Tuesday 20 November 2018

There and Here

There it was a healthy tree, full of life and vitality,
but it chose to uproot itself and move away;
     But the alien lands were hostile and forbidding
It could do no better than become a parasite
to what it thought was a healthy tree, here;
     But one day the healthy tree began to rot 
     and with it began to wither the parasite that lived on and off it;
It had not taught itself to spring roots to survive on its own, here
Nor were its dismembered remains strong enough to strike root again, there
    Uprooted tree or starved parasite, you have no chance!

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Thursday 12 July 2018

Facing up to the scary truth

Some ghastly incidents in the last few weeks, one in Thailand, the others in Assam, and some sobering conclusions that we can draw from them...[with thanks to Bodhisattva Sarma for some of the inputs and for goading me on to write]

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Wednesday 6 June 2018

Truly one of a kind: Kotoky Sir

My tribute to Professor Prafulla Kotoky Sir, written on 5th June 2018, on getting the news about Sir’s demise

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Saturday 10 March 2018

The many different rich

Just felt like writing about three kinds of rich that I met, all within the space of a single day, in a town in Upper Assam recently.

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Thursday 8 March 2018

Some women have it tough

A salute to some really tough women I know on international women's day! Some others are forced to be tough. This is a story based on some real life incidents...

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Monday 5 March 2018

Death of an ancient Ashram

A desperate cry for help, recounting the past glory and the present crisis facing Panchabati Ashram in Guwahati where I grew up, with the hope that someone reading this will come forward to help and  together we shall be able to rescue the precious Ashram and revive it in a new form and function.


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Tuesday 27 February 2018

Cycle

A beautiful piece by Saurav Kumar Chaliha about Goettingen in Germany and Germans, as well as about us kharkhuwa Asamiyas in contrast... This is about the time when he was living in Germany in the late 1950s and studying physics at the university.

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Thursday 22 February 2018

Stolen translation

A story about how translators can sometimes be at the receiving end of unscrupulous authors if they are not careful...and my tribute to a fellow translator who was wronged but chose, gracefully, to do nothing about it.

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Sunday 11 February 2018

A terrorist in Germany looks like me

A first-hand report of a real incident that took place at Frankfurt airport on New Year's Day 2018.

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