The Culvert We Left Behind in Tezpur University

There was a culvert.

I guess it’s still there.

If you came from inside the University, exited through the gate and took the road towards the right, you had to walk for about 500 metres before reaching a stretch where, at least in those days, the line of shops ended and the open fields began.

And somewhere along that road, there was a culvert.

It was a lonely stretch of road then.

This was 2007.

We were new to Tezpur University, new to hostel life and still trying to understand this new world that we had suddenly found ourselves in. I had entered Brahmaputra Chatra Niwas, BCN Boys for us, only a few days earlier. I still remember the nervousness of that first evening, the room allocation, meeting my roommate and wondering what kind of hostel life awaited us.

And then came the seniors.

They seemed to be everywhere.

There were introductions to be given, questions to be answered, the strange ritual of the “90 Degree” and evenings that could suddenly turn into long sessions with seniors. We were learning the unwritten rules of hostel life one day at a time.

Perhaps that was why that culvert became important to us.

Escape from the hostel.

Escape from the seniors.

Escape from the constant feeling that someone might call out our names and ask us to report somewhere.

But gradually, that little escape became something more.

We would sit there for long stretches in the evening, talking about classes, hostel life, people we had met, things we had seen and probably a hundred other things that seemed terribly important to us at that age. There were jokes, gossip, plans, complaints and occasional silences.

It was the four-five of us and the darkness of the night.

And then there were the nights when the moon came out in full glory.

Under the moonlight, the open fields looked completely different. For a few moments, there was nothing to do and nowhere to go. We could simply sit there and look.

We kept returning to that place through the first few months of university life. But as the months passed, our visits became less frequent. Hostel life changed. We grew more comfortable with our seniors. Classes, assignments, sports, hostel activities and the thousand little things that fill up university life gradually took over.

Our visits to the culvert almost stopped.

Slowly, it became just another place we had once gone to; a small, almost forgotten corner of those early university days.

We completed our studies.

Years passed.

Then, in 2023, I was staying at the Guest House of the University for three days, and one evening, I decided to go there again.

Perhaps it was nostalgia. Perhaps it was simply the quiet pull that certain places continue to have over us, even after years have passed.

Whatever the reason, I wanted to see that culvert again.

I stood there and looked around.

The place had changed.

The road that had once been quiet was now busy. The open stretch that had once seemed so secluded no longer felt quite as remote. The University around it had grown and changed too.

But standing there, I could almost see the four or five of us again; young, new to the University, sitting on that culvert in the fading evening light, looking towards the open fields.

I took a photograph that evening.

 

 

The photograph does not really capture what the place looked like in 2007. It cannot. The darkness hides much of what is there now, and the camera can only record what was in front of me that evening.

But perhaps that is appropriate.

Some places are not remembered for how they look. 

They are remembered for who we were when we were there.

That culvert was just a concrete structure beside a quiet road. It had no name, no significance, no reason for anyone else to remember it.

But for a few of us, for a few months in 2007, it was our little corner of the University.

A place where we could sit, breathe, talk, laugh and sometimes simply look at the fields under the moonlight.

The road has become busy now.

The University has changed.

But somewhere in my memory, those evenings on the culvert are still exactly where we left them.

 

 

When the Flood Became Personal

19 July 2026.

The Football World Cup Final was about to begin.

Ishani and I were preparing to watch the match and were watching the pre-match show.

Around ten minutes past midnight, Ishani checked her WhatsApp and saw the status of a girl who lives in the house opposite her parental home in Janji in Sivasagar district. She showed it to me. The entire front portion of their house was flooded.

We were already getting news about flooding in different parts of Sivasagar. But Ishani’s neighbourhood had rarely seen floods. In the past, the worst they had experienced was water reaching the front steps of the house before receding. So, we did not think too much about it. We assumed the water would go down.

We watched the Final. By the time the presentations were over and we had watched the players celebrate, it was already around 4 in the morning. There was already a faint light outside.

As we talked for some time and prepared to sleep, Ishani checked WhatsApp again. This time, there was a look of shock on her face.

The same girl had posted another status.

