93-year-old Vinyühu Meyase.
Vishü Rita Krocha
Dzüleke | June 14
While the sacrifices and resilience of fathers are often overshadowed, they continue to quietly carry the burdens of their families, ensuring stability and safety. In the quaint village of Dzüleke lives 93-year-old Vinyühu Meyase, whose greatest love—his wife, was robbed of life 30 years ago, but finds pure joy in his seven children and fourteen grandchildren.
“My mother died 15 days after I was born in 1932 and everyone including my siblings, cousins, aunts and relatives babysat me and called me Bano,” he recalled while sitting in the comforting space of his kitchen in Dzüleke, carrying years of fatherly wisdom and experience in the Indo-Naga struggle. He is also the oldest man in Dzüleke, and is looked up to as a fatherly figure by the village community.
After 23 years of marriage, his wife was killed in a cross fire during the Indo-Naga conflict in the year 1995, leaving him behind and their seven children including a pre-schooler. On the day his wife was killed—2nd November, 1995—a date he still vividly remembers, Meyase was in another village attending a church jubilee. “She showed herself to me, clothed in white, around the same time she was killed,” he recollected.
When he went to sleep that night in another distant village, he also remembered that his fingers were itching—‘signs of bad omens and I had bad dreams too’ in his words. However, he thought it was something to do with his village because “there was so much turmoil in our land during that time”, he pointed out.
It was only when he heard the tragic news the next day that he realised that these were indicators of the inevitable. “We did not have mobile phones and easy access to information in those days,” he articulated. When he finally arrived, he was not allowed to enter his village as situation was tense and many villagers had fled as a result of the cross fire. “A village elder, the only person who did not leave, covered the dead body of my wife with leaves,” he recalled.
“When I managed to get home, I took out a spear to guard the dead body of my wife but the army broke it,” he expressed while also recalling that she was buried only after 2 days. Subsequently, following her death, he said, “two of our children gave up studying.”
“We saw our father mourning the death of our mother for a very long time. He did not say it in words, but we saw the grief and the pain that he silently went through,” one of the children put across while impressing upon that he almost single-handedly raised them.
In 1963, at the age of 31, Vinyühu Meyase joined the free Naga Movement and travelled to Pakistan (present Bangladesh) on foot and boat along with several others for a three-month military training. “The journey took us 42 days,” he highlighted while adding with profound gratitude that, “I once fell into the water while on the boat and if it weren’t for a Chakhesang comrade, I wouldn’t have been alive today.”
Today, all his children have married and settled down in different places including Dzüleke village. And despite his children constantly persuading him to come and live in one of their homes, he prefers otherwise—on his own, in a space he is most familiar with. “All my children have settled down and have their own families…I want to live on my own”, he related.
“We set up a room for him, but he enjoys the rustic life. Family is there to look after him but he prefers to live the way he was brought up,” his son shared. In the next door also lives one of his children’s family, who take care of his needs, bathe him and checks on him every now and then. However, technically, at 93, Vinyühu Meyase lives alone, cooks occasionally and indulges in basket making, something that he has been doing since 1970.
“I am happiest when my children bring my grandchildren home for a visit, and whenever they do, I like to share stories with them,” he expressed in a childlike manner. And for him, the greatest joy of being a father is “watching my children grow and develop obedience, not harming others, being truthful, and also seeing the free spirits of my grandchildren.”
