Remembering Anundoram Borooah on his Birthday

Every year in the Civil Services Examination, only a few people from Assam qualify and make it as IAS, IPS officers. If I am not wrong, the numbers hardly cross the single digit margin each year. Though there are a lot of reasons for that which I don’t wish to talk about now. Today, I wish to remember the first civil servant from Assam on his birthday. When I grew up as a kid, I read books on great personalities from Assam who shone in different fields and Mr. Anundoram Borooah was the person who left a deep impact on me. His journey from a modest family to being one of the most efficient and respected civil servant of the country had motivated and inspired me to work hard and reach out to achieve my goals.

Mr.Anundoram Borooah had the goal to join the Indian Civil Service. He had to secure the Gilchrist Scholarship to be eligible to proceed to England to prepare for the entrance test for I.C.S. examination. He completed his graduation in 1869 and secured a top rank in the list for selected candidates for studies in England. Anundoram Borooah arrived in England in the year of 1869. 

In 1872, Mr. Anundoram Borooah was selected for the Indian Civil Service. He had an incredible career as the first Assamese and the fifth Indian to join the Indian Civil Service. Moreover, he was also the first Indian Civilian to be appointed as a District Magistrate. Apart from being a great civilian, he was a great Sanskrit scholar. He started his career as a magistrate in Sibsagar (a district in Assam) and was later transferred to undivided Bengal where he later became the first Indian District Magistrate in Noakhali District. 

He has published many important and rare Sanskrit classics including Mahavircharita, Saraswatikanthabharna and Namalinganusasana. He has also compiled a English Sanskrit dictionary, which was completed in 1877. He is also known as “Assamese Amarsingha” for mastering “Amarkosha” at the early age of fourteen.

He remained unmarried until he took his last breath on January 1, 1889. No family wanted to marry off their daughters to him as he had been to a foreign land and had consumed meat. His early demise at an age of 39 left a great void in the history of Assam. They lost a great scholar and a great civil servant. He had been and will remain an inspiration for people for a long time.

N.B: The facts mentioned have been collected from a lot of sources including print media as well as electronic media and I have personally looked to the authenticity of the facts mentioned herein. However, a few errors may have crept in. I apologize for any errors that may be present and would request you to please point them out so that I may be able to rectify them. You are most welcome to add any new information which may deem apt.  

The Resolute Assamese - Pilot Post

Here is a brief introduction of me just in case you wish to acquaint yourself with the author of this blog who rambles about anything and everything. If you have no such desire to do so, you may please skip this paragraph and jump to the next one. Well, if there is a next paragraph I mean. I come from the beautiful green valley surrounded by the brown hills and the green trees, where the sun rises while the rest of India sleeps, where chickens still perform their duties as alarm clocks despite being slaughtered in masses every day. I come from the uneven land of Assam. I rise every morning to the whistle of the Rajdhani Express gearing up for its journey to the capital of our country. The train that I took when I went to Surat for the very first time. The very first time I was out of my home, away from my parents. Its been 5 years since that time and the smell of my roots still linger asking me to return and be in its grace. As I get ready to embark on another journey of my life and leave home for a greater cause to facilitate my return back to my roots, I have a few dried tear droplets on my cheeks.  Forgive me, what started as my introduction is now going someplace else. As I was saying, I hail from the beautiful state of Assam and had grown up falling and running in the green fields under the sun. Though there had never been a cricketer from our place to make it to the national team, we used to be die hard lunatics of the game and play it until the eyes couldn’t sense the ball. We never really cared if Sachin scored a century but would scowl when the other locality’s team would thrash us in the game. We had to walk through muddy, slippery roads to catch the bus to school. I have studied in 4 different schools till my 12^th. The lowest time period I spent in any school was a month. It was my first year at school at the age of 3 and a half, and within a month I get thrown out of the school because the teachers and the principal opined there was no room for a dumb student like me in their prestigious school. Now that I look at it, it was the best thing to have happened to me in life. I will surely pen down its beneficial effects some day. I got glasses at the age of 11. They were so thick that they sent shivers in normal people who tried to experiment with them. I got the name “Geek” due to them. They believed people with glasses are only meant for reading those huge books. It took a kick off the left leg into the goal of our senior’s team to shun the myth that “batteries” can’t win matches for you. Time passed and going against the wishes of everyone, I joined Engineering in a far away land, the land that is now destined to be my second home for another two years or maybe more, who knows. Well, that’s about me. I hope to keep on writing about life, events and other stuff in this blog. As the title goes, I’m as amateur as an amateur can be. Let’s see where it all leads. As I always say, let there be hope.