Nabamita Mitra
“Shillong has changed a lot. The Shillong of our childhood is no more.” Ahmed Husain would reiterate these words every time we met. He loved reminiscing about the Shillong of yore and would diligently answer every question about the hill town where he grew up.
I called him Ahmed kaku (uncle). Once, I asked him his age.
“Can you guess?” A mischievous smile played on his lips.
I could not, but my friend did. Kaku laughed heartily and said, “Correct!”
The two of us, EM Jose, the editor of Meghalaya Monitor, and I visited Ahmed kaku several times at his heritage family residence in Police Bazar. He would often call me up and complain, albeit in a soft tone, that we had not paid him a visit for months. The reminder would be noted, and we would ensure that we visited him that weekend.
We interviewed him and his younger brother and a noted thespian, Afzal Husain, whom I call Afzal kaku. During the interview, Ahmed kaku rued the lack of proper documentation of Shillong’s history.
“Whatever you are saying, kaku, will be a great source of information for generations to come,” I told him. He looked happy and started talking about the city that he loved so dearly.
Telling stories: Ahmed Husain’s travel in time
The living room where Ahmed kaku welcomed his guests had many antiques, such as a gramophone and a carriage lamp, photographs of his ancestors, who came to Shillong from West Bengal, and several photographs of old Shillong.
I loved the Husain house, an old Assam-type structure with wooden floors and a fireplace. The last time I met Ahmed kaku, I told him that his house was a heritage site and needed to be protected.
“But it is not in my hands. The family is already planning to sell it. It is difficult to maintain this house now,” he said. His despair was palpable. The air turned poignant. I was shocked, but decided not to continue the conversation.
Ahmed kaku enjoyed talking about his adventures as much as he loved remembering old Shillong. He would tell tales of his trips to Arunachal Pradesh and his encounters with the members of the Apatani tribe. He remembered going to Zero and how the treacherous roads made the journey difficult. He would also regret the fact that he had to deposit all the negatives of “some of the best photographs I took” with the Indian government because he was working on a commissioned NEFA project.
One day, our conversation diverted towards Karuz, the studio set up by Ahmed kaku. It was adjacent to his residential place. “Many people would wonder what the name meant. Some people think it is a Persian or Arabic word. But it is actually a Bengali word, which means crafts or handicrafts,” he said.
Kaku would also remember the Bangladesh war. He would narrate the horrifying stories of refugees and the dead, and how he, then a young man in his early twenties, and several youths in Shillong helped bury the unknown whose bodies no one claimed.
He felt proud when he spoke about his family’s contributions to Shillong’s economic development. He loved telling the story of the first horse-drawn cart in the hill town introduced by his great-great-grandfather.
“There are so many stories. You should visit often, or else I can’t tell you enough about Shillong,” he would say at the end of every chapter of his memories.
We visited him in October 2024. That was our last visit. I was in Kolkata when Ahmed kaku’s wife passed away last year. Later, he called me to give the news. He also informed about the demolition of the house and said the family moved into a concrete building nearby.
“Visit us whenever you have time,” he told me.
I did not, or rather, I could not. I passed by his residence a couple of times after the phone call. I saw the demolished house. I also saw the new ugly concrete structure from the roof of a plush hotel beside the Husains’ plot. I could not imagine how Ahmed kaku would have reacted to the change. I was scared to confront him in his new abode. The onslaught of time that deeply impacted Shillong and that pained Ahmed kaku so much was haunting his personal space. I could not fathom the anguish that he must have had.
But I could have kept my inhibitions aside. I could have saddled my emotions. I should have visited him, probably for one last time. Perhaps he had remembered more stories about Shillong and wanted to tell me. Perhaps he wanted to enjoy telling stories one last time. I will never know.
Ahmed Husain, who was a renowned photographer, passed away on April 2. He was 93. What remains are his stories and works. The NE Archive of St Anthony’s College is restoring Husain’s photographs. His Shillong and the ancestral house have undergone irreversible changes. Only his photographs remain to tell a thousand stories and more.
