Devolution..

Nestled in the midst of Guwahati, Rukminigaon was once a neighbourhood alive with the soul of a cosmopolitan town coupled with the prosperity of community life. The years, 2015 to 2019 were the happiest years of my life, for I lived there. Rukminigaon, for me was ‘Heaven’ : the best of the city of Guwahati wrapped in a jiffy, the hearty food, fun loving crowd and a concoction of culture to make even the most stressful day bearable.

Everything one could ask of one’s locality was neatly bundled into this. There was a certain sexiness about the way Rukminigaon functioned. There were coffee shops where you could go to get one of those rich, heavy brews, there were restaurants where you could indulge in a meal every bit as decadent, and then there was my favourite, my salvation, my desert island, Urban Mantra, just a stroll away. Urban Mantra was no ordinary pub. It was the place where I could go to forget I had to work, to slow down time, to watch the realities and responsibilities demanded of me by my life and career shatter themselves against some hard and unforgiving surface and dissolve into the clink of glasses and the hum of conversation, the whine of music that dominated the darkness of night.

Rukminigaon magically transformed an average day into an extraordinary one. The crowd was spirited and youthful; consistently making the locality extraordinary. The zest in their lives always added a breath of freshness to the whole neighbourhood. Rukminigaon streets had this characteristic frequency with its unique busy and bustling personality, a feeling that could calm down any sort of restlessness within you. If one had a busy day at work throughout the year, often, the best way to unwind was to take an evening walk down the Manasha Mandir Path, a lively alley lined with trees. A light drizzle on this path and you would not make your way to your doorstep before soaking your clothes. The drips on your neck felt like a dropping kiss, and the light cool breeze humming through your sopping hair took away eagerly the day’s tiredness.
One rainy evening, me and someone special then, took a walk down the same street. Not much rain, but more of a drizzle, soft and comforting. We walked in silence or at least I did. Rain drops echoed smothering the pavement, a tap, tap move. We talked but no noise was made. It was cool and cordial. The street and the drizzle and the company. Oh! what a heaven of a night it was. The evening suddenly absorbed in novel romance, the world bestowing on us.

But, as in all good things, time changes many things. Looking at Rukminigaon today, you see a locality fighting to get over the brim with the rain, a locality crippled by poor infrastructure. It is one of the worst affected localities in the city when it comes to monsoon floods and the monsoon streets become rivers. I used to boast to my friends in different parts of the city that my locality does not flood and with pride say how Rukminigaon, braved the elements and never flooded.

But today, when people have to walk in the waist-deep rainwater, push themselves through what once was heaven, it is tragic. Those streets which once served us as the routes of ecstasy have now become the reminders of the vulnerability of this neighbourhood. Manasha Mandir Path, where I had taken that long-winding walk, is today hardly able to hold on to the rain. Poor drainage along with the inadequacies of civic infrastructure, adversely affects the street. Now, it is unthinkable to take a leisurely walk in the entire length of the street.
Rukminigaon was never the same again. A once lively neighbourhood turned into a flood-prone locality, where memories of what used to be the best time of one’s life overshadow the present struggle.

I hope that one day the drains and infrastructure will improve enough, that life will return to these streets in numbers. Then I will get out for a walk, with the breeze on my face, the city in my ears. Then I will walk down to Urban Mantra, and perhaps relive what was lost to me in Rukminigaon. The laughter, the shouting, the anger, the humour.
For now, it is a reminder of what Rukminigaon was: a haven in Guwahati, a place that contributed to some of the most beautiful years of my life. The place may have changed with the rains, but so has the character of Rukminigaon: the liveliness of the place that made it the charming little locality it once was. I do believe that with time, the locality will overcome its challenges and emerge livelier than ever, reclaiming the glory that it once had, when we all knew and loved it equally. Until then, I will hold on to my own memories of the place, hoping that one day, my little bit of paradise reclaims its glory, not just as a thought, but as a reality.