The telephone operators of Assam

This photograph of my father Nomal Mech, at 19 years old, (bottom right) with his colleagues was taken in 1980 in the Assam Studio in Shillong, Meghalaya when they were enrolled in a three-month training program to become telephone switchboard operators. It was probably the first time he was getting his photograph taken. The shoes he wears here were his first pair, bought third-hand from a neighbour to protect him from the cold and wet Shillong weather. When I inquired about his uber fashionable clothes in this image, he said that everyone was wearing clothes inspired by Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan, the cinema style icons of the time, even though he himself was not acquainted enough with Indian films. He simply wore what everybody else was wearing.

Families lost, found, and lost again

My grandfather belonged to a large family that was traditionally a land owning class and keepers of the crown’s land under the Dogra kings. After his matriculation he moved from his village Kalyal Bainsi (in distt. Mirpur, now Pakistan territory of Jammu) to Jammu city (now in Indian territory) to earn a living as a teacher. But his life was to witness a different plan, when his cousin filled out a form for him to enlist in army