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.