Travel log

1.

This is how it always goes: the first glimpse of green as we cross the border, and my heart develops a foolish ache. 

Later, I will tell a friend-attempt to describe it- nostalgia, for a home I've never known. 

2. 

This is the part I hate: the women looking apologetic for the space they take up. 

3.

"Nobody wants to define the abuse", says my aunt. "Nobody wants to acknowledge the scars that emotional and intellectual abuse leave."

I nod, silent. 

I worry that the silence makes me complicit: but it's her kitchen. 

4. 

"I think all women should work outside the home" says another aunt. 

Her daughter and daughter-in-law remain silent. 

This is two decades and a medicine cabinet full of pills too late. 

5. 

I hug her and don't want to let go. 

But other persons have superior claims: husband, and now, son. 

"I worried there was something wrong with me", she confesses, "because I didn't feel like a mother; but now he feels less like a project and more like a person, like my son."

6. 

His thirteen year old daughter is a state level karate champion; my mild mannered cousin is overwhelmed by the violence of it, so he thinks she should stop her classes soon. 

I see the spark in her eyes when he says that, but wisely keep my glee to myself. 

He's going to find out soon enough. 

7. 

"All the women in the church must cover their heads" repeats the priest, his voice aiming for stern and authoritative: the effect is ruined by the sound system which makes his voice tinny. 

It always amuses me: the pettiness of their fears. 

8. 

Alas, there is no relief from the vulgarity of their wealth- no modicum of taste to save it. My aunt, now caretaker in her old age- a role she is intimately familiar with- seems shrunken. But perhaps that's a trick of the fake Grecian columns, which seem all the rage right now. 

9. 

I collect my father's stories. 

It's as though I'm preparing to remember him.

Perhaps, I think, that's why he's finally telling them. 

10. 

Here's one of the stories: a regular Sunday service in a small village parish in 1960 turns into a unique protest when the parishioners stall the visiting Head of Church from conducting the service: by singing songs continuously for seven hours.

11

Here's another: "They never let us be children", he says. 

12. 

My almost- three year old niece has developed a reputation: "bossy". 

"Edaaa!" she calls to her elder brother, "Eevidae vaadaa!"

I am delighted and afraid for her. '

13.
"Run away with me", I tell her, but she only laughs.
She was always the wiser one. 

14. 

The man on the train tells my dad, "You must have gone in front of my house many times! It is on the road only, from Dibrugarh to Tinsukia". 

I would smile, because, trains, but I'm curled up, with my eyes tightly shut, trying to quell the nausea induced by the devil of a headache. 

Appa runs his hand through my hair, a familiar touch from my childhood. 

"Try to sleep" he says, softly, and leaves his fingers there.