(This, story perhaps is only small in its way, but as you read through this, when you share a smile this Christmas with ones you care for, let this story remind you to reach out to those who have never known Christmas in their lives)
Ato
The rickety ‘Christmas tent’ emitted a strange, tortured groan and finally collapsed – sending its tiny occupants scampering out into every possible direction in terrified laughter and spontaneously honest trembling. The “camp” – as we found fond in calling in those innocent years – was actually devised from a bizarre array of materials – expired banana leaves to pungent cement sacks and the odd ‘Rupa’ underwear even. Perhaps the knowledge of its own nature as an eclectic character full of weight (literally) proved too heavy a burden and thus, sounded its collapse!
Howsoever the reasons, the collapse lay waste the insides and most importantly, food – but thankfully, not to our joyous little hearts. There were four of us children – a friend and her two small bothers. All that our innocent ingenuity could allow, we’d garnered about 15 Rupees (be reminded, this was a huge amount those days!) with my Mom chipping in half-a-kilo of fish to last the eve. The Rs 15 came from “caroling”. This caroling had us four singing up every possible thing that resembled a house. The songs? It should be ‘the song’ in fact – we knew only the “we-wish-you-a-merry-Christmas” line. With this one line, we tortured neighbors’ eardrums until they’d have heart attacks or best of all, a rupee or two.
Into the evening, my friend – who I would lose contact with for a decade and half and who in August 2006 in Dimapur would surface again to meet – prepared the fish. The fish tasted like nylon socks while the cooked rice felt like a collection of gravel somebody conveniently farted on. She played the “wife” and I, “the husband” while her two small brothers became “our children”. Unfortunately, my friend being bigger made sure that her “husband” doesn’t complain and that he swallow the terrifyingly metalish concoction with gratitude! The “children” too. No complaints…or you get a divorce!
In all our innocent laughter and scampering in and about, as far-echoing songs mingled in the laughter of carolers wafting distance away, the night could not lay a-waste. The night the “Christmas camp” collapsed, was around 5 pm, December 24, exactly 15 years ago, when I’d just scrapped through class VII. This Christmas is one of the only two happy Christmases ever in my life and the only ones my heart allows me to remember with a sincere smile. The next happy Christmas for me, I never imagined, would come only 14 years later. Circa 2005.
Today, behind this appalling mask, I thank God for this opportunity to share you a slice of my dregs. Christmas has always been the one season I’d always looked forward to for the simple reason that it was the only escape I so sought. I still seek that escape, in futility still now. There are scores in misery in deeper darkness than mine but I take this expression just to free my own small hurt over my past. A page could never do justice to expressions of human misery. Still, this is my prayer that this compression which I have shared only to my heart in silence for unending torturous years, would give you a reason to pray for those who are without any, out there, somewhere. Yes, somewhere out there.
I don’t abhor my past. But neither do I even allow it worthy to be replayed. Like many others’, my home was a broken home where poverty – and I mean real poverty – ever so I can remember – was the only food; violence, an automatic, motiveless action expected any minute; drugs and alcohol, the only escape to drown misery; and family feuds, the only assurance that I was not solitary in my private wretchedness – familial ‘love’ in a sick, depraved way.
My father, a high ranking and prosperous administrative officer passed away the year I was born; there mom, hardly 20 years of age, jobless and without a family to fall back on, found saddled with 11 children, 7 of them from my father’s earlier marriage. The moment father demised, mom’s world crumbled – my “family”, relatives and ‘well-wishers’ (and all who’d been close when father was alive and prosperous) abandoned us, and literally left us to isolation. Also, my mother belongs to a particular Naga tribe – what was her fault in belonging to her tribe that she should be rejected by relatives? But she was, nevertheless. The same rejection I would face 24 years later – by the only friend I’d ever truly loved, cared for and committed to, as my only one and ever.
Everyday, literally, drugged-out and drunk step-siblings and my own, proved violence in its worst on mother and I; murder stalked my mom every night; by the time I was a teen, my home, mom’s belongings and whatever legacy that father left (including bank savings and huge swathes of land) were shorn to be sold for drugs or alcohol by my siblings. The hurting and being hurt would last for decades more. It was not only at home that people exploited our poverty, isolation from relatives and haplessness. The world did too. I shall never forget that night. One night I came home from a friend’s and found a neighbor sexually molesting my mother, in the kitchen. I watched through a hole as the neighbor satisfied his lust. Mom was young. I was young. Mom had no voice. I had no voice. But I vowed that night: that if a day comes for my pain in entirety to be freed finally, that man’s life, that neighbor who molested my mother, would be the first, the very first to face the consequences of my pain. I thank God today that no matter how much pain I still bear, I was able to forgive him in all sincerity and let go of vengeance. I met the man some months ago – we talked and wished each other the best. He doesn’t know. I know Mom in her gentle nature is also at peace in forgiving him. And yes, till this day, Mom has kept away from me the violation she faced; till this day I have kept my knowledge of this ill from her. Neither of us knows the other knows.
