Thanks to my Dad being in the Army I did quite a bit of moving around in my childhood. I was born in Uttaranchal and have since lived in Kashmir, Punjab, UP, Assam & Maharashtra. Unfortunately for me I was too young to have detailed memories of my time in these places except for the last two. And while I enjoyed my days in Maharashtra, I'll never forget the two years I spent in Dinjan, Assam.
Dinjan is a small village which comes on the state highway joining Tinsukia & Dibrugarh. As a village, Dinjan is very tiny. It basically consists of just one street called Tinali - that's all. There's nothing more to it. Fortunately, the army cantonment that we lived in was much bigger. And by much bigger I mean an area much smaller than Pune Cantonment. I'm telling you, it's a totally different scale for big and small out there.
I loved everything about Dinjan. I still remember the first time I arrived in Assam. It was so green! The endless greenery was really soothing to the eyes! And later, when it got dark, I could see literally hundreds of fireflies roaming around in the endless tea-gardens. No place could have made a better first impression!
Since it was so far east, Dinjan had really early mornings. I still remember getting up at around 5 to play cricket during the holidays. And the rain was terribly heavy. You
had to spend entire days at home during the rains. There was a small river which used to flow near our place. During summers it used to dry out completely but as soon as the monsoon arrived the water would be almost chest high! The older guys used to cross the river and go to the other side at times, but being a kid, I was never allowed to do so (However, I
did cross it once and it gave me an unbelievable high).
For a small place, there was a lot happening in Dinjan. There was an Army Aviation base nearby and once they had caught a leopard there. I still remember going all the way there just to see a leopard. But I remember the base for a lot more than that - it was also the place where I got a chance to sit inside a helicopter. And what a great thrill that was! There was also a small tent nearby which used to house a few soldiers who would stand guard against any possible attacks by the ULFA - a terrorist organisation that was known to create nuisance in those parts. And the fact was that our's was the first house after the tent. So if the soldiers ever lost to the ULFA, we would be the immediate next targets! Believe me, that gave me a lot of sleepless nights. Fortunately the ULFA never attacked (or rather the soldiers always won - thats what I believed) and hence I was able to live there peacefully. And yes there was another reason for sleepless nights - the sound of laughing hyenas in the background. It was pretty loud and took some time adjusting to.
One of the best things about Dinjan was it's movie theatre - Jhankaar. That was where I saw the hits of the 90s. I remember going to Jhankaar almost all the time, after all the ticket cost a mere 7 bucks and the seats were good too. And right in front of Jhankaar was a real-life steam locomotive engine, I think it was called Puffing Billy or something like that. It was really an ancient relic - it was made in 1934 if my memory serves me right. I spent quite a few afternoons playing around on the engine, laughing, singing and shouting. Unfortunately I have since forgotten all those songs.
I used to love my school a lot too. Army School, Dinjan. I still remember our motto - Truth is God. Like all things there, even the school was pretty small and had classes from Nursery to Std VII only. We had a nice ground and I that was the place where I first started playing cricket regularly. So I can actually say that my cricket originated on the village greens and not in the side-alleys of a crowded city. I was the captain of my class team back in those days and was a pretty handy all-rounder. However the star of my team was a guy called Ravi Kumar Sahar. He was a fast bowler and believe me, bowling overarm and that too fast at that age ( I was 8) was quite an achievement! I also remember scoring my first goal there, football was pretty big too in our school. Other sports I played included Kabaddi (which I sucked at) and a lot of
Chungi. Now that was a very interesting sport and was quite a craze back then. The
Chungi consisted of a number of rubber rings tied together. The rubber rings being the cross-sections of the cycle tyre tube - a commodity which was easily available. And the sport consisted of kicking the
Chungi into the air using your foot - the one who does it the maximum number of times won. There were quite a few
Chungi champs in our school. I've seen guys kicking it 500+ times. I would have loved to say that I was amongst them but the fact was that I sucked at it. My personal best was a measly 84 and that put me in the category of total losers. The
Chungi champs were the real stars back then, we all used to look up to them and used to dream of equaling their feats some day. However, the school administration was strictly against
Chungi and later actually banned it in school. We even heard stories from our teachers about how some kid died thanks to a cancer which he contracted by playing
Chungi excessively and how
Chungi was the root of all evil. But that somehow never stopped us. I guess there was a rebel in me even back then. I remember taking on the school authorities even back then, and that too over the slightest of matters. And I must say I did make a difference, after all it's hard to ignore the class topper - which I was back then.
And another great skill came to the fore in Dinjan - I became known as a quizzer. I had taken part in quizzes in Nashik before that, at the tender age of 7. But it was in Dinjan that I became really famous as a quizzer. We used to have school assemblies every morning in which somebody would come and ask GK questions. The questions were divided into 2 groups - Std I to IV and Std V to VII. And despite being in Std IV, I used to answer all the questions which even the older guys couldn't answer. In fact it soon became so common that the quizmaster would really feel great if I missed one of his questions and would actually boast about it for days after that. All that really made me a star and the teachers were very proud of me!
I also had great friends in Dinjan. Me, Samarth, Anand, Venkat & Aniruddha used to hang out all day, doing lots of crazy stuff. Dinjan was also the place where I had my first big crush and that made it all the more special. I happened to meet all these guys a few years after we left Dinjan and all of us had fond memories of Dinjan. And I also met my ex-crush on Orkut and it felt really nice when she actually remembered me :).
I felt really bad the day I left Dinjan. Not that it was a surprise, I had known that the day would come for a very long time. But the mere thought of leaving all my friends, the lovely school, the great hangouts and all the greenery made me feel really sad. And that summer's day in 1998, a small, cute and very teary eyed boy made a promise to himself - that one day he would return to Dinjan and relive his childhood memories. And some day, I intend to do just that.
P.S. : The reason why I was reminded of my Dinjan days was
Shamanth's recent post made from Dibrugarh. That guy's really enjoying himself!
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