Debarth's Den

THE ROAD TO SHISHU MANDIR Even as the sun was on its ascent behind the hill to cast its magical spell on the Laban landscape, and the dew was still fresh upon the silken petals of the blooming roses, I was engrossed in preparations for school. Almost at the same time, from somewhere in the cluster of quaint little hamlets on the slopes of the "Lloong" compound, two little boys with ruddy faces would have commenced their descent towards our home. Sharp at 20 minutes to eight, my mother would be applying the finishing brush to my hair in front of the mirror, even as I would espy the eager faces of my friends, Wanbok and Klen Sing through the little glass squares of our lattice window, calling out to me, "Debojit! Chalo school". That was the signal to start out for school every morning. So, together, attired in spotless white shirts with the shining blue school badges neatly pinned to the pockets, gray shorts, red ties and glossy black shoes; with satchels full

A DIFFERENT SUN As I dallied in that distant time, unconscious of present time passing me by, reveling in the uncountable pleasures of my dear old Shillong, where Fancy and Remembrance sweetly contrived to detain me, I was presently snapped out of my reverie by a mild sting on my back. Looking back I saw that it was the sun, looking in my tinted window, putting on a fierce glare as if trying to burn the window down and get at me. It looked to be scorning my cowardice for seeking refuge in my air conditioned room. I could well see what effect its all-pervasive presence was having on the world outside, its light blinding, bouncing angrily off walls, pavements and streets. It's diurnal journey was still at its incipient stage, yet everything it looked upon was sweltering in its fury already. Railings and door knobs singed the hands that touched them. Water flowing out of faucets and stored in tanks was too hot to touch. Whatever vestige of leaves, flowers and grass remained unwith

Whenever I have the leisure and the luxury to repose a few minutes in reflection, I find that my mind flies back instantly to the place and time where it all started for me. The mind does not pause in transit, nor dwells for even that minuscule moment on that great domain that lies between my present and that hazy realm, that rough-shod expanse which now forms the greater part of my life. It is as if the days and years spent out of my birthplace, momentous as they have been, are now like a great parenthesis in my life's narrative: a vacuous wilderness that I wandered into by mistake; something that matters not to my heart and mind a fraction as much as the moments I spent in Shillong - the Shillong I knew as a child and right upto boyhood - which is now almost a dominion of fancy for me, so many times have I visited it in my visions of remembrance. It now feels surreal that the Shillong of my growing-up years was actually a place of soil and plant; soul and heart; gentle air and

When I set my sights out of Shillong, thinking I would never have to look back, I was led on by the prospect of better and greater things. I did not appreciate the real value that Shillong was constantly imparting to my existence as I lived in that exotic air. I was under the fallacy that life in Shillong was commonplace, dull and devoid of the excitement the mind craved for, and which it believed existed in greater measure in places outside it. It was after a lifetime of absorbing the world outside of Shillong that I have come to realize that I have had the good fortune to have spent my entire childhood and adolescence in the greenest pasture there ever was - Shillong. Now, when a monster called Covid-19 has put the world in chains, and I am stuck in the center of some godforsaken desert, my mind seeks refuge in that utopia which resides with untarnished glitter in one corner of my heart, and which has never failed to rescue me in times of despair and hopelessness Below is an effo