Little Bird has flown

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Dr. Chakravartty tells me that’s what the professors at St. Anthony’s College in Shillong called Tultul bou when she was a student there in the late fifties… “chotto paakhi”. Little Bird. A sharp student and inspiring dancer, this was a fitting name for the young girl who flitted through the social life of the college and her community, bringing joy to all around her.

Perhaps, if she were born First Nations, that would have been her name. So fitting that she made her final home here in Canada.

But, Little Bird has flown now. At age 63. So young, so beautiful, so gracious to the very end.

After an eight-year long battle with cancer, which she faced with amazing strength for a person so small in physical stature, she slipped away on January 13 at her residence in Toronto, Canada.

She left behind Mridul da, Rustom, Momi, son-in-law Siva and grand-daughter Geeta, and an as yet unborn grandchild. And Dilip da in Singapore and sister Nirupoma baidow in Boston. Plus she had friends and family from Denver to Duliajan.

To me, Tultul bou’s early years in Shillong seem almost fairy-tale like. Much like my memories of that town itself. The peace. The quiet. The joy of Bihu and Durga puja. The innocent beauty of Assamese girls in their dazzling mekhela sadors heading to the Deva Kumar Memorial Hall with their families for the evening’s festivities, If I shut my eyes, I can see Tultul bou as one of them. I can imagine her on a Shillong city bus heading to college at Don Bosco Square. Or performing at the Dhankheti Bihu toli.

I met Tultul bou for the first time much later in her life… in 1996. She and Mridul da were pillars of the small Assamese community here. They lived in a tiny house down by Lakeshore Avenue and Birchmount. The two of them were a source of strength for us newly arrived immigrants. It’s not they put you up in their house, or lent you money, or helped you get a job…. no. Instead, they were there for long comforting conversations about things close to our Assamese hearts. They were there to explain stuff that baffled us about life in Canada. Tultul bou opened her home and heart to us, giving generously of her love and concern. She cooked chicken for me when both she and her family, and my own young family are vegetarians. And Mridul da always had a cold beer for me in the fridge.

A few short months ago, I enjoyed the same warmth and hospitality of the new home they bought a few years ago on Don Mills Road, 10 minutes away from where I live. Tutlbul bou was in pain, but mobile. She sat and chatted with me for hours. About my life. My challenges. My successes. Very little about the growing pain she was enduring from day to day. I sat mute and listened in amazement as husband and wife made causal comments about and references to the approaching end.

I wondered how they could be talking about the death of one of them so light heartedly. The answer lies in a great and pure faith in Sai baba. Tultul bou’s faith was total and unquestioning. As is Mridul da’s.

I wish I had faith in something… anything… that came remotely close to it.

There is much about Tultul bou that I’m only now finding out. Dr. C tells me that she was a brilliant student and maintained merit scholarship standing through most of her academic career. That she addressed him as ‘Sir’ till the end.

Other bits of info came from Ruma baidow in Detroit. That Tultul bou received her Master’s degree in mathematics from Delhi University. That she was a lecturer in Shillong’s St. Mary’s College and the Polytechnic. That in 1971 she married Mridul da, moved to Duliajan, and taught at the OIL Higher Secondary School, as well as Kendriya Vidyalaya. In 1981, the family migrated to Lima, Peru. And there she continued to teach in the British and American International Schools.

The recent events, I know more about. That in 1987, the family relocated to Toronto where Tultul bou went back to school to get diplomas in Computer Programming and Computerized Accounting. That in her last position she worked for Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board as a Pension Analyst. And this much is obvious to me now, after meeting her weeping colleagues at the visitation… Chan, as she was known, was much loved at work too.

And how she danced… a young goddess in love, light as a bird on her feet at one moment. Then transformed into a storming harridan, essaying Ma Durga’s terrible anger. The softness of a mother’s love, and then the blazing eyes of the woman scorned. At Bihu and other functions, I watched in amazement at the range of emotions Tultul bou could call up through her dance, as Anima baidow sang.

We lost Anima baidow just over a year ago. Now, Tultul bou. And I have this picture in my head of the two friends putting on a show for the gods somewhere over the rainbow. One singing… the other dancing.

Go in peace, Little Bird. And know that I, for one, feel blessed for having been part of your beautiful life.