I move with my eyes, my feet obeys.
The breath and the sky
The spring trickles ...as if they all had the responses to my well being.
Famished teenage days
even more famished
post teenage days.
Were days
where i was Unable to tuck my brain anywhere.
The hunger and uncertainity meant the same thing
I nibbled on bits of Neitzsche, Spinoza Schopenhauer and others
like small convenient sandwiches
Parts of life, ditched, in each days ditches, boring , blank in unfocussed spaces
From which i didnt bother to struggle my way out.
Though i was tempted,
only Neitzsche committed suicide
I prefer to say that Spinoza, Schopenhauer and the others, they all did, in some way sorted out their survival.
And today, i hardly remember what they said, nothing more than just their names.
And, their real or faked suicides helped me to live my life.
Walt Whitman, the happy vagabond, sang songs like noone else.
And his beard grew into long leaves of grass
He threw truth like thunderbolts
The Clouds of his words downpoured heavily
Transiting the 4 seasons of my life
His old chants, twilight songs,unheard sounds of winter, the icicles and lingering last drops, the dazzle of the day, left me looking for my own words,
and, i sat writing .
flew like a Raven out of Noah's arch
And returned from God's opaque storms and bleaking skies
Without finding any land.
But, Noah got shipwrecked on some mountain top ( not me...i was boat less)
he couldnt blame God for it
So he blamed himself.
The fawn and birds jerked out of his groins as children
(God bestowed him with mighty balls)
And Noah,
stored in them , each little secret of the universe.
i left Noah's arch, just walked away
as if the flood was a fiction of my own challenging life.
Somedays in which i drowned.
i walked away till i did'nt know who Noah was
And now as it rains
It rains
Oh how sweetly it rains.
How the springtime smells beneath it.
And sometimes it takes only a rain
arch to become , an undrownable arch on some timeless ocean.
Dedicated to the lands and people who have suffered tortures and death, delivered by the hands of extra judiciary troops in the name of peace..
Ima, Ima, Khamu.....
-MANORAMA DEVI THANGJAM, 11 july 2004.
The silences of this forest can never be mine.
In Kangleipak flowers bloom everywhere
In springtime
The earth and the sky bends in grief,
11 july 2004: your despairing cries still haunts a Mother's heart.
That day, every Mother became your Mother.
The ' Meira Paibais '....Imas,
14 fearless Imas, naked to this very day die slowly waiting for Justice.
Protesting for each violated daughter and son.
Randomly Murdered by uniformed men hiding behind a flag.
To maintain law, peace and order.
Whose Peace, whose law and order.
Revolted, ' the torch bearers' wept.
Enraged, they flung away their clothes,
Reclaiming,
" No we wont sleep , we will burn
Each soul in this land will burn
We wont sleep, we will burn
Till the myth of Truth will burn,
Contenance smeared with ashes
Of our murdered children
Now, immortal on our faces
We will burn down your lies.
Naked we ll walk till we re heard.
Hear us India, Great Mother,
Of vedic puranas , eruditions , and Wisdom.
Hear us Grand Father, of Ramayana and Mahabharata
Nights dont sleep
Days dont wakeup
in Kangleipak.
Our Land is injured
Our voices -- the helpless screams
Of our defenceless children
Raped, shot, and abandonned. "
11 july 2004: 05h30 am.
They found You.
Lifeless, in the rice fields
Thats where the Lawless Law left you.
Your community and family
found you
with a bullet riddled vagina.
17 Assam rifles , a wretched name to be mentioned.
" Forgiveness -- is'nt a word we ll remember, each time we think of you , your brutality, acts and deeds .
Human rights violaters , may you be disgraced forever. "
Nightmare after midnight, the extra judiciary unit descended
Guet à peun, At Bamon Kampu
Your executioner barged in
Pushing your Mother, they grabbed you by your hair, muffled you like a criminal
Forged memos, Determined to hurt, ' on suspicion ' they said
Dragging to the courtyard
They waterboarded you,
Mercilessly, assaults followed assaults
Dishonouring You in every possible ways.
The saying goes,..." when you want to drown the dog, you accuse him of Rage. "
The set you up, slit your Phanek, cut your thighs.
Everything was wrong, everything being Wrong.
You realise your tragedy,
Not every Draupadi has a standby Krishna
No looming palms to miraculously drape
You.....to protect You.
They took turns the ghastly troop.
Helplessly your family witnessed and heard
Your poignant cries and shreiks.
Cries and shreiks
Cries and shreiks .
Today, an old Woman bereives her daughter
Enclosed in a fortress of pain, imprisonned till she dies.
A broken Mother
gathers, shattered pieces of her daughter.
That night they took you places to places
Pretending, some evidences were somewhere.
Then they faked what they could'nt find
The mad psychopaths beat you.
Terrorised, you repeated
" Ie Khangde, Ie Khangde "
No, you didnot know
They knew you didnot know.
Unconceivable, to the cursed 17 Assam rifles, that ....
you sold the clothes you sew
at the village market
for a living .
Unconceivable to 'them'
That
you were only a bread winner.
They ridiculiously forgot
A bread earner has more responsabilites
Than, to be a " terrorist ".
'A Soldier '-- represents
Honour and Bravery .
A proud gardian to a Nation .
But,
not these men, no, not these men
How much do they know of Honour
How much they know what its to be brave.
How alone You felt
Alone, on that bench, on the verandah.
In an unamed Solitude.
While decisions were made at your back.
Reminded me, a similar despairing cry
From a bearded man put on a cross.
Ima, Ima....Khamu.
Ima, Ima....Khamu....are spears that bled the heart of Kangleipak.
"Here, grief is without ceasefires. "
A Mother cries ...
Can i be proud of you, my country
Can the silences of this forest be mine
Where can i bury these children of Kangleipak.
Tears are gems,
painfully built from these mourning eyes,
for a necklace
That can never be worn .
Manorama Devi, in Kangleipak, your memory perpetuates
on every Woman's faces
Its Springtime again in my country
Blossoms on branches are so beautiful
And each tree bears your name.
The advaitha mantra never leaves out from their delirious lips.
We wash
We drink
We purify
We purify everything but our hearts.
With all the gangas and yamunas
We wash and we wash.
Lifelong - we wash till we wash our dead
Festively we float our lamps
Yet our darkness never frees us
Where s your gangotri oh Shiva.
14 years or 14000, Hey Ram
How long will be your exile
Have you enough arrows
These Ravana heads multiples
More quickly than your shots.