It was just five words: Bijoya passed away at 3 AM. In the insta-world that we now inhabit, there is far less scope than ever before, to soften the precision or shattering impact of a thunderbolt. In the week since that dark afternoon of September 2, I have alternated between stunned silence, inconsolable sobbing, a monk-like resignation, and boiling rage.
Rage that my dear friend Bijoya, who embodied life and all that was good in life, had ceased to be. Our friendship of over five years at NEHU, and nurtured for four decades, had survived the fact that we never met after 1991.
Bijoya and I met in March 1986, at the start of our MSc at NEHU, Shillong. I was a hosteller, while she lived at home with her mother and two younger brothers. Before long, she had invited me home, a loving and enchanting home, where a library innovatively built by her father, Late Tarun Chandra Choudhury, showed me where her knowledgeability sprang from. Over the subsequent five years at NEHU, we were inseparable, had co-opted our families into our friendship, and her home became a home away from home for me.
Born on August 9, 1965, Bijoya, or Minu as she was affectionately called, was the fourth of six children of Late Tarun Chandra Choudhury and Hangsha Bala Choudhury of Shillong. Both parents were school teachers, and coming from this strong educational background, Bijoya excelled at studies. She is fondly remembered by many former teachers as a bright and hard-working student, keen of mind, and with an insatiable aptitude for deep learning. She went on to invest her excellent scholastic career with a postgraduate gold medal.
Bijoya initially joined NEHU for postgraduate research but switched careers following her induction into the 1992 batch of Assam Civil Service. Her training and work took her to different parts of Assam, as she steadily rose from ADC to DDC and to Secretary Agriculture, Assam. She was nominated to IAS in August 2022, finally crowning a stellar career spanning 33 years with her last appointment as Secretary of School Education.
Between her considerable official workload and family duties, Bijoya also managed a demanding detour to her first love of research by completing doctoral studies on waste management (Gauhati University, 2014). In 2017, she played a major role in mobilizing alumni induction into the newly-formed NEHU Alumni Association of Zoology.
A dedicated civil servant and humanist, she will be remembered for her positive and visionary contributions and leaves behind an inspiring legacy for those aspiring to public service. Despite the grievous lack of years, there could not possibly be a life more thoroughly lived, nor a person who gave so generously of herself as Bijoya did.
On September 11, on the day of her Adya Shraddha, we join her husband Mahesh Baruah, children Ankita and Ankon, and extended family in offering prayers for her eternal rest and peace.
– Om Shanti Shanti Shanti.
Ravinder Kaur Bali (Sydney)
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