Singra and tea by Juanita Kakoty
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.
