Essay: The Other Tongue by Ayaan Halder

In this essay, Ayaan Halder contemplates what the concept of a “Mother tongue” means to someone who has grown up in different states across India. Through this piece, he also tries to identify, protect, preserve, and assert his unique linguistic and cultural identity in the backdrop of questions about ethnicity and belongingness that plague Assam and the broader Northeast India.

The burden of raising me has been shared by two women. My mother, of course – with her cropped hair and her large phota, and a life-size role as my English teacher – meeting all the Bollywood set stereotypes for the modern-day Bengali woman; And Bini, who is no less than my mother, and who took over half a share of my existence only two years after Maa birthed me, as if it were the most natural thing to do. Then about half a decade younger than I am right now, Bini was and still remains a straightforward woman, but spoke to me in a tender, gurgling melody that I was told was the Assamese language; singing “Xeuji Xeuji” to put me to sleep every afternoon. On the days when I would decide to be fussy, she’d tell me stories of a ghost called Agemura, who roamed her village at night – a flickering ball of red and blue flames lodged in its chest. I don’t really know if this abhorrent creature was only a figment created by her imagination, or if it has its roots in Assam’s folklore, but I could never visualize the rest of its features, and it remained a silhouette in my mind. The only discernible part was thus of course the fireball, whose resemblance to a police beacon instilled an immediate fear in me, and put me to sleep.