Walking down the memory lane - Memoir of Meghalaya

EPISODE-2

LAITKSEH

(Across the Pines)

As I got off the bus with my two escorting students at Iew Markasa (meaning- Markasa Market, Iew means market), the bus stop nearest to village Laitkseh I took few deep breath. Oh what a sense of pure, fresh and cool air; I did not have it ever before! May be my feeling was more than natural as I got nearly smothered inside the bus which remarkable was crowded and was filled with smoke of cigars made of local tobacco called DUMA that other passengers were enjoying. “Duma” is a homemade cigar of locally produced Tobacco having a very strong taste that greenhorn smoker from plains is sure to get intoxicated with lightheaded feeling. However the sky above was bluer and clearer than in Guwahati or my own home town Barpeta. But the distant hills were partly covered with slow moving clouds and mists. The wind was smoothly blowing, like a cool breeze that waved out my long hairs, a fashion that was on the wane. “Ready?” One of my escorts asked. “We have to go for about an hour on foot”.

“Or should we refresh ourselves with a cup of tea each” the other suggested. “Not a bad idea” I replied.

But I wondered looking around for any tea stall. The escorting duo could guess the state of my mind and the smart looking one, yelled “Babu Das! There it is”; pointing at a hut with tin roof.

“Oh Ebanasher! How brightly you grin.

Heaven! Is it a tea stall?” My inner urban youth exclaimed silently.

 “Paisa humein kis morpe le aya” I made and instant parody of “Pyaar Humein Kis Morpe Le Aya”

I trod towards the hut halfhearted. There was a lady stall keeper inside sitting aside on a stool near the fireplace. In Meghalaya and particularly the rural people prefer to sit by the fireplace and the room where the fireplace is made used to be a kitchen. Ordinarily the host invited the guest to this place to be seated on account of cold weather.  

“Uioh” (means “who” in local Khasi dialect) making a gesture at me she asked the two boys in a non-standard Khasi dialect.

“Babu, hikai saian (Teacher, teaching science)- one replied.

She liked me and smiled at me.

Winking her eyes she offered me a cup of very sweet tea and again inquired of: “Thymmai ho” (New Ha!)

I nodded without having understood anything. Perhaps that made sense and the lady nearing her fifties smiled again with a pancake in her hand.

One more encounter- “Juh bam puh sep” (Like eating this PUH made with the help steam)

-         PUH means any cake,

-         SEP (pronounce- SSHH-ep) means steam.

All these were free at the cost of being a BABU- teacher that they needed most.