The water had risen dramatically. The gate of her house was almost completely submerged. The video also showed Ishani’s home and we could see that the water had reached almost halfway up their house.

Ishani immediately woke up her mother, my mother-in-law, who stays with us in Guwahati. She tried calling her aunt and cousins, who lived in another part of the house, but the calls did not connect.

Throughout the day, they kept trying to contact relatives and neighbours. Nobody could be reached.

By then, we knew that the entire area had been flooded by the Janji River.

Since my mother-in-law stays with us and Ishani’s elder sister lives with her in-laws in Jorhat, their portion of the house usually remains locked. We knew that this part of the house too must have been under water.

From the morning of 20 July, we kept receiving news about the scale of the devastation.

For me, the flood was no longer just another disaster being reported in the news. It had reached a place that was deeply connected to me.

At the same time, I was also involved with the Tezpur University Alumni Association (TUAA), where I am the Treasurer for the current term. As the situation worsened, we decided to start a flood-relief initiative through TUAA.

We appealed to our alumni and well-wishers for support. People responded generously. Contributions started coming in and volunteers came forward to help. What began as an immediate response to the floods gradually became a larger relief effort. Even now, the work continues.

While coordinating the relief activities, however, another thought remained at the back of my mind: We had to go to Janji.

Because of some official programmes, we could not go immediately. We decided that once those commitments were over, we would travel to Janji, stay there for a few days and clean up the house.

We finally went on 8 August.

What we saw was difficult to describe.

The images we had seen on WhatsApp and in the news had not prepared us for the reality inside the house.

Mud and dirt had settled everywhere. Things that had been part of the household for years were damaged or destroyed. Furniture, books, clothes, household items and many other things that had little monetary value but enormous emotional value had been affected by the water.

We spent the next eight days cleaning the house, repairing whatever could be repaired and throwing away whatever could no longer be saved.

But the damage was not limited to the house.

We visited other homes in the village. We spoke to people. We listened to what they had gone through during those days.

There were stories of people being forced to leave their homes, of families waiting for help, of houses remaining underwater for days, of livestock being lost and of people watching helplessly as things they had built over years were destroyed within hours.

For Ishani, the experience was even more painful.

She had spent her entire life in that house. Every corner carried a memory. The rooms, the furniture, the walls and even ordinary household objects were connected to her past.

Seeing them damaged was not simply about losing things. It was like seeing parts of her memories being damaged.

I could see the mental anguish she was going through, even when she was busy cleaning and trying to put things back in order.

While we were in Janji, I continued coordinating the TUAA flood-relief activities.

But, being there changed my perspective.

Until then, I had mostly seen the flood through photographs, videos, phone calls, messages and reports. I had been coordinating relief from Guwahati: collecting contributions, identifying people who needed help and trying to connect volunteers with affected communities.

But living in an affected village, for those eight days, was different.

I began to understand that flood relief is not only about distributing food, clothes or other essentials.

Those things are extremely important, especially in the first few days. But once the water recedes, another struggle begins.

People have to clean their homes. They have to throw away damaged belongings. They have to repair walls, floors, electrical systems and furniture. They have to replace documents and household items. Children have to return to school. Families have to restart their livelihoods.

And, above all, people have to recover emotionally.

A flood may remain for a few days, but its effects can remain for months or even years.

The flood also made me think about how differently the same disaster is experienced by different people.

For some, it may mean a few days of inconvenience. For others, it can mean losing their home, their livelihood or years of savings.

For some families, the loss may be measured in money. For others, it may be the loss of photographs, books, furniture inherited from parents, certificates, childhood belongings or things that can never really be replaced.

The water does not distinguish between what is expensive and what is priceless.

And when it finally recedes, it leaves behind a very different landscape.

As I write this, the relief work through TUAA is still continuing.

We have been fortunate to receive support from alumni and well-wishers from different places. Their contributions have helped us reach people who needed assistance.

But my experience in Janji has made me realise that relief cannot end when the water disappears. Recovery takes much longer.

The flood of July 2026 taught me something that I had known intellectually but had never experienced this closely: a disaster is not just an event. It is a long period in the lives of the people who experience it.

For me, this flood will always be personal.