Rai Bahadur Dilip Chandra Das, Under Secretary (Home) to Her Majesty's Government of India at Shillonghad five children, four boys and a girl. They lived in a rambling double-storeyed house on Kenche's Trace, Laban, nearby to the Circuit House perched atop the opposite hill.
Unfortunately for Dilip Babu, as he was fondly called in official circles of the time, his wife passed away while their children were still young. The father was at his wit's end to manage his home amid his demanding career.
Those were not days of nannies-on-call like today, and complications existed about hiring a live-in nanny for the house of a widower. In this difficult situation, his daughter offered to take up the responsibility of managing the cook, the laundry, numerous visiting relatives, and all other household needs. The children were all in school, and the youngest brother was only six years old. She began right away, and it was an arrangement that worked splendidly due to her diligence and high competence.
She became the guardian of that house for years after that and Dilip Babu felt a huge burden lifted from his weary shoulders. The little girl who took up this onerous task was all of 10 years.
Born on 15.7.1928, Madhuri Das went to the Assamese Girls High School nearby. In those days, schoolchildren played hide-and-seek all around Laban and Bishnupur! The siblings were a formidable five, both in terms of brain and brawn.
The boys were strong and wiry, and by her constant association with them, Madhuri must have been something of a tomboy too. They loved their sister deeply, and remained fiercely protective of her throughout their lives, having never forgotten their debt to her for "bringing them up" in a way, in the sad absence of their natural mother. Over time, Madhuri was married to Dharmananda Das, a prominent rising star of the Civil Service. Service life took them first to Hailakandi and Karimganj in the thick of the partition riots, where he was posted as Sub Divisional Officer. The horror and turmoil of the times seen by Madhuri as a young wife of 20 years, and her vivid narration of those turbulent incidents in later decades would never fail to hold us all in thrall.
Madhuri accompanied her husband across undivided Assam as a government wife, but wherever she went she did not limit her canvas to official interactions and state banquets only. Her energetic spirit always yearned for more individualistic expression. Her passion for social service drove her to set up, along with a band of like-minded friends, the Stoneylands Ladies and Childrens' Recreation Centre which was in the 1950s a one-of-a-kind institution for organized skilling and nurturing of hobbies/recreation for women and children. It became popular and renowned enough to invite the attention of a young Indira Nehru who specially visited the centre to encourage the project, while on a visit with her father Prime Minister Nehru to Shillong. Madhuri steered the growth of the Stonylands Centre for several years along with her visionary friends, till it grew widely in scope and reputation. The location is today a vibrant multifaceted space that has reinvented itself over time to include a working womens' hostel, a famous school for special children, and several other facilities. Madhuri was also an integral part of the Talents Club of Shillong, with the wife of the Governor as the honorary President. When we were children in the late 1960s, we saw several interesting charity events such as flower shows, fetes, talent searches and the like being organized on the Raj Bhawan lawns and Pinewood Hotel, during which Madhuri Das always played a leading organizational role.
In 1973, the Capital of the state of Assam shifted to Dispur near Guwahati. This meant another change for Madhuri, as her husband, who was by then Chief Secretary, had to immediately set up his new secretariat at Dispur. Faced with the disruption of her settled life in Shillong and having to start her activities from scratch, she examined her options in her usual undaunted way. On a cold winters' night before the fireplace at our Aerodene house, I remember her announcing to my father that she would open a school near Dispur which would cater to the children of the hundreds of employees who had to perforce shift from Shillong to Guwahati following the movement of their offices. In her characteristic bold and dynamic way, she worked on her idea till it began to take shape as a little shoot on the ground.
She started in a tiny two-roomed outhouse in the compound of the Raja of Beltola, with just a handful of admissions and the services of an experienced school administrator Mrs Nancy Roy from Shillong who shared her vision and temporarily shifted to Guwahati to help her.
Later, seeing the exemplary services being rendered to its employees by the Anand Kindergarten and Junior School, Govt of Assam leased her an abandoned canteen premise in Dispur to run the school, so that the little children would have to commute less. Over a decade and a half, Anand grew to have almost a thousand students, and its sterling reputation conferred Madhuri with the epithet of an eminent educationist of Guwahati. However, by the mid-1980s she realized intuitively that Anand now needed a larger management structure rather than to continue as a proprietorship. So, after consultations with stakeholders, she handed over the school completely in 1988 to a Parents' and Teachers' Cooperative Society without charging a single rupee. Today, if you drive to the southern edge of Dispur, and see a large 4-storied building called Anand Academy, which is a reputed and successful school in Guwahati, do stop a moment to recallMadhuri's fledgling dream born on that cold winter's night at Shillong in 1973.
While running Anand KG and Junior School, Madhuri had foreseen the need to expand and secured a plot of land on the Beltola road for the purpose.
However, having handed over the School to the new Management body, she was advised to sell the land at a high price since its value had grown. But the social worker in her refused to consider profit in this way. She had heard that a group of good Samaritans was planning to open a Law College at Dispur.
She contacted them and offered her plot to them for free so that they could set up the institution. This is the land on which the Dispur Law College today proudly stands. The Management has regularly honoured her during College functions and expressed their indebtedness to her for her valuable contribution to the Institution.
On the personal front, Madhuri excelled at housekeeping, gardening, knitting, and myriad other skills and interests which kept her vibrant and enthusiastic till the ripe old age of 94. She was an extraordinary chef, who loved to entertain. In her 90s, she often scoured youtube for new recipes. With time, as grandchildren arrived, she began travelling overseas regularly under the medical care of her devoted second son Dr Tonmoy Das, the last such trip being undertaken in 2019 before the pandemic descended on the world. Her picture stomping around fresh snow in Slovakia with her stick in one hand and her grandson holding her other has become an icon for independence, faith and courage to many others of her age. She was 91 at the time, carrying a pacemaker and had overcome two heart failures already. Turn the page of the family album and you will see her looking grandly down at you from the foot of the Matterhorn, or perched happily with her granddaughter on a ledge at Oxford in her trendy slacks and high neck cardigan.
That was our Madhuri – unstoppable always.
For a person with such a vibrant personality and zest for life, the last 15 months of restrictions have been tortuous. Lockdowns reined in her infectious enthusiasm for home visitors and travel, and I'm sure she could feel her strength slowly ebbing with the inactivity, though she never once displayed the weakness of mind. But time stops for none, and days finally came when her aged system began to betray the strain of the new normal, and her still-young mind could not keep up. Madhuri Das left us on the morning of 21st June with minimum fuss, making for a rather quick and dignified exit from this closed and cloistered world which she could not have appreciated for much longer. While we miss her terribly, we today celebrate a full and extraordinary life well lived. Go in happiness dear Ma, and may you enjoy the moksh which now undoubtedly encircles you at Baikuntha.
Ronmoy and Sharlene Das