Excerpts: Memories of Shadows and Other Folktales of the Northeast

Bathopuri was not an ordinary village. It had a rich system of social organization: Dahvana, Gorokhiya and Ruvathi. The zamindars ran the place like earlier emperors, sometimes mistaking their arrogance for divine blessings and their cows as tax-paying citizens.

Now, in this charming chaos of dung, gossip and paddy-scented afternoons, there lived a painfully shy Dahwana named Birkhang. At the age of twenty-three, Birkhang’s face had the emotional expression of a boiled potato that had been left in the sun for too long – soft, calm and slightly confused. He was not the kind of man who wrote poetry or serenades on moonlit nights. No, he was the kind of person who used to practice saying ‘Good Morning’ in front of a banana tree for three days before greeting anyone.

He lived in a simple bamboo house with his widowed mother and two very fast-talking chickens, who behaved more like security guards than the chickens in his landlord’s yard. Every morning, he would wake up to the screams of a chicken and the dramatic cough of his mother, who would declare every sunrise as ‘the day I might finally die of joint pain’, a daily prediction she had been making for the past decade.

Birkhang’s life was simple – plowing the fields, feeding fodder to the cows, accidentally stepping on cow dung, washing his slippers in the river, returning home, eating dry rice and mashed potatoes, and sleeping under a mosquito net that had more holes than a net. He had two sets of clothes, one for farming and one for festivals, both of which were almost the same dull brown colour. To him, romance seemed like something that people talked about only in radio songs.

And then a girl named Bibari came.

Bibari was not just beautiful, she was alive. Her laughter sounded like monsoon rain hitting a tin roof – rhythmic, fresh and strangely anarchic. She tied her hair with old ribbons, walked skipping, and once beat a drunk Dahvana with a ladle for stealing pickles during lunch. She was a woman who turned even the buffaloes’ heads.

Whenever Bibari laughed near the well or passed by carrying firewood, Birkhang’s hands would tremble. Once while plucking ladyfinger, he plucked chillies and apologized. Another time, during Bivisagu rehearsal, he forgot the dance steps and started clapping like a confused tourist.

Unable to bear this slow emotional torture, Birkhang decided to take action. Of course, not by actually talking to Bibari; That would be very revolutionary. Instead, he adopted the age-old Bathpuri shortcut by consulting an exorcist.

Ojha, known locally as Buba Ojha, lived in a hut at the edge of the forest that smelled like wet socks, incense and suspicious herbs. Buba was so old that no one remembered whether he was born or whether one day he came out of the earth like a mushroom. Her eyebrows were long enough to be tied in a knot, and her nose had a personality of its own.

He scared away the black Himalayan bears by shouting in Sanskrit. Once, it was said, she gave a bitter medicine to a cheating husband, making him speak only the truth for twenty-four hours. The next day the wife filed a complaint not against her husband but against the exorcist for ruining the peace of the family.

As Birkhang approached the hut, he stumbled twice, was bitten by a dragonfly-sized mosquito, and stepped on dry cow grass. But he was determined.

‘I…I think I like someone,’ he muttered, looking at a beetle on the floor.

The exorcist did not look up. He was grinding something in a wooden bowl, which smelled like toothpaste and sadness.

‘Mmm,’ Booba growled. ‘So you finally realized you’re human.’

Birkhang immediately said, ‘I want her to like me back.’

At this the exorcist slowly looked up, his cataract filled eyes shining. ‘Love, eh? Dangerous. Like taming a wild elephant, with no assurance of what will happen next.’

Then, from behind his hut, under a dusty blanket and near an old transistor radio that played only bhajans, Ojha took out a small clay bottle.

‘This,’ he said, holding it up as if it were some precious thing, ‘Hanamuli is made of owl spit, fish tear drops, forbidden ferns, tears of confused goats and possibly some expired fennel seeds. It has inspired people to fall in love, fight trees and even marry scarecrows.’

Birkhang nodded seriously, though he wasn’t sure whether the part about the owl spitting was literal or poetic. (It was literal.)

The exorcist leaned closer. ‘But remember, forced love is like cooking food without salt, it tastes good until you taste it. If you use it, you better be prepared for the consequences.’

Birkhang nodded seriously, trying to look brave but accidentally sneezing due to the herbal smoke.

With the potion safely hidden in his gamusa, clutching it nervously to his beating heart, Birkhang went home dreaming of the day when Bibari would laugh at him, not like how he had once fallen into the pond while trying to pick lotus flowers (which turned out to be plastic decorations from last year’s puja pandal).

And so, with emotions running high and bells echoing far and wide, Birkhang prepared to flirt with destiny, armed with the spirit of love, terrible times, and a heart softer than a boiled potato.

That evening, as the sun set behind the bamboo grove and the buffaloes mooed in perfect cinematic timing, Birkhang prepared tea with trembling hands. She poured the entire bottle into a cup, accidentally spilled a few drops on her toes, and nervously drank from the wrong cup almost twice, while waiting for him to arrive.

Then that moment came.

‘Bibari, would you like tea?’ he asked, pretending to be casual, even though sweat was coming from his ears.

Bibari, who was busy shooing away the cock that loved her sandals, turned and blinked. ‘You? Tea? Voluntarily?’

he nodded.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Okay, if I die, tell my aunt she can have my fish basket.’

