Dr. Paul Pimomo
A review of Thechano Kithan’s Whispering Rocks. Unistar Books, Chandigarh, India, 2006, pp. 62.
Perhaps the title of this collection of poems, “Whispering Rocks,” is best explained by the author herself in the opening paragraph of her introduction to the book. It refers to the “unshakable strength” of mute rocks that break their native silence in a language all their own because they can no longer bear their secret longings. If this explanation does not fully satisfy, the reader who becomes privy to the whispering rocks will soon discover the aptness of the image as a metaphor for the poet’s (or poetic persona’s) own lived experiences out of which these poems emerged. The experiences are multi-layered, and include the poet’s sense of disabling numbness in a strange land before finding company and intimacy with it, the burden of silence in the shame of being betrayed by a trusted spiritual figure, the weight of inexpressible personal loneliness and pain, emptiness of the interior life that won’t let up. The list sounds long and dour, but ultimately this collection of poems is not about mute rocks and sealed feelings however consuming they may have been for the poet at one time. Rather, it is a book of personal liberation, about releasing her repressed voice and reconnecting with everyday life in all its manifestations. It is a testament to a quiet, persistent strength that comes through tough times.
Whispering Rocks can be read in various ways. It has poems on a range of subjects that are keenly felt. But I’ll stay with those that have to do with Naga themes. Readers in Nagaland will recognize these poems as familiar parts of our history and daily life: traditional village ways, small-town life, warriors and patriots, and Christianity. I’ll pick just a few poems for illustration.
“Down by the River Zaktsu” is set in the jungles between Lakhuti village and Assam, along the rapids of Zaktsu (a Lotha word that literally means a fast-flowing river). Thechano Kithan is a poet of place and, like all writers of that persuasion, she relies on the sights, the sounds, and the feel of specific locations. The poem evokes a day in the life of a young child spent in the company of grandpa: fishing up and down the river on a sunny day, collecting ferns and figs, wild mangoes and berries, and bamboo-shoot. They catch fish and crab and prawn and cook them over a makeshift fireplace; they eat in wild banana leaves and grandpa drinks rice beer from a bamboo mug on a sandy dune in the afternoon sun. A cuckoo sings nearby to the distant sound of someone clapping bamboo sticks to scare away hungry crows. The events in the poem follow the diurnal journey, from morning through afternoon and evening to sundown, when they retire to a barn in a ripe paddy field. At nightfall, grandpa tells ghost stories and of elves and fairies and mythical pythons. Nothing is left out in this lilting song of nature: earth, water, air, fire, sunlight, plants, insects, birds, animals, sandy beach and driftwood, as well as humans and the supernatural. In the midst of all this is the innocent child speaker of the poem who helps complete what indigenous societies in many parts of the world call the Circle of Life, a natural network of life-forms intertwined with one another in a symbiotic web of being. Because the poem has the rhythm and sounds of a lyrical song, one wishes it were written in a regular stanza form so as to be rendered into music. That would have given the poem an added welcome dimension.
“The Cicada’s Last Flight,” like “Down by the River Zaktsu,” is part of a world seen through the eyes of a child. But the scenery and time have changed. It is nighttime in Baghty valley in Wokha district. A reader unfamiliar with Baghty might find it helpful to know that it is not your typical Naga village, neither is it a town – it lacks the population and material wherewithal to be quite a town. A poem set in a place like Baghty creates its own interest because it resembles many small semi-towns in Nagaland that have stayed in a sort of permanently arrested growth for decades, with no signs of either a return to the village or an advance toward town status. The poem is about the poet’s childhood memory of kids like herself gathered around a campfire at night. They are singing, dancing, and generally having fun together. The action centers on a ritual invitation for the dying cicada to make its fateful flight through the night. The children sing and skip and dance around the mulberry tree to lure the cicada to make its last journey. It arrives, alights on a bush, and dies clinging to the tree in a death-grip that will stay put long after the cicada is dead and its carcass has withered. This idea is reinforced by the illustration accompanying the poem. The children’s farewell to the cicada takes center stage, but the surrounding universe of mixed reality and fairytale is summoned to participate in it. Mountains in the distance stand guard over the valley, their dark shapes silhouetted against the moonlit sky; hunters’ lights flicker in the shadows; jackals and deer visit the gleaming streams for a drink; the campfire logs burn to capacity; the owl takes over the night; and the children go home to their beds.
