Saturday, March 2, 2013

TO BE YOUR KNIGHT



      This will be the last time I wield my pen. My eyes are weak, I can barely see. But I sit myself down at the end of my days because I know I can’t leave without ever having said what I have felt everyday for almost half a decade. And I write this in the hope that in a rare lucid moment, it might catch your eye and speak to you in a way I haven’t been able to. 

     The first time I saw you, you were but a kid- probably in High School with dreams of a brighter future. And I was a fresh young graduate all set to join the Assam Civil Services. Remember those nights we sat in your house- Young ‘educated’ men enthralled by your father’s talk of nationalism and a movement that was brewing? Those nights created dreams of a future where our children would study without discrimination, where library books wouldn’t be passed around just so a “tribal” couldn’t get his hands on them. A future where you and I could walk around without being taunted as beggars and fools just because we looked different. As the dream transformed itself into a vision, I found myself picking a green uniform over the life of a civil servant, wielding a gun instead of a pen- without a shred of regret because I believed I had been called to serve my land and my people.

    Imagine my joy when I saw you again two years later at Boys’ ME School at Aizawl, among the volunteers who had come forward to cook for us greenhorns playing at war. The songs we sang, our stolen looks of promise, all fed by the hope of a better life after the guns were silent. Your happy smile is the last thing I remember before the attack, before the chaos that turned our worlds upside down. In the days and nights that followed while we hid in angst waiting for a chance to right a wrong, I was tortured by thoughts of you and wondered if you lived through that horrible day when the sky rained death upon our happy fellowship. I beat myself up for not having taken you along but then reasoned that was not the life I wanted for you. Days and nights in wild hideouts, a fugitive in my own land, fuelled by the need to chase the usurper out, knowing I needed to be a guerilla against the man with bigger guns. The vision by then had become a cause.

       At Ruallung I said a thousand prayers when I saw you. You were still so beautiful and my cause became so much dearer because you were still a part of it. But you were unhappy; my dear, how your eyes had grown dull. And your smile couldn’t reach them, I know you tried. There was never a time for a guerilla to feed the flame of a romance but my heart had no room for doubts. Seeing you was all that mattered, I never even thought to question why you were so sad. My walk home with our supplies was lighter than my journey out with an empty rucksack, only because I had seen you and knew you were alive, waiting for me. It was only at night, in the cruelty of a watch under a moonless sky that my heart bled, that I felt it squeezed till I could breathe no more. Major Pritam Singh. The name replaced every beat of my heart while all I wished for was to hold you in my arms and blow everything else away.

     March 20, 1968. The dreaded man was dead, we had been planning for days and he was finally dead. Taking the spoils after an attack like we always do, I walked right up to his dead body because I wanted to frame in my head the face of the man who had tortured you and whose name had tormented me for so long. It was then that I saw the little notebook in his pocket. It had your name on it, as it had other names, but yours more often than others, and dates against each written name. Even in death, this devil was to haunt me. I traced each night you were forced to be with him, wishing I had known and that I had come to shield you. But a guerilla could not be your knight in shining armour. Forgive me, my love.

       The next I heard, you were at the Civil Hospital in Aizawl. The kindly doctor there had done his best to heal your wounds they said. But those who had inflicted them could not be more indifferent and no one could tend the hurt inside. I was told you were not yourself anymore, that the trauma of the many invasions had done you in. My love, it would have been too much for even the strongest of us. But your life had been spared and this I felt was in answer to my prayers. The day we said our vows you were happy, you were once again the girl I had loved from so many years ago. When you trembled at my every touch I never blamed you. Each day has been worth it just knowing you are now safe and I could watch you sleep in peace. And on those nights you stayed awake, when fear took over and their faces came back to haunt you, I could finally be that knight you needed and my presence calmed you. But I cannot point a gun against ghosts and memories of tragedies that were all too real. Watching you slip further away from me and from a world that had been cruel, all I could do was pray that it would all end soon.

