But, I asked, suppose he didn’t want to pay the twenty rupees to the policemen. Couldn’t he just sneak across? He said he could, but, if he was caught, not only would he be soundly thrashed, he would have to part with much more money. So he preferred to play safe.

So much for wild ideas about Sylheti cooks from Shillong functioning as undercover agents. But later that year, my elder brother, Suzoy, and I travelled with our parents to Dawki on the India-East Pakistan border, about 200 kilometres south of Shillong, a five-hour run by car then. There are several things that I remember about the trip, including that the border point was a bamboo pole, one end fixed to a pillar and the other tied to a rope. This was the actual ‘gate’.

The Assamese policeman (he could have been a customs officer, at that age I could not tell) told us quite cheerfully how they had come under fire the other day. ‘We were dodging the bullets,’ he said, playing to our wonderment. ‘And then, saala, aami enekuake guli marilu je ekebare teulookor ghar-sor sob uri gol.’ (in simple terms, ‘We just blew them away.’)

‘Damn good. Taught those bloody Pakistanis a lesson,’ I thought, caught up in my schoolboyish excitement, looking across at the Pakistani side.

Many years later, Dawki is a major trading point between India and Bangladesh. Through it flows an unending stream of trucks carrying coal to India’s neighbour. Other goods which move include areca nut and betel leaf, fish, meat, consumer goods and cattle (especially during Ramzan in Bangladesh. Otherwise, from where would they get their meat?). Skinny-looking creatures, these cattle, plod along on the Guwahati– Shillong highway.

I’ve often wondered where they come from. Probably from different parts of Assam and Meghalaya. But also from as far as the Punjab, I’ve been told. Though this can’t be confirmed, I can well believe it. There are many ‘cow corridors’ through which these animals are pushed into Bangladesh. And indeed, the biggest illegal export from India to that country is cattle—nearly two million of them every year, specifically for meat. We don’t slaughter cattle in most parts of India (on religious grounds, ostensibly) but that doesn’t prevent us from marketing these beasts there. It makes for an interesting marriage between religion and commerce.

There was little meat on the cattle when we first saw them decades back; there’s little meat on them now. But smugglers and buyers aren’t too fussy about looks. At feasting time, what matters is whether meat is available, to feed relatives and friends.