Indian Army: Friends of the Hill People. Is this a joke?

This for sure is one of the unpublished news articles in the world, though this may be there in police records. Happenings in villages never make to newspaper headlines even today, why should it see the daylight of journalism if it is in the early 1990's then? If not reported, news become sort of rumors and later become a rather obsolete rubbish. Only those people who have suffered remember, if the incidents involve suffering and pain.

So, take this as a fiction or a real incident. The time is one winter day somewhere in the early 90's. Indian Army patrol team led by a Major was passing through the jungle between Lunghar and my village (Sihai Khullen) Ukhrul District, Manipur, India. The team was heading to Khamasom Army post, which is about 10 kilometers beyond my village.

The patrol party got ambushed by Naga Revolutionaries near a stream where there used to be thick bamboo growth not far from the village. The villagers never knew the exact figure of casualty on either side. They were just made to believe that everyone except the Major on the side of the Indian Army survived the ambush. This story, however, is illogical in many ways.

Lets cut the illogical part and stick to facts that many of the old people in the village still remember about that fateful day. Not very long after the ambush, re-enforcement came and the army surrounded my village to initiate what the army called as combing operation and what the villagers tagged as torture. What makes them think that the revolutionaries might take shelter in the village after killing their enemies is something no human will ever understand.

Yes, they started dragging the villagers out of their homes and made them gather in the village playground on that chilly winter evening. Those who look suspicious and scared are grilled thoroughly. I don't know the established standard of the Indian army in labelling someone as suspicious. As for looking scared, who shouldn't be nervous considering the ground reality that slaps and rifle butt smacking rains down faster than blinking of the eyes.

At this kind of situation, you can never know the advantage of knowing Hindi, the jawans can beat you for either knowing it and for being ignorant. The reasons are; if you know Hindi, there are probabilities that you are a militant or are connected in some ways. If you don't know the language, they can hit you the same way for being a dumb ass. You are just the same human punch bag that they see you to be.

When all the villagers were gathered at the ground, sparing not even the village kids. The jawans forced the menfolk to strip down to their inner wears with the intention to sprinkle that biting winter water from the village pond using the same plastic pipe that the villagers used for water supply in the village.Normally, this is the the hour when no one will venture out without thick clothes on since winter used to be very cold in my village those days. Thanks to global warming, the climate is so different now.

Those who have their brothers or sisters in the militant organization get the maximum punishment as expected. It must be true that those army men get some vindictive satisfaction from beating the innocent villagers and relatives of the revolutionaries at times when they are unable to hunt down the revolutionaries who had killed their friends in fair or unfair warfare.

It was kind of a lucky day indeed for the villagers, as the police arrived before the army started pouring water on the menfolk. However, by then many of them have got their share of slaps, kicks and rifle butting.

Everyone was later thankful to the guy who ran from the village to inform the police about the firing and the combing operation happening in the village.

After the shooting, knowing that there is going to be mass beating and house search, this guy stripped semi naked and smeared his face with the hearth's ash. When the army came to his house, he started smiling and laughing from behind his ash smeared face. The jawans mistook him for a retard and left him alone. He dressed up and ran to Ukhrul to inform the police after he was sure that every human being including the army were by then at the village ground.

He is really loved in the village for his presence of mind...... I came to know about this incident from none but the sensible person who played the act of a lunatic to save the village and to fool the angry army jawans. Incidents of this sort invoke only anger adding more fuel for revenge. There are instances where the army torched down entire villages including the granaries.

Have all those inhuman acts meted out to the common people helped in solving the Indo-Naga conflict? I doubt. Whenever, I see the inscription "Assam Rifles: Friends of the Hill People" I can't help remembering the kicks I too have got as a share of being born in that trouble torn hills.

Things may be a lot different now? But, the question still remains: When will peace, which now is almost forgotten come back to the otherwise beautiful hills?

The Biggest Bird on Earth

The whole village heard the loud flapping wings of the giant bird and ran out to ascertain its actual size. Everyone must have thought the world is coming to an abrupt end on seeing the weird looking bird. Even the best hunters in the village haven’t seen a bird of that size though it was still gliding very high to make a fair judgment. When it started swooping down very fast with the sound of the wings getting unnaturally loud, people started screaming fearing the whole village would be eaten up by the strange bird.

Only some stand their ground staying where they were, and I was among the few who were mesmerized thinking that it indeed was a very weird and huge bird when it was just about three hundred feet above. The appearance of the bird as expected was considered a bad bad omen. Luckily, no one was carried away as the bird simply passed over the village and glides up high again in the air. Someone shouted, ‘look the bird is wounded.’

The elders suggested some of us should follow the bird and find out where it is heading and where it is going to perch on. Most of us knew that the bird won’t fly far as it seem to be wounded badly and also looked like it got singed in a wild mountain fire.

Before we all were able to decide what to do next, there was a very loud sound of thunder. It was very strange, stranger than the huge bird itself, as the sky was very clear with no streaks of cloud visible that day. On a hillock, not far from the village smoke started rising and then fire broke out burning the dry winter grassland. Someone in the crowd shouted again, ‘that’s where the big bird went down.’

The whole village ran to the spot forgetting the initial fear. Lo, we saw a burnt featherless bird with a charred human body inside. Initially everyone assumed the person inside could have been picked up from some village to be eaten by the giant bird. Yeah, it took us years to know that the huge bird was called a bomber plane and the man inside was the pilot. Those of us who out of shock suggested the plane could be a bird later on become the laughing stocks. No hard feelings; ignorance indeed is both a bliss and a joke.

We buried the pilot, dismantled the plane and divided its parts and brought them home as souvenirs. I got a sturdy metal pipe that I use as straw to sip rice beer later in life. Maybe, I was given that small pipe knowing I won’t complain being one of the youngest in the group. However, I feel fortunate as the pipe become so meaningful to me when I grew up. Others who got bigger pieces never found the purpose to use their artifacts.

This is about what happened somewhere in 1942-1944: The time when both Japanese bomber planes and planes of the Allied Forces pop up in the Naga Hills. Two planes crashed on Sihai Phangrei Hillock very close to Sihai Khullen Village my birthplace.

Note: This is what my grandpa would have blogged if blogging was a fashion during his times. I dedicate this post to my late grandpa.

I Hate You. I Hate You. I Hate You

I never loved you, you know that, but you cling on to me and nag and always whisper into my ears how much you love me. I turned my head to kill the whisper, but you always managed to find my other ear.

I put on sprays. which I know you hate most, yet with time you mastered the art of liking it. I hate you the more when I come to know that you profess the same love to others and whisper the same loving words on others' ears.

I've tried my level best to get used to your presence. But, now I know that I would never be able to live with that lousy nature of yours. You know that you have given me only sleepless nights. I miss my childhood in the village; those golden days where I was yet to meet you.

I hate the whole of your brothers and sisters, mom and dad and even your grandparents. Why do you choose to stay even after I've said so many goodbyes. From now on, I prefer to be labeled as a murderer than a compassionate man. Take this seriously, because when I see you next time I am going to commit the bloodiest murder in history.

The most unbearable payback you gave me in our long bitter relationship is the day you blessed me with malaria for the simple reason that I feed you and shared my room with you. I slept for days down with fever and you were around singing the same boring song that I've never learned to like even today.

I'll now use multiple sprays, coils and the electric racquet to get you and your lot stoned, smacked and roasted alive. Consider me the most dreaded and a merciless criminal of all times, I'll gladly accept that nickname than getting another bout of fever, body ache and headache.

Goodbye Miss Mosquito, I am done with blood donation.