Zaara’s video blog :)

My 7 year old daughter wants to start a video blog. I asked her what she wanted to do with it. She said, she would describe the books she likes. One every day. So I made a small video. She put up an impromptu act. And I must say, I am very proud of what she did :) <3

My latest short story 'Singra and tea'. In the second issue of Kaani. 15 Nov 2018.

Singra and tea by Juanita Kakoty

november 15, 2018 

Aideo, my mother, is the eldest of six siblings, and the ugliest of the lot. Not that the rest are strikingly good-looking, except Roma mahi, Aideo’s only sister, younger to her by ten years. She was and still is a beautiful woman who looks much younger than her fifty six years. Thank god I have taken after Deuta, my father, who used to be a handsome man! In those days when they got married, the groom never got to see the bride before the wedding. So the first time Deuta (huge fan of Madhubala) saw Aideo’s face, he almost fainted. Even the white dots above her thick brows and red lipstick couldn’t make amends. He never thought his luck could run that bad. The hunched woman, with not a slight hint of charm, satin the flower-strewn bed, cut his enthusiasm, piercing him right through his heart. He sprang out of the freshly painted room, leaving the young bride to the whirring of the fan above. Deuta’s father had added the room to the L-shaped house for him, the newly wed.

Over time Deuta must have overcome his shock and thus my siblings and I came to this world. But still, no one could miss his lack of affection for Aideo. He stayed out of the house mostly, at office or socializing with friends. My aunt and uncles always told Aideo that she was lucky he stuck to her despite his charms, whenever she went crying to them after he hit her or didn’t return home. They were tactful enough not to mention her lack of charm. That would console Aideo for a while. Deuta didn’t stop though. He’d hit her because the house was in a mess, because his shirt button was missing, because the food tasted like dishwater, because the food was cold, because he didn’t like her wooden expression, because she didn’t know how to entertain guests, because the kids weren’t studying enough…

Deuta was a scion of the Chaliha family from Sibsagar’s Melachakar neighbourhood. His father and grandfathers were learned scholars who had contributed immensely to the cause of education in Assam, right from the days of Miles Bronson. In fact, the family genealogy keeper mentions that one of the early Chalihas met Bronson in 1883 when the American Baptist missionary arrived at Sadiya and helped Bronson learn Assamese and the other Khamti and Singpho languages of the region. Not only that. He also helped Bronson set up the printing press and establish many schools. But Deuta didn’t have much interest in education. His heart was in music, particularly  music created by the Hazarika brothers. He missed not a show when Bhupen Hazarika and his brother Jayanta Hazarika performed in Sibsagaror the nearby towns-Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Golaghat. All this stopped with Aideo’s entrance. His paternal aunt who lived in Golaghathad said of Aideo- She is very efficient and manages the whole house herself. I bet nobody can be a better housekeeper than her. She is exactly what the Chaliha household needs with your big family and year-round guests.

Deuta’s father accepted the match despite knowing that this sister of his was not particularly fond of his wife and kids; despite knowing that Deuta was in love with a pretty Ahom girl from the same town for over six years. In protest, Deuta moved to Nagaon with his bride, within a month, on the pretext of a coveted job. No one understood why the job was coveted.

Perhaps, had he looked at a pretty face instead of Aideo’s on their wedding night, he would’ve stayed back in Sibsagar. Perhaps he wouldn’t have taken to alcohol.

The Ahom girl he loved had married and moved close to grandfather’s Melachakar house. This, along with Aideo’s lack of grace, fanned Deuta’s angst and he decided never to set foot upon his ancestral town again. He took up a rented room in Nagaon and had good plans of leaving Aideo there while he disappeared for days, but things happened and Aideo got pregnant, several times over. So he got tied to her, come as he did from a ‘good family’ which had instilled a certain sense of karma and dharma in him. And the more he realized that there was no escape, the more ruthless he became to Aideo. As his rage increased, his handsome features changed and metamorphosed into such ugliness, that he began to seem like a good match to Aideo’s looks.

