Rhino vs Elephant

Is a malayali who knows assamese songs different from a malayali who knows assamese?

I wondered and pondered over the similarity which the rhino has with the elephant. Both are anyways animals, right!! But I am pointing to the similarity of gods own country and a country where even the gods fear to go (Courtesy: ULFA, Maoist). Nature has gifted these two distant lands with bountiful rainfall and greenery. However, they do not realize its value and is in a deep slumber.

Thankfully I managed to get a accommodation at a decent price in an indecent place. Just wanting to refresh after the journey, I was disturbed by the incessant knocks for food, laundry, mosquito coils and the beverage boy!! Came the knock and I expected the coiler to give me the killer; only to be greeted by a police. It was a routine check to see whether I had uninvited guest inside the room. No thanks my research is on campuses and not jails. I gave my Project Associate Card, to be greeted again’ Have a nice stay’. It’s just a matter of which stay he was mentioning. Maybe Amir Khan might have an effect on him. Athithi devo bhava. Please leave me!!!

After that I preferred to stay outside for most of the time. My basic instinct carried to the Kerala Bhavan nearby the railway station. It offered Onam special Sadya, nice to see that Keralites do not forget their home nor their food!! I resorted to the idlis and chutney to quench my Kerala instincts. It had all the malayalis of the assamese nadu sitting and biting over the porottas.

It is a common knowledge that you expect to hit over a ‘thattu’ malayali or a ‘kottu’ malayali in every place. But this malayali is different. He is a law malayali who has become an assamese by a college ritual called Ragging. He had to mug up the whole Assamese text and get enough bad words been fed in his mouth over the initial three years. He has become a litterateur, who can act as an Assam Correspondent for the channels since he knows Assam better than the Assamese. He is a swayam sevak and is in the initial stages of starting ABVP branch in Guwahati University. He already got two sevakites. But All Assam Students Union AASU has an oligarchy whose fortress got cracked last year by NSUI by money and glamour.

I quickly remembered my Jagi Jo, and atlast I got it. Thanks for his assamese friend. What Bhupen might not have thought is the manner in which a person can localize his songs. Thank god he didn’t hear me sing…