They sat on the steps of the courtyard. The birds started chirping. At some distance, an old man sneezed three times – usually a bad omen – but Birkhang was so nervous that he did not care.

Bibari took a sip.

Then she stopped.

Then he stared at Birkhang for a long time.

His heart did somersaults. His stomach organized a party. His left eye twitched with anticipation.

And then…

She stood up, spread her arms, spun around like a possessed Bivisagu dancer with the Chinese crowd, and shouted: ‘I love that Nafam Gorokhiya! The one who sings for the buffaloes!’

silence.

Then there was an uproar in the village.

Not in flames but in gossip.

A boy named Nefam was so strange that he once accidentally wore a chicken basket as a hat, becoming an overnight superstar. His slippers were mismatched (a blue one, probably stolen from his uncle), his hair was spoon-combed, and he smelled faintly like fermented yogurt. But now? He was a legend.

Bibari would bring him garlands of flowers every morning, stand outside his shed and sing lullabies to the calves, and once offered to apply oil to his hair ‘because they looked stressed.’

Meanwhile, Birkhang is heartbroken.

Nafam was frightened.

The buffaloes also looked slightly angry. One of them ignored Bibari for three consecutive days.

The next day the exorcist entered Birkhang’s house waving the neem stick like a stick.

‘you idiots!’ he shouted. ‘You put the potion on the wrong side of the cup! The wind transferred it to his left hand! Buffalo lover got lucky with the help of wind

Witchcraft!’

Birkhang fell at his feet.

‘I’m sorry! I didn’t see the direction of the wind!’

‘You’re not flying a kite!’ Ojha shouted.

In the days that followed, Birkhang apologized to everyone – Ojha, Bibari, Gorokhiya, even the buffaloes (he offered them extra grass and emotional support). His humility became a joke. Old women used to tease, ‘If you sneeze near Birkhang, you will apologize for the current one.’

The villagers kept laughing about this for months.

‘If love had legs, Birkhang would have tripped over them all and then clung to the floor,’ they used to say during festivals.

But then, something unexpected started happening.

Bibari started talking to Birkhang again.

Not in an ‘Oh, you’re my soulmate’ way. More like, ‘Hey, why are my handkerchiefs drying in your yard?’ or ‘Did you see my ladle?’ I think your cow took it.’

But progress is progress.

They began sharing work, exchanging jokes and even once teamed up to rescue a goat trapped in a nearby fishing pond. Slowly, steadily, without potions or poultry drama, something real blossomed.

One fine Bivisagu evening, Bibari laughed at Birkhang’s pigeon imitation, which was so accurate that even real pigeons felt threatened. He clapped. He felt shy. At a distance, Nefam heaves a sigh of relief and resumes his song therapy with his herd.

And just like that, love happened.

No boob patch. No air conspiracy. No buffalo triangle.

Just two people, strange and lovable, finding each other in the middle of a village that was never silent.

Meanwhile, in Borbari, just across the river, love created a storm of its own.

There, two landowners, Hari Boro and Lakhi Basumatari, were locked in a feud so old that even their ancestral mango trees refused to bear fruit on each other’s land. Once they fought for three weeks over a goat that had allegedly grazed in each other’s vegetable field.

But like all great dramas, there was a twist: their children, Arjun and Leela, fell in love.

They met during Rongali Bihu, accidentally holding each other’s hands during a clumsy Bwisagu dance step. Sparks flew. Same condition happened with the slippers also. It was destiny, or at least, a very happy coincidence.

Their love blossomed in stolen moments behind granaries and love notes hidden in fish baskets. But everything became dramatic when the landlords found out. Arjun was so thoroughly grounded that even ants needed permission to visit him, and Leela was engaged to a contractor who blinked once every three hours.

In desperation, both families go to Ojha, the same poor man still recovering from the buffalo love triangle. He begged her to end the romance.

‘Who do you think I am – a betel nut seller?’ The exorcist muttered. ‘Love is not something that can be chewed up and thrown on the roadside.’

Nevertheless, he gave them the anti-nausea potion, muttering prayers under his breath and contemplating early retirement.

It didn’t work.

In fact, Arjun and Leela become even more romantic, exchanging love songs, bangles and strategic escape plans. At last, on a moonlit night, they escaped on a borrowed bicycle with a broken chain. They pushed it more than it drove it. The buffaloes also went ahead of them on the way.

When the villagers heard this news they clapped with joy.

The landlords were embarrassed, angry and slightly relieved. Fed up with generational feuding, the villagers demanded peace. A meeting was held under the sacred banyan tree. There was shouting there. There was crying and wailing. An uncle became unconscious after eating too much mutton.

Finally, he called for a ceasefire.

To celebrate they threw a grand feast. Four goats were sacrificed. One man escaped midway through the ceremony, speeding across the rice fields and becoming a local hero. (Later he was seen wearing a garland around his neck in Bathopuri and was nicknamed ‘Lucky’.)

As part of the festivities, Birkhang and Bibari were also invited. By then, they had become the most admired couple in the village. Bibari, now the queen of sarcasm and sweetness, brought pickles. Birkhang brought the flower and gave a nervous smile.