Read the rest of the story at https://kaaniliterarymagazine.wordpress.com/2018/11/15/singra-and-tea-by-juanita-kakoty/?fbclid=IwAR0eXCOzHv87TSLvAVpzSATetgxRTvhjGmH66sONlXOukuZpD_QyEZvT6Rw

My short story 'Where is Arsalan Miyan?' in Himal Southasian on 27 April 2018

My short  story 'Where is Arsalan Miyan?' in Himal Southasian on 27 April 2018

Right in the middle of the sprawling Nakhasa Bazaar – which is a criss-cross of narrow lanes that I am sure will amount to a hundred or more, though I have not counted them and I do not know of anyone who has – you will arrive at Arsalan Miyan’s house if you take the lane in front of the green Jama Masjid, by the huge transformer, past more lanes till you have forgotten where you started. Right there, where a lane seems to end, but actually doesn’t, because if you come up to the wooden door the colour of ash where the lane seems to end, you will see a small angular cut to the left, which will open up another lane between walls of houses to more lanes.

Anyway, right where the lane seems to end, when you come up to the huge wooden door that looks like it’s a hundred years old, you will know that you have reached Arsalan Miyan’s house. And if there is any confusion, just hang on there for two minutes, and an enormous shadow will growl at you from the first-floor balcony.

“Hey! Who stands there? What do you want? Where have you come from? Why do you stand there? Whom do you want to meet? What business brings you here?”

And you will stand there with your mouth open, ready to utter the first word once the old man stops. But he doesn’t. So, you stand there with your mouth open taking in the sight of a huge dark-skinned man with a mop of orange hair, obviously grey hair henna-dyed, in a faded white kurta leaning out of the little white balcony with green latticed railings.

Arsalan Miyan continues to volley questions at you, as your eyes shift from him to the buildings around which seem to have sprouted from the ground stuck to each other. Finally the old man stops for breath. And you quickly cut in, Is this Arsalan Miyan’s house? 

He looks at you like a student does when the teacher has posed a question which he cannot, for the life of him, answer. “Who?” he says meekly this time.

“Arsalan Miyan!” you respond with more vigour.

He looks at you like you just ordered his punishment for not knowing the answer.

Just then you hear hurried footsteps. A young lad leans out of the balcony and says, “Yes, yes. Come right up. Push the door open, you will find a flight of stairs. Come right up.”

As you reach the first floor, Arsalan Miyan is already seated on a sturdy, rocking armchair that was brought over from the wooden furniture workshop downstairs that the family runs, his eyes fixed on the whitewashed wall ahead. The balcony is bare, except for two pots of money plants randomly placed – one near the small white sink with a plastic pipe dangling beneath and the other in a corner from where one can take a flight of stairs to the terrace. The young lad welcomes you inside through a small door.

“That’s my eldest uncle, Arsalan Miyan. He can’t remember things now, including his name.” And you nod. “But he sits there the whole day and his ears pick up any footstep that stops at our door. So we don’t need a calling bell,” he tries to joke. But you don’t think it is funny because you are here to meet Arsalan Miyan, and the man doesn’t remember a thing.

(Read the rest of the story at the Himal site, where one can also listen to the story, at http://himalmag.com/where-is-arsalan-miyan-short-story-juanita-kakoty/ This is special to me because this is for the first time Himal has tried a podcast, which happens to be with my short story. My first too! So excited!) 

My short story (fiction) The White Envelope published in Kitaab on 11 October 2017

Sameera baji rushed down the narrow steep stairs of the building, her sandals going ‘clap clap’ with every step she descended, ignoring the pain in her knees that morning when every other day she cried out curses for the anonymous builder who planted these, what she called, ‘high rise stairs.’

She tore down the stairs of the scraggy yellow building calling out to her friend who lived in a small plot of land right across. Ameena baji! Ameena baji! Did you hear?

Ameena baji came out of the two-room humble dwelling into the courtyard and looked up. Thank God her husband had not succumbed to the lucrative temptation of selling their little plot of land to builders who have built stiff ugly buildings all over Shaheen Bagh such that if one wanted to stare at the sky, only a strip of it would peer through the mesh of buildings, or one would have to climb up to a terrace. But from Ameena baji’s house, one had the luxury to stare at a good patch of the sky from the ground – a rectangular piece of blue that soared above the pale yellow and grey buildings towering over her little plot of land.

