Finally, a children’s day out at Guwahati

“Under these circumstances, no parent would like to go to any public function, let alone send their kids,” says Abdul Malik a retired State Election Commissioner who came to the venue with eight-year-old granddaughter Sadia.

According to Malik, 61, Sadia insisted that they come. “Where have they seen such functions? It is only on TV that they get to see them. So when she asked, I thought I should not miss this opportunity,” he adds.

Geetashree, 9, has come all the way from Mongoldoi, about 75 km from the capital, to catch the Games action. She doesn’t love sports but says she has never seen anything like this before. “I love to watch such ceremonies as I have seen many of them on TV. When my father told me that such a ceremony is happening, I wanted to come,” she says.

Says Pradyutt Bordoli, state government spokesman, who also heads the media committee of the National Games: “This is a great occasion for our children, generations of whom had never seen even Republic Day and Independence Day functions due to various bandhs and boycotts. Just see what a sight it is today. Over 2000 of them participated in the inaugural function today, while there were several thousand more in the gallery.”

But would the children have come along if the outlawed ULFA had not withdrawn their boycott call? “Perhaps we would have just defied the ban,” says Malik. Geetashree’s father Jaman Singh Brahma, who was a revenue and education minister in the Hiteshwar Saikia ministry, admits, “We would have there, but there would have been some fear.”