Tragic Heroes

We follow only the winners and while following them many times we fail to recognize some personalities as history try to brand them as tragic hero (or many say they were villain).While deciding through the accepted denominator of write and wrong we don’t accept contribution some people whose name should have been taken with some respect otherwise.

Take the case of cricket – In a country where we (used to) eat drink and sleep cricket we have seen this game metamorphosed through our eyes .what transformed the game into a world sports – may be exiting fielding , professional attitude ,proper field placement ,game plane ,bringing statistic and technology for development of the game. Everything was introduced (together) by a very clever dedicated duo of Bob Wolmer –and Hansie Cronje .

But we remember both of them for some other reason altogether .Personally I feel Hansie Cronje is the only person in this scandal hit game who have acknowledged the truth. So we call him a villain .Otherwise people of similar track records are now –member of parliament ,chief selector commentator and so on and on.

The list of tragic heroes are innumerable –remember in 90’s when India was emerging as a module of failed nation (economy, political unrest, mistrust) them came one prime minister and with few steps with vision that rescued the almost bankrupt nation from economic collapse.

But now when we talk about them talk only other things.

I am no historian, politician or intellectual (but a pseudo one) neither I am defending or approving those scam (who am I to defend anyway!) for those charge. But I am not at all ashamed to say that they are my hero for the positive contribution they have made.

Kechaikhaiti (কেচাইখাইতী)

Before the Viashnavite renaissance (1400 AD ---) in Assam in the remote eastern corner in a place called Kundil (now Sadiya ) there was a temple of powerful goddess named Kechaikhaiti (কেচাইখাইতী).The local tribes – Deuris, Kacharis ,Chutiya used various kind of offering to their powerful deity. As time passed many of these offerings in fact turned out to be human. In the beginning it used to be a voluntary affair and the person who has volunteered himself to be sacrificed for Goddess was called a xar (ষাড).The xar and his family used to get immense freedom ,respect and benefits from the society as the notion was once Goddess is satisfied there won’t be any calamity in the locality for the year .

Then Ahoms invaded the area ,and Goddess Kechaikhaiti become one of the important reference point of sociopolitical situation of 600 year old history of Ahom dynasty .Many of the Ahom kings become devotee of the Goddess .So yearly there were many offering(as sacrifice) from the kingdom for peace and well being of the country. And many times this human sacrifice became a mean to get rid of rivals in the midst of political chaos of Ahom kings.

That slice from historical literature always fascinated me like anything .

As history fascinates me and when the bugs from history bites my I have to scratch the itch .One of such scratch was the visit to Kechaikhaiti than situated in remote location inside Sadiya. It was Diwali of -2005 and we had a break of two days from hospital duty in Dibrugarh .

We used Bike ,Bus , boat , tempo to reach the place after two days of journey we reached the temple –all alone and unabashed by the river Kundil .

It was nothing to many, but for us the feel of the place was something else.