My School Days(contd.)

Though i was not brilliant in studies,but was diligent enough to be in the ''good books'' of the teachers----Mathematics was my phobea(and believe me,i still have nightmares of having got plucked in Higher Secondary Exams!!!!!) most of the teachers loved me,barring a devil incarnate,''BABU SIR'' who used to perambulate the premises to locate if there was anyone around without a badge or the tie properly placed.Once when i was in class vi, i was beaten up because i had forgotten to take my diary to school-----pat came a slap!!!! ouchhh........my class teacher had consoled me as i broke into tears!never before or after had i been punished at school!

my school days

I studied at South Point High School and have spent some of the glorious days of my life there,the innocence,naivete,of those days are like pearls in an oyster in the timeless depths of the ocean---to be cherished over and over again.I was fortunate enough to have cultivated my passion for music with inspiration from my teachers.Be it any inter school fest or any state-level competition,i was the first one to be summoned to the principal's room---i remember an anecdote:Spic Macay was organising a nation wide classical vocal contest,and the authorities had come down to our school for participants.When I went to BIG MAM'S(that's what we used to call her)room,shrunken,apprehending as to why I was called,she introduced me to a gentleman from Spic Macay saying that:''he is the pride of my school''....I will remember this,for the rest of my life.Though I was underaged for the contest, they listened to a bandish (most probably it was in rag yaman)and allowed me to participate with the university students.I had sung raag Maalkauns and had bagged the 2 nd prize.......I still have the memento which says,'Look Beyond Yourself'!

my childhood days were spent in Guwahati and Shillong----the latter was a paradise for me;though my aesthetic sensibilities were in the primitive stages,i could feel an impulse within, the moment the bus used to cross 'Barapani' and take turns through the meandering roads lined with pines and eucalyptuses.Now at this age when i read 'shesher kobita',i can feel what a magnetic force must have propelled Tagore to write,''udhhoto shob shakhay shakhay rhododendron guchho''!! our ancestral home was located at laitumkhrah,supposedly one of the most posh areas of the hill-town.My initiation into music must have happened there as i have remembrances of staring at the esraj,sitar,tanpuras,swaramandal for long hours played by my illustrious grandfather,while my cousin and her friends would give up after persuading me to accompany them.My granpa's room resembled Ray's ''jalsaghar'......as far as my memory has got it recorded there were portraits of Tagore and Pandit RaviShankar,the strings of the esraj were torn,and a layer of dust always remained settled on the covered sitar.

NoStAlGiA

I am a native from the state of the seven sisters,Assam---the enchantress,seducing all with her natural bounty.Surrounded by hills and hillocks,and gifted with the ''Old Man River'',Brahmaputra,Assam has seen me grow up amidst the aroma of the tea gardens of Tezpur,the frozen twilight of Shillong, and the dense forests of Manas.
Born in 1980 at Guwahati Medical College,I have an eventful story to narrate about my seeing the light of the world from the secret chambers of my mother's womb.My mom was diagnosed with chicken pox right before my birth ,and as a consequence,she was refused admission in nursing homes and hospitals of the city.So,how do I come ?? Dr.Aloka Goswami,a reputed gyanecologist was sent as a samaritan for my mom and in a curtained corner of medical college's verandah,i cried out for the first time!!