There she saw Sameera baji at one corner of the second floor landing, leaning against the intricately carved black railing and looking down excitedly. The tenants living on that floor had tied a thick yellow synthetic rope above the railing from which hung a purple bed sheet with huge red and white flowers merging with each other, still moist. Sameera baji was so excited that she did not even push the bed sheet to the side. She stood there looking down at Ameena baji’s courtyard, the moist bed sheet clinging to her back.

What? Ameena baji cried out.

Did you get the white envelope? Sameera baji asked with a strange gleam in her eyes.

(Read the rest of the story at https://kitaab.org/2017/10/11/short-story-the-white-envelope/ )

How Hard Is It To Exit Prostitution? (Thomson Reuters Foundation News, 18 August 2017)

Two days ago, Noor Bai (name changed) was attacked by her daughter's father-in-law and mother-in-law. She was beaten, her clothes were ripped, and her thin as reed seven month pregnant daughter received blows on her protruding belly. The whole of Perna Basti in Dharampura, beyond Dwarka in Delhi NCR, had gathered outside her house. But no one called the police.

In some time, Noor Bai called up Khushboo at Apne Aap Women Worldwide. She just said, help me, I am being attacked. We at Apne Aap dialled 100 and requested that the police be sent to her house immediately. It took exactly an hour for us to reach Dharampura from Anand Niketan. Outside Noor Bai's house, there was a big crowd but no sign of the police. When we contacted the police again, they said they had gone to help the victim but were sent away by the crowd with the word that it was a matter of the biradari (community) and the biradari would settle it. The police told us that this is how it always is at the Perna Basti in Dharampura.

When Noor Bai saw us, she seemed relieved and her daughter's in-laws withdrew from the scene. We asked her to come with us and file an FIR at the police station. But all those gathered would just not let her leave with us. They blocked her way and used all means to deter her from taking this step - they used threat, plea, emotional blackmailing and what not. Someone even said that her daughter's father-in-law would be nominated as the pradhan (chief) of the caste panchayat this year and so she ought to be careful.

(Read the rest of the story at http://news.trust.org//item/20170818115614-za9td)

An evening with extraordinary women at Sonagachi, Kolkata. 2 April 2017.

I was in Kolkata yesterday to attend a consultation on the Child Labour Act, at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences which is located in the Salt Lake neighbourhood. In the evening, I visited the Apne Aap Women Worldwide Khidirpur and Sonagachi offices to say hello to my extraordinary colleagues. Khidirpur is close to the red light area Munshiganj and Sonagachi is one of Asia's biggest red light areas. Traveling from Salt Lake to Khidirpur and Sonagachi seemed like travelling to a different lifetime.

One of Asia's biggest red light areas - Sonagachi, Kolkata. 2 April 2017.

The tram line at Sonagachi and a man pulling a rickshaw (the blur on the left), even today.

I pose with the extraordinary Apne Aap women at the Apne Aap Sonagachi centre.

Celebrated writer Baby Haldar, who is a former domestic help. She is a prolific writer and her autobiography Aalo Aandhari, which shot her to fame in 2006, has been translated into several languages. She runs the Apne Aap Sonagachi centre with Rumki. 

The ever cheerful Rumki :)

The very talented Keya and Payal. They will both appear in an upcoming film 'Love Sonia,' directed by Tabrez Noorani. The film is based on true stories around sex trafficking. Keya and Payal play real life in reel life.

Sahani Di, who has dedicated her life to changing the lives of the children of prostituted women, outside the Sonagachi Apne Aap centre. Everyone at Sonagachi calls her 'Ma.' She tells me stories of how she befriended the women in Munshiganj and Sonagachi by getting them and their children come to the Apne Aap centres to take baths and wash their clothes because in these parts of the city, bathrooms and water are forever a problem.

The dynamic trio. Baby Haldar told me when I was leaving that I should come again and we should have a good 'adda' session where we discuss literature, lives, music, and films. I promised her I will come again for a longer time.

