A Rose for My Warrior Mother

That august sun was sitting on the horizon

Showing off the auburn sky that it had painted

Illuminating the horror of that last august day

The popping guns and the cries of their preys,

Wailing, crying, screaming – terrors reign the air

Amidst them lay still my body in the tar black road

Silhouette by bloods that slowly turn auburn.

I lay there still in the auburn road

Waiting for the setting sun to touch the horizon

And burn the hills and light the night sky

For my mother, to come find me

And end the night, that bloody Monday -

Of crimson night, and shattered lives.

And there she is –my brave mother,

Untold loss and grief, scarred her sunken face,

Feeble and frail with no more strength to grieve

Yet she stands there mighty against the guns –

A helpless woman –illiterate, scared and lost

She stood her ground to marches on!

Day-in and day-out, she marches on

No time to waste –she can’t stop now

For she fight not for glory, fame or money,

But for the hearts, and the wombs –

The womb of the land that nurtures her;

And her children, the joys of her womb!

She marches on with thousand mothers

Into the abysses where all hope ceases

The battle cries of the warriors, filling the air -

My land, my sons; my home, my blood -

For my children –they scream and march

While their hearts bleed for their fallen sons!

And there I die, in mother’s arm,

We’ll be fine, she promises, we’ll be fine!

But I pray thee, kind kinsmen and strangers,

When you come to visit me in my grave,

Please also wept the tears off of my mother's eyes,

And give her a rose, for she deserve one!

Photo: www.zogam.com

Those Hills I Called Home

I was neck deep at work chasing datelines, but that single photo of two young man lying dead unattended in front of the police station that I was massaged in my phone made me shudder.  But what upset me the most was the fact that those young men were innocent civilian killed by the police, and I was told that there were more dead bodies. 

What connects me and those young men was that we just got called a stranger at our very own home, and that the government just passed a bunch of legislation that can legally kick us off from the land where we have lived for generations.  The knowledge that we can now be easily uprooted from those hills is a thought that is killing us all. Those beautiful blue hills have been our home for ages, those hills are awash with the blood of our forefathers, and those hills are nurtured by the bloods of our ancestors, and it continues to do so, and will remain so as proved by those brave young men died protesting those legislation imposed by some outsiders who wanted to grab our lands.

Even though I live far away in central India, those hills never left me. Every single day, I work up to the sound and sight of things –from the sounds of language and music, the sights of buildings and the people, that reminded me that I don’t belong here.  And no matter how I tried to belong, the people I interact with on everyday basis will remind me of where I belong by asking me where I belong. And I have accepted to live amidst that sense of alienation, and how do I managed that?

I managed to live amidst that constant sense of alienation because deep down in my heart I know that I am not homeless, that I have and belong to a place that I can call a home. But now, the thought that I’ll no longer be able to call those hills as my home tugs my heart, boils my blood and wrenches my soul. Those hills are central to my being, and critical to my existence because no matter where I go and live, those hills are the place that define my being, my identity, and it’s the thought of those hills that drives my life.  

I regrets not being there in the hills physically to stand with my people at this critical time, my sole consolation that I’m contributing to the economy of the hills and that I’m a representative of the hill people to the outsiders does not qualify me to speak to my brave hill peoples, but I want to say this –we are a proud, obstinate and fiercely independent tribes for ages, and we will not be subjugated by some outsiders, we will definitely not be called a stranger at our own home.  

Stay strong Zomi, Zomi are strong!

Religion VS Education: Contradiction or Complementary

Every society need a moral compass to tell its member what is right/wrong, what is good/bad, what should be done under certain circumstances, etc. It acted as a guideline for the member of the society.

Religious beliefs and practices are one such moral compass or guidance in our life. And in any society, we need some sort of moral compass to tell us what is right, what is good, what is desired and what is dignified for the common good of the society based on general belief.  If any society don't have such moral compass, chaos will surely follow.

Moral compass are of course based on the society's general beliefs on what is good or desirable for them as a society. And what the society think is good or desirable changes as they move on and deal with new circumstances, new understanding and inventions, etc. But such beliefs, can also be institutionalized into a rigid frame that makes it hard for it to catch-up with the changing needs, thus they can become the unreasoned or out-dated beliefs, and to stick to that beliefs can hinder our progress as a humanity. Religion is one such institutionalized belief system.

Every religious practice or belief are not necessarily unreasoned, afterall they are based on what the society thought was good for the member of the society at the time of institutionalization. Take for example, the concept of love and peace are taught by all religion, and they are as desirable today as it was then. On the other hand, some religious practices demands that we stone to death a certain people, which are cruel and barbaric. So despite what our religion said about such thing, we decided to ignore them because, as a human, we have the capacity to logically think and reason the implications, and therefore, make independent decision about such issues.

The issue is, most often, religion demands blind faith, and blindly follow the moral compass it made for us centuries ago.  Such moral compass have not been updated to the needs and desire of the society, so it usually come across as unreasoned, even barbaric. The primary aims of education is to take us beyond such unreasoned beliefs and practices. Education too is suppose to provide us a moral compass in the form of reason, logic and rationality that will guide us through life. But considering the current status of our education, is it able to provide us that?

If we are to view the role of the teacher as a facilitator, it doesn't matter how much religion is practiced, education will achieve it's aims. If we are to view the teacher as a mentor/guide/master etc, they might hamper the process of logic and reason, but as long as the student continued their education, and that our curriculum really encompass all the elements of the aims of education, nothing will stop education from achieving it's goal.