The tone and imagery of “The Cicada’s Last Flight” capture the delicate irony of a celebratory death, the ambivalence of joy and sorrow represented in the children’s song of invitation to a farewell party for the cicada. Echoes of folklore and fairytale are woven together with childhood rhyme, yet they create the physical and natural realities of an actual place. Like the unsuspecting reality of innocent children serenading the cicada’s death, the poem merges reality and imagination and reveals the unity of seeming contradictions evident in nature by reminding us of the “kiss of death,” of the cicada whose dry body refuses to fall off the mulberry tree, of the darkness of night temporarily dispelled by moonshine, of the nocturnal wise owl, and of the children’s fairytale life in a small town in Nagaland.
If “Down by the River Zaktsu” and “The Cicada’s Last Flight” celebrate traditional and rural Nagaland, other poems by implication question the disappearance of the joys of childhood by focusing on the dark side of contemporary Naga society. “A Letter to a Naga Mother” is an exhortation to mothers to keep faith with their children in an age of drug addiction and AIDS, and to lead by words and deeds of hope and wisdom. The poet’s social conscience evident in this poem shows up in other poems as well, “Girl Child,” for instance, where the governing impulse is helpless compassion and empathy on the part of the speaker-poet. Another poem, “A Warrior’s Dream Forgotten,” begins with contemporary Naga-on-Naga violence, but works its way back to images of healthier times in Nagaland when its strength and beauty were marked by “rushing rivers,” “grazing cows,” “autumn sky,” and the song of a “dancing hornbill.” The Naga warrior of old has been buried, forgotten, and is now replaced by modern-day patriots, “My brothers killing each other.” “In the soil where he [old warrior] stood once/ And dreamt of a beautiful world,/ There are piles of debris.” The poem ends with hope, forced hope, for a better homeland. “A Warrior’s Dream Forgotten” may not have the same imaginative reach of Easterine Iralu’s “Kelhoukevira” and “Genesis” or the conviction and satiric strength of Temsula Ao’s “The Epitaph,” but they all belong to the same Naga poetic tradition. A homeland as steeped in folklore and nationalism as the Naga Hills is bound to produce dreamers and patriots (as well as suckers), and poets to write about them.
Reflection is the life of poetry. Living the present in the shadow and light of the past is the business of poets and poetry lovers. This is best exemplified in the chant-like haunting poem titled “Under My Own Blue Sky.” It is a moving ode to the natural world of Nagaland whose spirit breaks forth in a song of herself, like the poet who broke her own silence into poetry. The ancient spirit of the land and the speaker-poet merge into each other and join in telling the story of the inimitable land of wild beauty and rugged freedom that is Nagaland, with its special kind of mountains, woods, flora and fauna, lakes, river beds, sky, clouds, blazing sun, the ubiquitous cicada, and legendary ancient rocks that outlast the seasons of life and death.
Unlike our traditional Naga forebears and their trusty indigenous code of ethics, the vast majority of modern Nagas have adopted Christianity as the new set of values to live by. Thechano Kithan’s Whispering Rocks is a good example of Naga poetry’s beginning to reflect this change. The book concludes with a whole section of poems that give expression to the poet’s personal faith in God. The nine “Songs of My Souls” are devotional poems and are better left to the meditative reflection of individual readers. There are other poems of faith and religion in the book besides the last nine. I think even readers with no particular religious inclination or persuasion will appreciate “Faith” and “Now I understand Why” for their power and sincerity of feeling and expression.
Some of the best poems in the collection are not on Naga life. They include “He still waits for the last Train,” “Moira,” “A Journey from Rewari to Panchkula,” “The Waves over Barapani,” “I have buried my dreams,” “a Song for Sheena Jones,” “The Fallen Priest,” “August at Hathnikund,” and others. “Changes” too belongs to the group except for the lack of punctuation, which generally is the case throughout the collection. A professional editorial work would have immediately raised the quality of some of the poems. On the other hand, the artwork accompanying the poems add to the book’s aesthetic appeal.
On a personal note, I’ve lived over two decades outside Nagaland and was delighted to reconnect with our people recently by reading Naga poetry in English. This review of Thechano Kithan’s book is my humble way of celebrating modern Naga literature with Naga writers and readers. I look forward to reading more poetry and other forms of literature from Nagaland. Lastly, let me quote my favorite line from Whispering Rocks,” which runs: “And fowls chuckle at the sight of crows.” I feel like a crow at this moment, which entitles you the reader to chuckle if you like! Only remember, it is poets who turn fowls and crows like us into the privileged human beings that we are by bringing back and sharing with us words from their solitary worlds. Here’s Thechano Kithan in “Blissful Solitude”:
“In my solitary world
I gather all joys bygone;
Like a weaver and its loom,
I play with words
Sweet like a cantilena.”
The writer is Professor of English Central Washington University Ellensburg, WA 98926, USA
