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The maximum town: Silchar



By Rebati Mohan Sinha, Mumbai

The Silchar town is still synonymous to our native places because whenever some one ask me, where am I from? I say, form Silchar. Here in Mumbai, we are the people of erstwhile Cachar district (Hailakandi &Karimganj included), running an NGO, named “Sreehatta Sammilani”. I would come up later, with a write up on this Sanstha.


We, most of us are from Silchar and when ever there is a great Bengali function in the city, we are always remembered and even Assamese never forget to call us in Assam Bhavan. The name Silchar is quite famous among the Bengalees living in Mumbai, immaterial whether they are from east or west Bengal.

I was born and brought up in Baromuni; but my paternal village is Bhubaneshwar Nagar, located east of village Mohanpur. My present village, South Bekirpar (Panibhora) in Baromuni is east of Mr.Rajkumar Rishi`s maternal village, Katakhal. During my boyhood, I never went to Silchar, because there was no motorable road up to Kabuganj from where people used to go to Silchar by bus. Whenever any villager comes back from Silchar, we the children anxiously looking at him as if he came back after winning a war. It was really a dream for us to go to town (Silchar), leaving apart seeing a movie. First of all, where was the money for a child of my age? Those days we had never heard of any pocket money, for children like us, studying in H.E.schools, which five kms. away from our village. We used to cover 10 km every day with bare foot on a kacha rasta, full of stones.



It was in 1955; one of my friends took me to town, stayed in a hotel at Premtola, named Smriti hotel. I still remember the charges, it was one rupee a day for both of us.The meals.. ‘maser jhol-bhat’ was costing sowa taaka (Rs.1.25 p) ‘daal-bhat’ aat anna ( daal-rice, costing 50 paise). I was not having even a pie with me, all expenses borne by my friend, even for the movie. I would not forget the name that was “Sadhu Ramprasad”. In those days, the younger generation used stand in front of cinema halls (Oriental,Annapurna and Kalabati) listen filmy songs operating for crowd pulling. We took two third- class tickets having no seat numbers, costing only six annas per head. No sooner had the gate opened than we rush in, occupied the front row to view the picture comfortably; but it was our wrong calculation, we could not see even the figures properly. We thought it would be like a ‘jaatra’performed in villages. As we went out of the hall,I felt paining at my neck. So, that was the first hand experience about a town. I would not like to go in detail about the best town in Barak valley.Even today; it is one of the best business centres of North East region. It is a Bengali populated town from the British era and during Bangal kheda,the Bengalees from upper Assam left their business and settled down in Silchar and another exodus from Bangladesh during 1971 war. Due to increase in population and absence of infrastructure, now it is about to be burst at it’s seems. I could find hardly any change in main arteries, the streets of town. There are city buses but ‘naam ke waste’. One has to either walk or avail of cycle rickshaws or wait for a point to point auto service for example: to reach the northern part (Tarapur) of the town from southern end (Rangirkhari), one has to avail of such services; but can not reach the destination at one go i.e., to get down at midtown, wait for another point to point auto service.

It is obvious, one should have allergic at looking at the infrastructure available; but there is no other option. In my case, whenever I go on leave from Mumbai, sometime I do marketing in kolkata, even vegetable and sweet, to avoid buying anything from the town. Once landed at Kumbirgram I proceed straight way home. It is not that I would not be buying anything during my stay and I would not say, it is a solution.


RK Rishikesh Sinha: What Rebati Mohan Sinha has divulged here in this article has really made me to jot down that the town Silchar what today is, was not the same that this write-up describe it. I didn’t know Silchar was indeed inaccessible to the villages here mentioned. I am imagining, if this bit of information is so important today, what would be its importance after 10 years down the line. Good thing, the information has been archived.

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Comments

  1. I want to jot down a single place which is still in my memory...When i was a kid, probably in class 3rd or 4th, I went there with my cousin who was studying B.Sc. in GC College...After around a decade, I went there for my admission to GC College...I found the Broken college bridge in almost the same condition as it was a decade before...May be it's fixed now...But people suffered a decade with that bridge...What a terrible infrastructure...

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  2. I have been visiting Silchar since my childhood days and after marriage it has become my homeland..But to my surprise nothing has changed except a few high rises in the town..the journey from Kumbhirgram to home is tiring..the communication problem is horrible..the road condition, pathetic..nothing has changed or would rightly say deteriorating day by day..I love going home but the thought of journey to home from Kumbhirgram makes me sick..yet I have many sweet memories of my childhood days spent in Bishnupru and Tarapur, for which i love this place..

    ReplyDelete
  3. When I was a student of GC college during late 70s and beginning of 80s the road condition of Silchar town and its adjoining areas was not in dilapidated condition.

    But I was really disturbed seeing the pathetic road condition of Silchar during my visit to the town in 2000.


    Local politics overpowered development!!!! Isn't it !!

    ReplyDelete

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