God’s own Children

Pradeep Dada Kumar is one of the most respected and admired journalists in the North-Eastern region, and a ‘father-figure’ amongst present crop of journalists in  Arunachal Pradesh. Officially, Pradeep Kr Behera turned 52 yesterday. At the age of 52, his energy and enthusiasm is to be seen to be believed; and it could rub onto you, if you are nearby. He edits Arunachal Front, one of the newspapers which does serious reporting, without indulging in yellow journalism. 

But Dada can be really funny at times in his paper with catchy lines.
I remember, once there was an ‘sms’ doing the rounds amongst the media circle when Dada’s newspaper carried a public notice, issued by a lady Deputy Commissioner of Capital Complex, without an ‘L’ in ‘Pub(l)ic Notice’!

That wasn’t the last.

Latest one, which could have beaten the best in the business hands-down, was when his newspaper ran a story with a catchy line,  ‘Khimun reiterates his love for rubber’ which evoked quite a titillating laughter in the media circle.

That’s much loved Pradeep Dada, for us!

Pradeep Dada belongs to an era where rubber had no utility in domestic front, but was seen as a product for industrial usages,in other words, there wasn’t an iota of conjugal or sexual overtone to the word ‘rubber’. 

Concept of family planning was still an alien subject. Forget my parents even graduates in mainland India, people like Lalu Prasad Yadav knew about rubber and other means like sterilisation, but kept growing his family tree defying the government directives, in protest against national emergency during 1975-1977.

I was a toddler then.

“Sterilisation; yes, that was a new concept for women introduced through usage of copper-T. But, those days, practitioners had not perfected the art, and lot of women complained of pain while performing daily household chores,” my Ane (mother) continued her narration, “even I went to the hospital but there I met couple of my friends who had come to remove the same. After listening to their ordeals, I backed out.”  “Had I done sterilisation then, you would not have been born,” with a sly but mischievous smile on her wrinkled face, she told me.

Like many of ‘Arunachalees-in-transition’ those days, even my parents did not either know about existence of family planning concept or have had a very little idea about what it was all about. And I am a product of those bygones era where mortal souls were God’s gifts; looked after Himself, in absence of health facilities. Half of today’s Arunachalees were born, more or less, in the same fashion. Therefore, most of the Arunachalees born before 1980s, I would like to call them ‘rubber-less products’; much like Americans refer to the children born between the years 1946 and 1964, after the World War-II as baby boomers.

Even to my parents- Sokjar & Gamde- we were God’s own children. We were born because of God’s desire and blessings- eight of us in my family, tells my Ane.  I am sure; even you were told by your mother that you are God’s child, not of a doctor.

My Ane’s story is the story of every mother of that golden era marked by strong bonding between parents and children, unlike today where doctors, psychologist etc intervene every now and then and in many ways, if I may say, these specialists are responsible for emotional chasm between ‘mother-child’. Modernity brought in too many experts from physical perspectives, but on emotional side of human relations these experts created a vacuum: Gynecologist, like a gate-crasher in a private party, intrudes every few weeks till you come out of warm and cosy cradle called ‘mother’s womb’ and pediatrics does the same after those golden 9 months of being fed and protected by mother. Then, there are psychologists to guide at later stage.  Contrastingly, in those ‘bonding era’, we had only two persons to take care of us– mother and God himself. “Eight of you were born in the same manner- in presence of God himself and me, with no dad or helping hands around,” says Ane. When quizzed about the birth process that she endured over 24 years from her eldest child, Jarkar to the youngest child, Jarpum, she says, “What doctor? We never had one.”

“I gave birth to all the children by myself.  I would tie my tummy whenever I felt labor pain, then heat up water in the fire-place and keep a domestic Yoksik (knife) beneath the ashes of smoldering amber charcoal. Then after giving birth, I would use red-hot heated Yoksik to cut the umbilical cord; then tie up the loose-ends; and wash up with lukewarm water before wrapping up in jeya (traditional white cotton clothes)- that’s how Ane narrates the time-tested process of giving birth in village and small towns those days.

Coming from a family with no-family planning concept I must narrate that just 15 months after my arrival, we had another God’s own child born into the family. This time, it was my eldest brother, Jarkar’s eldest son-Karli. Later, we went to the same class, played football for the same team and were partners in all double games such as badminton. He never called me ‘Nyanya or Abo’ (meaning Uncle) and we were on first name basis; even till date we have the same rapport, when both of us have two children each.

With his birth, family bonding accelerated into a different paradigm: My mother stopped breast feeding me, instead it was my nephew’s turn to be in her arms and care; and I was weaned off, I was in the lap of tall, beautiful, nicely built Nete (sister-in-law) who was grappling with motherhood at a very tender age; and she, in an easier manner, brought me up on bottle feed of ‘Lactogen’ and ‘Horlicks’. 

Literally, I had and I still have two mothers. Those were the charms of rubber-less era and of being rubberless products.