The Memorable Amnesia

Whatever limited travelling I have done so far, most of them were during and after my college days. But I could still remember few of my travel stories during my school days, when I used to travel with parents. Most probably I was into my 6th or 7th standard that time, when my parents planned to visit one of our relatives. Well, one of my maternal aunt was put up in Haflong, as her husband was posted out there during that time. I was pretty much excited as not only us, but 3 more families (relatives) planned to visit together. Haflong is a small town in Dima Hasao district of Assam. As Assam is surrounded by so many exotic hills, people usually assume that there’s hell lot of hill stations out there. But in fact, Haflong would be the only hill station in Assam in true sense and is situated at a distance of 350 KM from Guwahati.

During those days there were limited mode of communications to such places and we traveled by Indian Railways. It was a fantastic journey, as the place was extremely closer to nature. On the way we witnessed some breathtaking steeps and on one occasion I was totally stunned, when all of a sudden everyone felt complete darkness inside the train, that too in broad daylight. Well, the train passed through a tunnel and on the way we experienced several such tunnels. On every occasion I was very much excited and few of the tunnels seemed to be quite longer, as the darkness lasted for almost a couple of minutes. 

Haflong is surrounded by dense forest with some fascinating waterfalls and the place was kind of virgin those days. My uncle worked for the Sericulture department of Assam and the government had given him a size-able as well as a wonderful house to stay. One day we visited the pineapple garden, Haflong Lake and the famous Jatinga. Jatinga is a picturesque small village and the place is well known for the phenomenon of birds “committing suicide”. Well, it’s little hard to digest, isn't it? The local people witnessed the weird phenomenon since several decades.

It seems September to November is the peak suicide season for the birds. During that season, thousands of birds of a wide range of species from across the world migrate to Jatinga and the suicide phenomenon is a kind of mystery for all the bird specialists. Can’t really say whether it’s suicide or not, but it’s a fact that every year hundreds of birds deliberately die out there. The birds used to fly in full speed and intentionally crash themselves to the bamboos, tree branches and even to the grounds. 

It was a tiring day and we reached home only by evening. Everyone slept early that night and I had a long sleep.  I didn’t notice the time, but I think I woke up quite late the next day. As I was brushing my teeth, one of my cousins asked me why I was doing that. A little later everyone was enjoying tea inside the house and I took a cup and went to the veranda at the back side. It was a mesmeric moment and I had some close encounters with the misty, as well as snowy white clouds all around me. After a while it started to get little darker and I said to my cousin "It’s going to rain today" After sometime I was really worried as it was completely dark outside. 

As everyone was having morning tea, so it would have possibly been 10 to 11 AM that time and yet it was so dark outside. I wondered why no one else was that much worried? I assumed it could have been a usual situation in that part of the world. After sometime I saw lights all around the hill and I was totally tensed that moment. I was pretty much confused and feared a natural disaster.


I talked with my cousin who was around 4 years elder to me. He was absolutely amused and said “what the hell are you talking? Go and check the time” I had a look at the wall clock and it was 6 AM. I was even more confused, why everyone woke up so early that morning? I thought they might have planned for some sightseeing.  When people realized what was going through my head, everyone literally laughed at me and one of my uncle screamed "it’s not morning my dear, it evening 6 PM now"

I wondered how that could have been possible? I asked them "how could I sleep that long? Why no one bothered to wake me up?"

My mother said that I went to sleep just a couple of hours back. I was in a totally confused state of mind and said to them that I couldn’t remember anything about that morning.  My cousin asked "don’t you remember the delicious Pulao we had  in the breakfast? I could remember you finished 2-3 plates"

That was the one and only kind of incident that happened to me till now. To be honest, I could never recollect anything about that particular day, till the time I actually woke up in the evening.


Image courtesy: google images