Manas Ranjan Mahapatra, Puri, 13 November 2022
My narration of the story of Bipul Mahanta, my friend and brother of Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, former Chief Minister of Assam, has nothing to do with Bipul as a person or this tale of Numaligarh.
I have experienced and seen the rising of the family members of politicians and bureaucrats to top positions in Government Organisations, including National Book Trust (NBT) and Sahitya Akademi, but Bipul was different. He applied for the post of Assistant Editor in NBT and was offered the post of an Editorial Assistant. His brother was then Chief Minister of Assam. A phone call would have been sufficient, but Bipul never wanted this. His madness was different, but he was a man of integrity. He could have managed the job of a Reader in the University, but preferred to remain a lecturer in a College than becoming a Reader as the CM’s brother. I am told that later, when his sister-in-law contested elections, he openly campaigned against her.
We were passing through Koliabor. I was thinking of meeting Bipul, embracing him after so many years….my dear mad friend! But I did not have either his phone number or address. And, the night was fast approaching. We moved towards Numaligarh. It came to my mind that we should inform the caretaker of the guest house that we will reach late and will have dinner, for Ayusman had already frightened us by saying that we can’t get anything to eat after 8 p.m outside the Numaligarh Refinery Guest House. I telephoned the caretaker of the Guest House.
But the response I got frightened me more…the gentleman at the other end said that he has to find out from the register if we have confirmed booking as our names could not be located. Instead there were two rooms booked for the NRL Hospital. Ayusman started joking that if we reach and find that we don’t have reservation, we may have to spend the night with Rhinos, as Kaziranga is next door.
It took us half an hour to cross Kaziranga. So huge! Ayusman informed that Kaziranga had opened just two days back. We did not have a booking, else we could have stayed there…..with Rhinos as Ayusman wanted!! We reached Numaligarh.
My anxiety was over when I found that there were rooms booked for us. Satish and I relaxed over a glass of whisky and we went to dine. We were tired, and soon deep sleep embraced us.
I got up early in the morning.The friend in the kitchen provided a cup of black tea and I walked out to discover Numaligarh. What I discovered was fabulous.
Numoli Kunwori (Numali Kumari) was the daughter of a Cachari King after the name of whom Numaligarh was named. It was a fort and the fort had 3 stories, all revolving around Numoli Kunwori.
The first story is that Numoli Kunwori was the princess of Cachar kingdom. The king was old and ailing. There were a lot of enemies around. Suddenly the king died. But Numoli did not disclose it outside and ascended the throne. People came to know about it and started accusing her that she did not allow them to pay their last respect to their beloved king. This created a lot of repentance in the mind of Numoli and driven by that emotion, she jumped into the river and committed suicide.
The second story is equally tragic. Numoli Kunwori, princess of Cachar grew up and took charge of the Kingdom from her father. She was a brilliant administrator but fell in love with a Commoner. Those days royal people were not allowed to marry commoners. Failing to maintain a balance between her own love with a commoner and the responsibility as a ruler, she jumped into the river and committed suicide.
The third story is pleasing. Numoli Kunwori, daughter of the Cachari King, was in love with a Naga young man.The king accepted his daughter’s love and got them married. He constructed a fort (“garh”) and gave the vast area as well as the fort to his daughter. Numoli and her Naga husband remained happily and their children ruled over the area for centuries.
Time was getting ripe to prepare to proceed to Dimapur. I saw a small river ‘Kalyani’ flowing nearby. Numaligarh Refinery has 3 Guest Houses – Doyang, Dhanshiri and River View. The third one was at the bank of the river. The caretaker was a youth who graduated from Institute of Hotel Management (IHM), Guwahati where I used to teach as a Guest Faculty. But the Riverview Guest House was under renovation. The caretaker offered me a cup of tea, he was probably impressed by my talking. “I will come very soon again and will possibly stay in this Guest House”, I told the caretaker of the River View Guest House and returned to ours to get ready to move to Dimapur.