This week two things happened that triggered off a plethora of memories about Assam: One was the recent report about the Majuli island in Assam, the largest freshwater settlement in the world getting washed away, and the other was a painting exhibition Aurora Borealis by Sandeep Jigdung at IIC.
My exhaustive and exhausting travel within the region holds a special place in my heart for many things — the Kamakhya Temple being the foremost. It is part of the family lore that my maternal great-grandfather had walked all the way to Kamakhya in Guwahati from Kanpur sometime in the 19th century to pray to the Goddess and be blessed with children, as seven of his children had died soon after birth.
It is said that he lived in the foothills of the Kamakhya Mountain for nearly five years doing penance and propitiating the Brahmaputra River, as it is the only “masculine” river in the country and worshipped the Goddess Kamakhya. It is believed that the Goddess gave him darshan in the form of an old woman and told him that his penance was over and helped him get out of the area hidden under a goat’s skin.
Post his return, two of his male offspring survived and one of them happened to be my grandfather and the rest, as they say, is history! As a child, this used be one of my favourite stories and I would entreat my mother to recount it yet again. I knew it so well that if she even used a different word in her description, I would correct her!
I was the first one from the family to offer prayers at Kamakhya Devi in the early 90s and then over the years, many from the family followed suit. What I didn’t discover until my last visit two years ago was that the Kamakhya Mountain was also home to 10 wisdom goddesses and had temples dedicated to them dotted along the hill. Interestingly enough, apart from the worship of the goddesses, which is fairly complex and ritual-oriented with a lot of mystical and occult overtones, the cultural indicators are simple with an aura of rather clean lines. It is true of the textiles woven mostly by women in practically every rural home, the simple folk and traditional dance and music is extremely simple yet imbued with an innate elegance and sophistication.
Sandeep Jigdung’s show brought out all the lush verdure of the Assam landscapes and should serve as an eye-opener for all those who think that tea gardens are all Assam has to offer! That there is landscape beyond the tea plantations is evident in the nooks and crannies that he chooses to highlight. His sun dappled, rain-drenched spotlight has cascades of flowers set amidst the almost over powering greens in an almost defiant manner — refusing to be cowered down or greened out! There is a humorous streak that runs concurrently where a baboon or a bird plays peek-a-boo on Jigdung’s canvas.
The quest for beauty and aesthetics is paramount in Jigdung’s work, as he walks through the rain-soaked forests. Talking of rain-drenched, once travelling through the ill-famed Kokhrajhar in Assam, where bullets whizzed past our ears in broad daylight, the heavy Ambassador in which we were travelling had to go over a short wooden bridge. All the passengers were asked to alight so that the car could get lighter.
The rain had stopped and at 8 pm in the evening, it was pitch dark. I opened the car door and promptly retreated with a shriek — for the entire bridge was practically carpeted with jumping frogs — which could have been a veritable feast for the frogs legs enthusiasts! Clad in a sari, wild horses were not going to drag me out of the car! I stayed and opted to be drowned in the stream underneath if need be. But obviously I survived to tell the tale!
Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com