Nehemiah Rong
Crying out of fright and panic, some school children searched for their parents, elders and guardians as whole village was reverberated with gunshots and bombings. Trying to see what was happening with those bang and gun shots, many children run to hillock to get a view of AR Camp been attacked on the 9th July 1987 noon. Carrying school bags, wearing school uniforms students went out from classrooms with the hope of uncertainty. For many that day was the last day of the class for their life forever. If they only could know what happen next, they would be much satisfied to get a glimpse of their lowly but lovely school building for the last time. Because the school buildings were dismantled and the students never see their school again and the life was never the same as it were before, after the bondage of ‘Operation Bluebird’.
Next morning children and students woke up not to dress uniform for school but to eat food early and march to the ground of concentration camp. Day one. Day two. Day three. It continued. Once in the church they stood up to sing, ‘God is so good’, now in that same place they moaned in anger and frustration. The question they might have asked themselves at that point of time was, ‘Is God really good if so where is our good God in our predicament like this?’
‘Rain! Rain go away little Johnny wants to play’ was not the song many little kids of Oinam sang that time. The song they must sung was, ‘Terror! Horror! Nightmares go away we want to enjoy our carefree lives out of this bondage of slavery’. No more football game for ‘Long’ and not more volley ball game for ‘Longni’. No more marble game for John’s gang, no more ‘hide and seek’ game for little girls. No more shouts for those naughty kids. All children were bogged down with fear and threat. In wet grounds near their parents they sat whole day without play. For many young lovers, it is a time for separation to unknown destiny. Will she be the same again? Will he come back again to be together again? Will army spare my love one atleast? Endless thoughts and questions, the young minds must be positing as they spend the best days of their lives in bondage of shame and slavery.
No more chance to meet their friends and fool around. No midday meal to enjoy to their heart content. No fruits to bite. Itching teeth become so restless. What to chew and bite? Only the way out to chew and bite and pass their time was only the maize stem, which was mercilessly cut down. With the little sugary taste it gives, children gnawed the maize stem in some days to pass their time and satiate their itching teeth.
Sometimes the children would see soldiers torturing old men, kicking the domestic animals, and roughed around the village in fury. One particular captain children popularly called him as ‘Red Eye and Hairy Ear’. He was the ghost to them. Everyone would run away when they saw him from a distance. He was really a devil figure for the children. Some mothers would threat their naughty children telling that captain ‘Red Eye and Hairy Ear’ was coming. Then even the very naughty one would stop crying or their protest.
It was a time to go spree in the fields for the apricot fruits, wild walnuts, cucumber and to collect swarm and bees in the jungle for the children after classes. Imagination was the only fulfillment as children spent their time in bondage in concentration camp.
Students studying outside like Delhi and Chennai(Madras) etc. cried their heart out for their village. Parents at home cried out for their children. Money could not be sent to those students studying outside cities. Everyday, the students studying outside must have thought what would happen to my people at home. Well letters could not be sent, phone call was a dream those days. As money could not be sent to those students who stay outside, many lost their academic sessions. Thus led to spoiling careers for young bright and promising students.
Imitation is a very interesting part of children. The post ‘Operation Blue Bird’, was a bit of fun time for the children and teenagers. Those days spiky hairs pop culture was never heard off yet to the youngsters. Khel-wise (Colony-Wise) group was divided, camps were set-up, various styles of wooden guns were made and other ammunitions look like were made and stored. One group acted as underground group and the other group acted as the Assam Rifles (Army) people, the smaller and weaker boys were made to be the villagers (public). The underground group would come and attacked the army camp and would capture arms and ammunitions. In the course of action the army people tortured and detained the villagers. Even sometimes the underground people were arrested and jailed in the abandoned houses. For the youngsters of Oinam village most Sundays after the incident were spent on such game of imitating what they saw during the ‘Operation Blue Bird’. It so happened that in one instance while the youngster are torturing the villagers in their play, that ghost figure of above mentioned captain, ‘Red Eye and Hairy Ear’ saw some the youngsters. At the lightning speed the youngsters sped away like a deer in jungle. That captain tried to chase the youngsters and caught them inside the bed where the later went for hiding. Surprisingly not bad things were done to these youngsters. He and his men destroyed those wooden toy guns. Well that was the lighter side of the story.
‘Where were brothers, our sisters, our daddies and loving mothers gone? Why so many graveyards? Where had our towering leaders gone?’ Slowly the youngsters queried and reasoned. They were gone with the time and wind, never to come back again. Many men were brutally and dastardly killed in the jungles, which the killers try, telling the world they were shot in encounter. ‘How could our fathers and brothers take arms as they were harmless innocent civilians like any of us,’ some youngsters questioned. ‘Our father were a good dad and able leader, who then will lead our family and our village now?’ rued many youths.
Little ‘Tenny’ now see the world with different sense and dimension. ‘If the human can be so cruel to his fellow beings, if I could not enjoy what I am entitled to, then what is wrong with this people living in this wide world? Will my carefree days come again? Can I enjoy playing marble again? Yes I do but now with a sense of fear psychosis in my mind. I fear of gunshots. My carefree days stolen early enough in my life could never be bought back again. I spent sleepless nights in bondage. Earlier I would go out and steal away baby birds from the nest and caged in my bamboo-made-cage. But I am caged in my own home in the very presence of my mother and father who were helpless, even the plea of my poor dying grandpa was not listened.’
Fear gripped the minds and threat robed the hearts of the children. Children wept in hands of weeping mothers.
Kids take a great pleasure in searching for birds’ nests in jungles and near their paddy fields. Even their parents take great pains in fulfilling their children wish by going as far as to whittle up every death wood pieces with chisel or axe from the half dying huge tree in the jungle to capture the baby birds from the nest and keep at home in cage. Parents do that both for the pleasure of keeping nature close to them and to the much delight of their children. However, instead of kids enjoying the baby birds, in they were caged along with their parents in the concentration camps for days and moths together in fear and desolation. The unseeing wings of the blue bird cluttered their jolliness. The jolly, carefree live of childhood was forcibly robed away by the bondage of Oinam nightmare.
And in that village
Where the children weep
There’s rape and pillage
and they never sleep
Where mothers cry
And old men sigh
Young men lay their lives to die
And their lovers mourn inside
(Mhonchan Humtsoi ‘Tears of Nagaland’)
