Childhood: a carefree romp that didn’t last

A random account of some events of my childhood... I began to write this piece because I wanted to send it to Teresa Rahman as part of her series on childhood memories in the Thumprint Northeast. But it turned out to be a very therapeutic exercise as well as the news of the horrible aircraft disaster in Ahmedabad came in. It might sound self-indulgent but it kept me from sinking... 

My childhood was mostly happy, and spent mainly at three places, Guwahati, Delhi and Shillong. I was born in Delhi as my mother, Renuka Devi Barkataki, was a young parliamentarian at that time. But whenever my mother needed to go anywhere, since my absentminded and rather impractical father, Munin Barkotoki, could not be trusted with such things, I was left with my aunt, my Jethima, in Shillong, who ran a full house with six kids of her own. The first time I was left there I was barely a few months old – Ma was selected to be part of a parliamentary delegation to the US. She was gone for more than a month.  When she returned, I did not recognize my mother anymore and refused to go back with her. I am told I was put in the care of two very nice kongs, first the very pretty Kong Cross and after her Kong Cheni, but I have no real memory of them. 

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