Where the filmmaker, writer, physicist and dramatist of the tragic and the comic sat, comfortable and composed, as if he were the centre of it all. Pranab Bora, editor, Newsfile, spoke with Dr Bhabendranath Saikia in June, 2002, in his home in Beltola, Guwahati. Excerpts:

Newsfile: Any icons?
Dr Bhabendranath Saikia: Not really. During my stay abroad I watched many beautiful movies such as Kanal (Polish), and The Roof. These have inspired me a lot.

The child of a school teacher who led his life in penury, Dr Saikia sold chillies by the side of the road while in school. “But I sold my vegetable honestly. I never shortchanged my customers,” he was to later say in an interview to a magazine. That was how close Dr Bhabendranath Saikia, the filmmaker from Assam who passed away this morning, was to reality. So perhaps were his films.

This was followed by the Assam 2002 conference in Denver, where a group of young men and women from the San Francisco Bay Area did an authentic live Hussori Bihu dance. At that performance, a vision was set to try to create awareness about the Bihu dance in the greater Indian community as well as the general American public. Although that vision is still far from being fulfilled, this group has made small achievements over the past year. Bihu, with live music and singing was performed at the Indian Independence Day celebration in August 2002 in Fremont, California.

"The UDF which is now a part of the alliance at the Centre will contest the next general and Assembly elections jointly with the bjp,’’ the Chief Minister, who was here at the beginning of his second innings as the Chief Minister, told uni here.

Describing his visit to the capital as a courtesy one, the Chief Minister said his trip was aimed at strengthening udf’s ties with the nda. He met bjp chief m venkaiah Naidu yesterday to formally convey UDF’s decision to join the nda. The BJP has welcomed the decision.

After the Naga Students’ Federation’s proposal for an open debate on prohibition of liqueur in the state, various organisations have favoured for a broad-based debate, involving all sections of society and government departments. The Naga Mothers’ Association (nma) has extended its support for such a debate as the state government had "miserably failed to implement the Prohibition Act promulgated in the state in 1989 and the flow of liquor and consumption went on unabated".

Apart from what has been a largely inconsequential unit of the party in Assam, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), with high-profile North-east leader PA Sangma as one of its leaders, has found support in Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim, states with comparatively negligible levels of illegal infiltration from Bangladesh, to form the North-east People’s Alliance, a “forum” the NCP claims will look into the problems of the region.

Stepping up their anti-foreigner drive, Mizos, backed by the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF), recently drove out Myanmarese people from a refugee camp in the Zemabawk area of Aizawl where they had been given shelter following the recent unrest in the city. The anti-foreigner drive in Mizoram gained renewed momentum after a minor was allegedly raped by a Myanmarese national, Vanlalchhanga, last month. Rioting crowds later razed the houses of the accused to the ground.

The marauding elephants aren’t listening, but maybe Lord Ganesh will. Unable to fine a way to keep wild elephants away from their houses and crops, residents of the villages adjacent to the Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary are seeking divine intervention, offering daily puja to the almighty. And who better to propitiate in such circumstances than Ganesh, the elephant-headed deity, and supposedly the most benevolent in the Hindu pantheon.