Adha Khua Chips'or packet (Half-Eaten Packet of Chips)

 

A packet of chips that had seen it all – from long bus rides to the hot dusty streets of Jorhat, from condescending Hotel Dilips to discourse-filled Beer sessions that night – it was a very eventful day for the packet. Not to mention the accidental stumbling upon a haunted house!

It was a long day – waking up at 6 in the morning and immediately calling up Pratas to ask if he had boarded the bus yet. He had not- they were only getting ready. Well, I thought, I woke up too soon. But I could not even go back to sleep because of the anticipation and excitement – WE WERE GOING TO MAJULI! Well, the plan was kind of instantaneous. 19^th December, around noon, Pratas popped the question, “hey do you want to go to Majuli the first week of January?”. Without a second thought, I had said yes. And here I was, on the morning of the 5^th of January, eagerly waiting for a bus that had not even left and which would take a minimum of 3 hours to reach me. I finally boarded the bus to meet him and Tushar (who we’d drop at Kaliabor). Tushar and I had seen each other after around 4 years, so it was a nice catching up session. After he left, Pratas and I got down at Bokakhat along with the rest of the bus to have lunch. That was when he got the two packets of the green American Lays.

We got down at Jorhat because it was too late to catch a ferry to Majuli. We hopped from hotel to hotel looking for a decent place to stay without the “hey you’re a girl and a boy so you’ve come here to have sex” faces of the people and rooms which did not look like it had an orgy an hour ago. There was one who offered us the room at the farthest, most obscure corner of the floor – a shoddy, disgusting room which would definitely have cum stains all over if you looked. The second one wanted a marriage certificate, and we were informed at the counter itself (thank God?). The third one wanted a marriage certificate BUT after showing us the rooms. We walked back not knowing what to do, the dust of the city and the anger heating up our heads, when we were followed by a very creepy rickshaw driver who kept insisting on finding us a good “couples place” and that we would get no place to stay in the city. He did follow us for a good couple of meters before getting a thrashing from Pratas. The next hotel we encountered was rejected even before entering the place because, well, no. We finally found a place at the outskirts of the city and set off to check it out, expecting another disappointment.

The city of Jorhat had disappointed us so much by then that I wanted to leave. We even joked about spending the night at the railway platform (with a very strong undertone that we could actually have to end up doing it). As we walked to the new place, I noticed an abandoned two-storied house. One could make out that it was of a well-to-do family; the front had huge windows and a formerly well-maintained lawn. The windowpanes were still intact but the woodwork had been damaged. Always been a person very fascinated by the idea of abandoned buildings, I almost screamed out “look a haunted house”, only to notice a disheveled ghost-like person sitting on the edge of the terrace two seconds later. I immediately pointed it out to Pratas, who gets shivers thinking about it to this very day! honestly, the haunted house saved the day for me because I got so invested in it that I had forgotten all about the earlier woes. I asked a worker from the hotel about the house, and according to rumours, the madman lived with his parents in the house, whom he later killed by throwing them off the balcony. No one knew if he went to prison after the incident or a psychiatric facility, but he has apparently been living in the house alone since then. I started watching him every time we went out – he was on the terrace for the longest time, sitting and staring down like a statue. After a couple of hours, he moved downstairs but his sandals were still there at the edge of the roof. We talked about him for the longest time before going out to take a walk around the city in the evening.

I admit very reluctantly, my bitterness towards that shithole of a city decreased somewhat after the walk. It was cold, and one could not see the dust. Also, Pratas took me to the pretty places so we did not have to encounter the rush and noise of the market. After a session of puchkas and momos and candies, we went back to grab a beer before falling asleep. What was expected to be a short gossip session (we were exhausted from the day) went into a full-fledged discourse on God knows what! The momos we had packed to eat later were left untouched (I stole a couple the next morning when he was not looking but that’s beside the point) but we were so not done, we went back to get a couple more bottles and more sutta before finally falling asleep when we could open our eyes no more.

So, the point of this entire exercise was that Jorhat is a hellhole and the packet of chips that was left unfinished till the next day had seen it all before being thrown into the bin. So, here’s a token of gratitude to the packet for choosing to embark on this very eventful journey with us. Although you were thrown into the trash the very next day, yet you will be remembered for the years to come. We miss you, packet, and will definitely get one of you when we go on our next trip.