Laburnum For My Head : Short Stories by Temsula Ao

Laburnum For My Head : Short Stories by Temsula Ao

Born in Jorhat, Assam, the author is a member of Sahithya Academy, a Padma Shri award winner, Professor of English and also a Dean at School of Humanities and Education, North Eastern Hill University of Shillong. She breathed her last in 2022. She has many writings to her credit some of which highly recognized are These Hills Called Home : Stories from a War Zone and Laburnum for my Head, a collection of local short stories. She uses simple English and all her stories are quite native and nature-blended with sentiments and culture of the people of North Eastern States of India.

STORYLINE

Laburnum for My Head: A short story based upon a widow called Lentina, highly obsessed with splendour and beauty of a bright yellow flowering tree called Laburnum. She is so attracted towards the glory of this Laburnum’s full bloom that she decides to plant it near the head of her grave after she dies. For this she buys a small plot of land adjacent to a graveyard from her relative and entrusts the job to her driver cum confidant, named Babu. After years of efforts by Babu, who understood her mistress’s final wish, he successfully grows a beautiful flowering Laburnum plant in one corner of the  plot earmarked for Lentina’s final resting place. In the meantime, Lentina’s health deteriorates and finally passes away the night after hearing the long awaited news of her favourite Laburnum bloom at her favourite eternal resting place, from Babu.  

Death of a Hunter: This is a short story about a highly talented village hunter called Imchanok, who is constantly troubled by a wild boar that feeds on his and his neighbours’ paddy fields every time the crop is ripe for harvesting, causing him huge financial losses. Though Imchanok has saved the village earlier by hunting down a wild elephant and monkey destroying the same paddy fields and crop, he somehow gets into a depression seeing them die a slow painful death, with his bullet. But when finally he shoots down the monster boar with the help of his villagers, he gets so saddened and guilty that he finally quits his hunting profession forever after giving the animal’s tooth, a proper rituals laden burial.

The Boy Who Sold an Airfield: A short story about a boy called Pokenmong, who ran away from his home and settled down as a house help in a far-off village of Assam. The story narrates as to how this clever lad dupes an entire village and makes a fortune out of a small hand written paper given to him by the American soldier whom he was working for, at the time when they were evacuating an airfield after the Indo-Burma war. The adjacent village headman being illiterate, mistakes the paper for ownership deed of the airfield and buys it from Pokenmong, only to be surprised later when government officials inform him that it was only a piece of paper containing ownership of some used  furniture, shoes and an old jeep of the American soldiers. 

The Letter: One of the most poignant short stories I ever read. Its about a small village somewhere in Assam which is troubled by extortionists belonging to a group posing themselves as underground government (anti-Government). Amongst the villagers lives a poor laborer, whose hard-earned wages, are taken away forcibly by these crooks which he saved for his son’s education purpose. This dejected angry laborer now tries the same method of extortion with the villagers, one day, in a disguised attire of the underground government. But to his surprise, he will be confronted by the local youth and beaten up to death. The story ends with the local youth discovering the letters of his son begging to send money for his exam fee in the pocket of dead man.  

Three Women: An emotional story of three women in the same family. Lipoktula (grandmother) is raped when she was young by a local politician when her husband was out at farm. She gives birth to Medemla, due to the pregnancy caused by that secret rape, who later falls in love with the politician’s son. Knowing this Lipoktula disallows the marriage of Medemla, as the boy is none other than his brother. Medemla, under ignorance of this secret, remains spinster for the rest of her life. Later she adopts Martha, who is orphaned at the hospital Medemla is working to enjoy the void created in her life. The story ends with Martha giving birth to a child after getting pregnant through her lover, even before marriage. The sexual and spiritual emotions of a woman towards a man’s physical touch, law of attraction, intimacy and absurd power of sex are so well narrated by the author through the hearts of Lipoktula, Medemla and Martha.

A Simple Question: A Short story about an illiterate, smart daughter of a village headman, in a remote village of North Eastern India, living with her family under constant fear of extortion, sandwiched between Indian Government and Nagas fighting for independence. Being from the family of village headman, their husbands are constant victims of atrocities from both sides on the grounds of suspicions of allegiance to either side. Her simple and brave question to the Deputy Commissioner once, when she denied to leave the place of arrest of her husband and his subsequent release elicits the stupendous bravery of this simple illiterate village woman in challenging the basic military confidence of the officer in the land that doesn’t belong to him.

Sonny: A beautiful tragic love story of a woman journalist, abandoned by her lover Sonny, on the pretext of his larger motive to fight for independence of his land from Indian occupation. The fathomless depth of a woman’s love towards the man she loves is wonderfully chronicled in this story. The journo, on her visit back to her hometown after several years of separation is suddenly encountered with assassination of her ex-lover by his peers. She is forced to leave the place immediately instead of attending his funeral with the final love letter and secret floppy disk to be aired on her television channel, but, only to permanently store it in her locker without checking the content of that disk. With that action, she closes the chapter and memories of Sonny in her future life and from the world, forever.

Flight: A very short story narrated from within an ugly caterpillar picked up by an ailing little boy called Johnny, as a pet, after his father agreed to his request, maybe as a last wish. The caterpillar’s woes of being locked in a small box by Johnny only to be checked once in a while and its emotional detachment from the sick boy while flying off into its own universe from Johnny’s room, after being metamorphosed into a beautiful butterfly, are absolutely tear-shedding towards the end.

Pros: Each and every story in the book has a marvelous emotion and sentiment attached. The reader is taken deep into abyss of personal attachment to his life somewhere, in every story. The author seems to have dived deep into every emotion of a woman in her life. Else, such feelings are impossible to put on paper and pen.

Cons: Most of her stories are women-centric. There should have been an ear to the man’s side also.

My favorite quote from this book : ‘If you want to gain from investments in land, go for inconspicuous plots, but ones which have future prospects. That way no one will pay attention when you buy it, and when the town expands, your holdings will appreciate in value many times over.’

My rating: 3.5 out of 5