Widow Street. Quite a macabre name, isn’t it? The name doesn’t exist in any official document. But this was how the story goes. In the fringes of the town of Guwahati, more than seventy years ago, a country road stretched between vast farmlands owned and tilled by unlettered Karbi tribesmen. They lived in modest houses made of bamboo and hay in the surrounding hills. During the sunny afternoons under the shade of the coconut plantations, the tribesmen would take a break from their farming and sit down for lunch. Their food was very traditional. A plate of boiled rice. A bowl of fish soup. A small bunch of chopped vegetables. And occasionally pork and chicken. Fish were caught from the nearby Bahini River. Lunch was usually brought down from the hills by their womenfolk in bell metal utensils. Later, they would go back to working in their ancestral fields, growing…