Looking outside from the Apne Aap Sonagachi centre

Walls of the centre

This is Uma at the Apne Aap Khidirpur centre. As a child, she used to come to the Apne Aap centre at Munshiganj where Sahana di used to run a learning centre for the children of prostituted women. Uma also used to stay back at this centre in the night, with several other girls from the area. Uma told me that for some five - six years, their mothers made them stay back at the Apne Aap night shelter to protect them from traffickers and pimps. 'This centre here is my home,' she told me about the Khidirpur centre, 'I have grown up here. I have had several skill training here, including how to use the machines for making sanitary napkins.' Uma has been running the Apne Aap sanitary napkin making unit for a few years now.

A poster outside the Apne Aap Khidirpur centre

Toasting Renu in Forbesganj with firebrand women, songs against patriarchy, and memories!

Yesterday, in Forbesganj, as people moved with hurried feet placing floor cushions, chairs and putting up posters and photographs at the Jagdish Mill Compound office of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, the weather decided to contribute its bit by sending across a lovely breeze to add to the celebratory mood. After all, Phaneshwar Nath Renu's birth anniversary was being celebrated. Renu, who wrote for and about the people and land in this part of the country. Who wrote for the casteless as well as those whose generations were ruined by Caste. Who wrote about love and rebellion in the same breath. 

As journalist Nivedita Shakeel said while interacting with everyone yesterday, Renu understood that one cannot be a rebel without the ability to love deeply.

The stage is all set. Celebrating Renu's birth anniversary on 4 March 2017 at the Apne Aap centre in Forbesganj with a conversation between Ruchira Gupta and Girindra Nath Jha. Ruchira is an abolitionist activist, journalist, academic, writer, and founder of Apne Aap. Girindra Nath Jha is a journalist, writer and farmer.  

It was for the first time that Renu's birth anniversary was being celebrated at the Jagdish Mill Compound. Ruchira Gupta, at whose family house the event was held (where even the Apne Aap office is), has been reading letters exchanged between her uncle Birju Babu and Renu these days. These letters and some photographs of Renu in this house have been preserved by her father Vidyasagar Gupta, who never thought that some day his daughter would bring them out to a larger world. 

Renu looms large over displayed copies of his letters to Birju Babu at the exhibition yesterday

Keeping memories and the stories alive was the idea behind yesterday's event. As journalist-writer-farmer Girindra Nath Jha told to some seventy people present at the gathering that when he first came to meet Ruchira here at this house, he felt as if the ghosts of extraordinary men and women were walking down its corridors, whispering to him. It might be true. For every time I walk along the corridor and through the rooms, looking at the photographs on the walls, I feel as if the people in those photographs might become animate any moment in their eagerness to tell me what happened all those years ago.

Ruchira opened the conversation by talking about how Renu did not separate women from nature, from the land, from the rivers when he wrote. Like their stories seamlessly came together in their journeys and fates. But what I liked most is the legend she narrated, as captured in Renu's 'Parti Parikatha.' Renu addresses the river Kosi as 'mayya' (mother) and writes of how she grew up being cursed ('kos,' 'kosna' - I think that's how the river must have got its name, if I go by this legend). And then when she got married, there came a time when she fled from her in-law's house to light a lamp in her mother's name at a temple in Malda (Ruchira later told me that this temple still exists). What I found fascinating is the existence of a space like this where a married woman can honor her mother or keep her ties with her mother alive. Especially because in Bihar, like most of north India, a married woman means she has severed all ties with her maternal house.     

People start coming by 2 pm

Tinku Khanna (director of Apne Aap) welcoming trade union leader Kamayani Swami of Jan Jagaran Shakti Sangathan and journalist and writer Nivedita Shakeel.

Vidyasagar ji started the afternoon event by welcoming everyone and remembering the days when the house at this Jagdish Mill compound also used to be home for Phaneshwar Nath Renu on several occasions. 

Renu's old friends and acquaintances in the audience

Vidyasagar ji spoke as the exhibition in the background stood testimony to his stories about Renu, drawn from memory. 

