Allan Aley uses the folk as a springboard for a tale which is part mythic and part science fiction and is his debut into the world of fiction. The story revolves around ‘a deadly epidemic that hits Nagaland’ in 1704. The way to deliverance out of the epidemic is revealed to the leaders but the quest that would have brought rescue is aborted by the greed and ambition of some leaders. Aley writes that in the wake of the betrayal, ‘a seismic blast wipes off the entire population of Nagaland’ leaving a survivor named Molung. We follow Molung on his journey to discover that village after village has been utterly destroyed, and he is confronted with the devastation. The challenge that faces Molung is the rebuilding of a world that has disappeared.
Aley’s book is a clear example of fantasy superimposed on the landscape of the folk. It works because both genres have a strong element of ‘suspension of disbelief.’ Throughout the story, there is the figure of the loquacious grandmother who appears at convenient points to advise and guide the protagonist. However, the grandmother has been long dead so it is the spirit form of the grandmother making special appearances. There is an active interaction between the spirits and the humans within the telling of the tale. The interaction offers opportunity for action taking place on a spiritual level. Galactic blasts wipe out the known world. Powerful sorcerers are summoned by a character named Diezeno to create a shield over her kingdom. Diezeno also prays for protection of her daughter, Ketholeno. This shows that humans play active parts in the rather incomprehensible universe which seems quite capable of self-destructing. The skies over Diezeno’s lands change colour from ‘blue to white, white to red, red to black and black to white.’ The winds carry a message of wrath, writes Aley. The world he creates is filled with possibilities. Familiar villages are wiped out and only corpses can be found. The dead return in the shape and form of his beloved grandma and she offers counsel. The past intermingles with the present and the effect of a dream sequence is created thereby. There is also pithy wisdom in the telling. ‘Humans are unpredictable. They are strong, fragile, wise but careless, loving but bitter.’ A few pages on, the figure of the grandmother reappears, and she sings a song, the words of which are important for the hero: ‘Search and you will find, Learn and be kind, take courage and you will win.’ But Aley’s hero encounters wasted village after village, places where the granaries are being devoured by rodents in the absence of the living inmates of the village.
In Chapter 8, he comes to the village of Ven Kahtok by teleportation. He remembers his father telling him that the village of Ven Kahtok is the source of all forms of the occult and sorcery. In this village, the supernatural is even more visible as he encounters a ghastly spirit who calls herself Endora. She threatens to kill him, but changes her mind and decides to set him three tests. Molung’s journey is abruptly interrupted at this stage when he suddenly finds himself in another dimension, displaced and in pitch darkness. Gulliver-like, he meets Lilliputians and helps them, and finds out it was one of the tests he had to go through as set up by Endora. In the next test, he is chased by zombies, the spirits of his dead relatives and villagers. The final test was the crossing of an invisible bridge. On completing that test he finds his lost village, and he is greeted by his long dead father who tells Molung he had broken the curse of the Lily. By that act, order is restored in the village world. This solution should be the natural conclusion to the story, but Molung insists on continuing on his journey to the next village, the village of the Kezie tribe because he believes there is something, or someone waiting for him there. But before he can find out he is attacked by Endora and miraculously saved by his ancestral necklace in three horrific attacks. The marriage of folk and science fiction culminates in this section where the ancestral necklace forms a force field to protect Molung against demonic attacks. The story concludes with a beautiful ancestral blessing by Imtiyangla Ningdangri: ‘Our history begins before we are born, that’s our stem…of race, memories and wisdom, made up of their stardust.’ It is this stardust that Aley has reaped to mould his story which is outrageous at times and tenderly emotional at other times. ‘Becoming the Light’ is a good example of using Naga lore as a portal into extra terrestrial dimensions, setting the imagination free to tell a wild story.
