NAMSING

Potak was scrolling through his WhatsApp contacts when he came upon a status that one of his friends had put out. It read “Bhut Jolokia and Namsing all the way from home”. He wasn’t surprised that his salivary glands instantly activated itself by the mere mention of the words. That’s the beauty of words – they can take you anywhere; to and forth memory lanes or even to distant unknown space. If I may say, it’s like a portal where we can choose to travel through space and time. (Who said time travel was just a geeky fantasy!) Anyway, coming back to the present time, it was the word “Namsing” that particularly intrigued him, because it was alluring him to take the plunge down the memory lane.

River Kherkutia Xuti

For all those uninitiated, Namsing is a kind of cuisine prepared with dried fish by the Mishing tribe of Majuli Island. It has a characteristic pungent smell because the preparation process entails drying the fish in the sun and then after in the fireplace with smoke and later storing it in bamboo containers. The description probably sounds like an oversimplification of the whole preparation process. However, Potak was very familiar with the process; he had witnessed his mom diligently prepare Namsing a countless number of times during his childhood.

Every year the river Brahmaputra engulfs the island like a child and sometimes showers excess love. As a child, he never understood why his parents made a lot of fuss about the flood. They often discussed some unrelatable and boring things like loss of crops, land, poultry, cattle and all. Yes, there were a few times, even he was upset with the flood because they had to vacate their home and shift to high land along with all the people in their village. The high lands had makeshift temporary camps, which also served as a shelter for the cattle and poultry. However, he had only fond and happy memories of the time at these camps. He no longer needed to attend school and he could play his heart out with his brother and friends.

Locals engrossed in a catch in the river Kherkutia Xuti

One particular aspect that he loved the most about the flood was the fact that it allowed him to engross himself in his favourite “hobby” of fishing. Many people on the island had fishing and cultivation as their way of living. He always felt grateful to the flood because it sculptured a perfect fit to the conundrum of duality which was a disguised oxymoron for a lot of people. It enabled people to concentrate only on fishing because of the inundation in their respective paddy fields. He would never miss any opportunity to go fishing with his friends and brother. His father taught him many tricks about fishing which always gave him an extra edge among his friends.

Potak was jolted back to reality by the sound of his phone. He received the call and it was his mom.

“Mom, can you please send me some Namsing?”

Cowsheds are a common sight in the river banks