I did not know if I was safe inside the car. I experienced my first fear of the world. The shops were shut, and the roads were empty, except for policemen. It forces you to grow up instantly and face a world you are unprepared for. History pulls you by your ears far more brutally than a teacher in the classroom or a parent at home. I did not know then that life as I understood it was about to change. How had things become so crazy by recess? When I had left home for school earlier that morning, I had seen and heard nothing that suggested anything was wrong with the world around me. History pulls you by your ears far more brutally than a teacher in the classroom or a parent at home A petrol pump on the main road between Maligaon and Guwahati, the largest city in Assam, was set on fire and the peace I had taken for granted went up in smoke. There were reports of stone-throwing by Assamese in a Bengali neighbourhood called Das Colony. I learned later that day that violence had broken out on the streets that morning. Soon after, a boy whispered into my ear: “It’s Assamese versus Bengali.” That is when I heard the word “curfew” for the first time.
We saw the police enter the principal’s office. I was attending the makeshift central government school in the town of Maligaon, which means “the gardener’s village”, in the northeast Indian state of Assam. It was a cold afternoon in December 1979.