed, we realized that there were no fish in the pond and thus decided to return back home. While returning through the other side of the pod, Hemanta’s eyes instantly went to a fish moving along the surface of the pond. He made no effort of doing anything complex and grabbed a small fish tightly in his right palm. The fish was slightly bigger than the breadth of his palm. The sight of a vegetarian catching a living fish was a treat to watch. I immediately took out the polythene bag and he put the fish into the bag. Damn, we were finally happy. We kept our equipments aside and began singing and dancing gleefully on our version of the retro song ‘I am a disco dancer...cigarette khale hoi cancer’ (cigarette causes cancer). All of a sudden, we heard the voice of Hemanta’s father and my Mummy calling our names from behind. We excitedly went to them and began bragging about our achievement of catching a fish after a three-and half hour long struggle. Unfortunately, our storytelling was brought to a halt when Hemanta’s father came near him and slammed tightly on his butt with his right hand. Our parents caught hold of us and took us to our respective homes. The packet with the fish was in my cousin’s hand which he tried to give to his father. Instead of cherishing the accomplishment of his son, he angrily asked him to throw away the packet on the road. On reaching home, mummy bathed me and changed my clothes. She gave me rice to eat. After finishing my rice, I went to the drawing room to rest for some time. All of a sudden, I sensed a sharp pain and prick on the back of my thigh. It followed for two more times. I looked backwards and saw Mummy clubbing me with a thin bamboo stick incessantly. I tried to escape but she caught hold of me and then tied me to a nearby bamboo tree with a rope for half an hour. I could not understand why she was beating me. Hemanta’s tragedy was only worse.

Although I did not realize the reason of our punishment then, I realized its importance gradually as I grew up. Our parents had searched for us around the whole neighborhood. They had inspected every house and had enquired about us. But we could not be found. My mummy had almost started to weep in the fear that the children must have been kidnapped. All at once, Hemanta’s father heard our noise near the deadly pond. When they reached there, they saw us dancing and singing like wild dogs. We had been away for so long time without informing anyone at home.

As time passed, the justifiability of the punishment became clearer to me. It was a week ago I went to see the pond again. The large plantation of the bamboo trees have been cut down now. Somehow, the water in the pond has also dried up. The place doesn’t seem to be a suitable site for adventure anymore. The excitement of an adventure does not exist anymore. Maybe the time for those things has passed. Maybe our childhood was the best. The days of childhood were indeed like the seven colours of a rainbow - all bright and vibrant. But after a point of time, they all passed through the invisible prism of time to refract into white light. A monotonous single light desperately looking for another invisible prism to get back those bright and vibrant colours again…