The conversation started with Roshanara reading to the audience a short story by Renu. Fabulous work!

Fatima, activist with Apne Aap, has put several traffickers in Araria in jail, including the most dreaded Gainul. She is from the Nat community, a freed/denotified tribe which practices inter generational prostitution, subjecting girls of ten - twelve years to prostitution. She fought the system within her family and is now fighting it in her community,   

Meena, another Apne Aap activist in Forbesganj, is a prostitution survivor who works relentlessly to help women with choices in life, to help them understand that at ten or twelve years of age prostitution cannot be a choice for girls. Her story has been captured in the film 'Meena' by The Sibbs and Lucy Lui.

As Nivedita Shakeel said to the audience, thanks to women before us and with us, we can tell our stories! Thanks to their courage, their efforts! She spoke of how women writing was not quite a thing in the past. How even in Rabindra Nath Tagore's house, his sister who wrote so well wasn't acknowledged or encouraged. And why because this was the case, women in the old days scribbled on the kitchen walls where they were mostly confined. 

Roshanara dreams of learning the harmonium and singing along with it some day. Young hearts. Dreams.

Sanju ji, who runs Apne Aap's Uttari Rampur centre in Forbesganj, listened intently as Roshanara read out the story. Sanju ji has tutored many girls at the centre, some of whom have finished school and have attended or are attending college. Like Roshanara. 

A shy Roshanara as people complimented her wonderful reading of Renu's short story. 

Ruchira referred to Renu's 'Parti Parikatha' (published in 1957) where he has written about a land in Araria as 'parti' (barren). There was a curse, she said, Renu mentioned this in the book. No one would dare attempt cultivating the land or settling down there. Today, she said, after sixty years since the book was written, there are houses in that very land and a school run by the Government of Bihar and Apne Aap for girls from vulnerable communities. An indication of how it takes just one step of courage to overcome curses.  

Girindra Nath Jha spoke of Renu and his reportage as an inspiration in his career as a journalist and how now he has come back to the village after years of city life to become a farmer and create a culturally vibrant village with his Chanka Residency - a residency for artists.

The exhibition space where photographs of Renu with Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, Baba Nagarjun, Ruchira's father Vidyasagar Gupta, and her uncle Birju Babu were displayed.

Tanmay and Sohini,  facing the house that holds many memories related to the Nepal democracy movement, abolition of Zaminadri in Bihar, etc.  

There are so many stories etched all over the house. And they keep tumbling out. Like yesterday, after dinner, as Vidyasagar ji, Ruchira, Tinku and I sat chatting, Vidyasagar ji enthralled us with one tale after another about Renu and other writer friends. Their idiosyncrasies, love stories and ideologies. He also told us about how during the Nepal democracy movement, Girija Prasad Koirala, who was a close friend of Birju Babu (Vidyasagar ji's elder brother), and his comrades stayed at this very house in Forbesganj and planned the hijack of an aeroplane that was carrying money from the Nepal treasury. Vidyasagar ji also told us how the comrades of the Nepal democracy movement used the bathroom, in a corner far away from the house, as the wireless centre! 

The photo gallery 

Vidyasagar ji and Girindra Nath Jha with flautist Shambhu Mishra ji.

Ruchira and Nivedita Shakeel catch up at the exhibition space

Ruchira, Vidyasagar ji, Girindra Nath Jha with Phaneshwar Nath Renu's son Dakshineshwar Roy and Renu Verma.

Capturing the photographer. Saurav :)

Sanju ji interacting with Girindra Nath Jha

Blogger Chinmaya seen here interacting with Phaneshwar Nath Renu's son, Dakshineshwar Roy 

A group photo!

 

Ruchira's mother, Rajni ji, in the audience

 

Subhan ji and Shaukat :)

Jaikishore ji who has been an accountant at the Jagdish Mill Compound since it's very early days, for over forty-fifty years now.

Tinku Khanna and Praveen ji happy with themselves with an event so well organised!

Kamayani Swami and her activist friends from Jan Jagaran Shakti Sangathan ended the event with a strong message against patriarchy through a song.