   Yet here we are today, both invalids. Waiting for salvation and a life of love undisturbed by rememberances of horror; living in a world that shuns us exactly because we had fought for it. It’s hard to understand my love, I know. What felt so right then still feels just as right. If we could go back we would probably do just the same- for what is life worth if not for the struggle of a better one? Even if those we thought we were fighting for do not understand, I still believe in the cause that drove us; and I believe their todays are so much better for the years we spent in anguish. If we could go back, I still wouldn’t have offered to make you the wife of a servant who slogged for a Government that wanted to trample him and his people. It would not have been right to see you in a plush home tending to nothing more important than your flowers or hosting parties for ‘Babus’ who secretly looked down upon us.

      There’s only one thing I would change could we choose to go back, my love. I would take your hand on March 5, 1966 and not let go as I run, to meet whatever fate awaited us, together. Then, perhaps, I could always have been your knight.







March 2, 2013.

15 comments:

Mizohican said...

This is really really beautiful, definitely the most touching story I've read about our Rambuai days. :'(

This post should be made into a movie. The passion and emotions are strong and relentless, you've really touched me with this one, Rini. How torn some of our civil servants must have really been during those days, the indecision, the guilt, the pain...

It's a bit relieving to know this one didn't end with a death of a loved one, unlike the other story, but come to think of it, that might have been a much bitter-sweeter ending than going through all the torture and living through the pain, completely changed and traumatized forever...

Unknown said...

my first attempt at creative writing, so thank you (with a sweeping bow) lolz.

But yes, there are so many layers one could unearth in the lives of those who lived through those years- i wish i had the power of a language that could draw out the story of the silent, much traumatised woman i imagined in this story.

Anonymous said...

really touching, beautiful, poignant. made me want to cry. thank you for this.

Unknown said...

thank you ruolngulworld...it was like something waiting to be written- I'm not even sure how it began but I'm glad it spoke to you like it did to me

Philo said...

The haunting continues and aren't we fortunate to have someone with the finesse to untangle them as you do. Thanks.

Unknown said...

Thank you Philo...it hurts just to think of exactly how much 'haunting' there must remain

ku2 said...

Lalrin!! Now I really need to read that book you and your dad wrote. I want to read more of your writing. This post made me all tearful, and though fictionalised, there must have been so many other untold stories like this, and much worse.
Ive always wanted to know why the stories from this period have always been hushed- whether its because of shame or the need to let old ghosts lie, and whether a re-telling would do more harm than good.
But then I read stories like this and I am reminded of the reason why someone said the Holocaust should never be forgotten- "so that something like this will never happen again".

Unknown said...

Yes Ku2 there must be...and of all the reasons there could be about the hush up, I've always felt it was the reception of fear-in itself caused probably by the intolerance of the times-that led to all the hush up. Now we can talk openly and if the post Peace Accord generation wakes up to the fact that this goes way beyond our local party politics, we'll have our story and embrace our past for what it was *PS borrow LZ's book :-)

Anonymous said...

This is awesome. I pictured the chaotic scenes as I read, complete with barefoot ladies with their puan and em on their heads, dragging their kids amidst the screams and smoke and dust, running for their lives without direction, just running out of fear, an animal instinct, and I (almost) shed a tear.
And the saddest part is knowing that the reality then was many times worse than this. This needs to be a movie!

Reflections said...

I ziak tha khawp mai. Conclusion hi a touching lutuks... Keep it Up (Y)

Unknown said...

ka lawm e...rilru a thu rawn siamtu ka tawng khat viau na, min khawih chhun hi chuan min khawih na thin viau reng a ni :-)

Manoj Singh said...

Keep putting up.

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Anonymous said...

Great post, I almost cry.. Just being honest.

Anonymous said...

mawi khawp mai....very touching...

Unknown said...

thanks y'all :-)