Childhood experiences often seem to be quite adventurous. Now, I say adventurous not because they take us on a real roller coaster ride, but because the impact of the impressions they make on us are pretty much so. The best and the most important of these impressions are the ones created by the various stories narrated by our mothers and grandmothers to serve various (selfish yet good for the children kind of) purposes. Let me tell you one such very short yet impactful (to my tiny innocent brain those days) story. A story which was told to me almost every day – like a song playing on loop, you know. Okay, so here it goes.
During my childhood, my mother strived to make me eat any food that I would do at once without turning my face away (a common phenomenon with kids of all generations who trouble their mothers with food). All earnest attempts went in vain when suddenly one day she observed me in one of my weak moments. That’s it! A Eureka moment it was for her and she knew just exactly how to turn that observation into a utilitarian narrative.
In a compact town where I grew up, it was very easy for beggars to pay visit in person and knock door after door in hope for alms. Nobody had to open the door to know who it was because they had a common cry (“bhikka dau maa” – in Bengali) which means “Give some alms mother”. All such sudden visits, to our and all the neighbouring houses, were usually during the afternoon - a not so appropriate time in my Bengali dominant colony. Most of the times my mother used to help those, not so young and healthy looking ‘people’ with a pot of rice.
One fine (for me, fateful) day, my mother was having bath so I was instructed to provide the visitor with a pot of rice. My mother always believes in doing things by herself. The feeling of self-satisfaction gives her immense joy, I suppose. So, she wrapped up quickly and was there at the door in just a fraction of a second after I reached the door. She was relieved to see that I had the right pot in hand with the right amount of rice. Yes, she had this fixed measurement of rice to give away to these visitors in a specific pot. She then asked me to open the door and do the needful. I obeyed.
As a six-year-old then, what I saw on opening the door scared me out of my wits. The fear that my mother saw on my face that day was nothing less than winning a lottery for her. She very smartly cooked up a story which was then used by her every day to tell me about the ‘bosta buri’, meaning ‘sack woman’, who would suddenly appear behind me (like a witch) and take me away if I didn’t eat. What I felt? Well, horror! Since then I would imagine the old, hunch-back woman, whom I gave alms, carry me away in the sack in which she used to collect rice. And, a sack which I never really noticed carefully. The horror was so ingrained that visits to the loo at night became a nightmare and if there was a power cut at that time then the good Lord save me!
My mother could effectively build up on the story because she had the natural settings available to her. She would say that the ‘bosta buri’ would take me and hide me on the other side of our pond (yes, we have a pond at home) till I am hungry and then I would have no food to eat. Very good use of settings I must say. Almost every day, for about a year and half, the calls in the afternoons and the image of ‘that’ woman were an absolute horror for me. Luckily however, I grew older and with time I also gained some courage to peep through the window once while my mother was helping a visitor with alms. And THAT, was MY Eureka moment. I realized the sack was too small for me and the visitor (again an old woman) looked too weak to be able to carry me away.
That was the day I recognized the bubble I was living in. The bubble of horror of a ‘witch’, who in reality might have just been an old woman asking for help. My mother never really mentioned that the old (sack) woman was a witch, it was completely my imagination. My eyes and my ears are to be blamed here. They however also aided the enlightenment. Now I was smart enough to understand that I need to find proof for everything I see and hear. It became a bit difficult for Maa to cook up something around the same plot to make me eat, so she changed the story.
Moral of the story – one needs to gain the courage to burst the bubble of horror. May be not always, but usually, it’s just a bubble.
Debanki Dey
Full-time faculty
ELTIS