The world is more reinforced today. But those times that my mother and I lived through, were nascent, primal years. I still feed off on the wound from them. This article doesn’t even begin to say gist on them. But no grudge is harbored in my heart, but I believe, that dynamics of familial existence in step-siblings, surrogate families and relationships with other fellowmen shall always be garbed in contempt, hatred, pain and humiliation in some way or the other.
All these years, my mother was the only reason I felt the desire to live. Only. My growing years took the predictable path – home was where my deepest agony lurked. In my own home I experienced sexual abuse and rejection, leave alone the poverty, frustration and a slow, emergent anger and bitterness in whose bondage I still live in today. The world outside found my heart as the only shelter from the pain. Whatever ‘friends’ I could have were the only escape I found shelter under, obvious of the rejection from within my family; never knew it would lead me down the path of humiliation yet again – girlfriends used me, ‘friends’ that I’d begun to trust rejected me for reasons I still feel ashamed even to think to myself. My loneliness drove me to desperation that by the time I was 20 I was into 3-4 “relationships” in a year. Suicidal tendencies and violence constantly littered in my path. Alcohol and wantonness became my second nature. Ironically, in those depths of darkness the only precious part of me that I guarded with all my heart was my virginity (I still don’t know why). Regret and haplessness chewed me with a slow, screaming burn – everyday. And I also faced what my mother faced – a woman (a neighbor), old enough to be my aunt, did things to me sexually, the marks of which I still carry on me today. Thankfully, since I was very small to her, she could not violate me, i.e., take away the deep I guarded. But the scars remain which chew me to this day. The world outside which I’d so believed would redeem my childhood, manifested no less the pain of my own broken home, our broken selves. The same abuse found me – is it my fault that I am imperfect and less the person a one might desire me to be? And if unfulfilled in his/her expectations, am I any less a person to give? Ironically – or call it a brutal quirk of fate – that those who loved me and accepted me in all my imperfectness, undeserving ways all went away – one December, just a week before Christmas several years back (I shall not mention the year or date) a friend I never felt deserved in having but was given to me, fell prey to a gruesome bomb blast, along with several others. They died like animals, literally asunder, in front of my very eyes – we were traveling together when the blast happened. People still blame it on the two NSCNs but for me, blame is only an excuse to deny the reality of pain – and wounds.
Then it happened. After years and year of nothingness, just last year – for the very first time in my whole life – I experienced a sense of belonging, of being special and valued unconditionally when I met this very special woman. She was all that I’d ever needed and sought for in a friend all these years. For the very first time in my life I felt love I never knew I had inside to give; value I never felt worthy to receive; I was on my way to redemption. Everyday, literally, was a joy – yes, we had our own share of tiffs, hurting, demands and immaturity. But we found value in each other. I found the assurance I had so sought for the past agonizing years – a sense of belonging, place and value – unconditionally. With her, last year’s, 2005, Christmas was the second Christmas I’d spent in real happiness. For the first time in my life, I saw a future, redemption and a chance to love and be loved. But life is a terrible clown.
Nine months later, she would leave me broken for reasons I still long to know; for reasons answers to which are everything but clear. Today I am back to who I used to be. I am what I was. The only part of me I know is real is pain – the scream inside, the rage, frustration, tears, self-pity, and haplessness; worst, rejection and the knowledge of feeling lesser and unworthy. Unrelenting humiliations have reduced me into a person I loath, today. It has left wounds in me which pry apart every time life slips past my longing for redemption. I now prefer death over being hated by the one I love.
Today, every single bulb on a Christmas tree, every single tune in a Boney M’s song, every strain of laughter from conversations on what plans are being set for Christmas are inadvertent triggers to bring forth my tears, literally – they remind me of my own loneliness and smallness in the eyes of those who I once so cared for. There I shrink back to my forgotten darkness to escape the pain, like I used to when I was young. Tears literally begin welling up my eyes when I see people in company of close friends or loved ones. Tears literally well up when I pass the bright decorated streets of Dimapur at night that I actually close my eyes from the sight – they remind me of my wounds and loneliness. There are beggars on the streets without blankets and food – but at least they are not unworthy – only ignored. The hurt of years, from people I loved and from people who rejected me. Loneliness – not that of being alone, without company – but of being isolated, rejected from the love of those you desire love and understanding, interactive friendship or assurance of being cared for, from. This article is no space for my longing to free the scream the inside of me. There are more unfortunates than I show to be but this I know, rejection from all that I’d so cared for has “nurtured” me into what I am today – a bitter self feeding off silent rage and hurt in reticence. A reserved man now frightened of relationships, love, human trust and yes, the notion of God being the ultimate rescuer of all who cry out for a comforting hand.
Reader, as you read this story please do remember me in your joy by saying a word of prayer for me in your heart too. I shall smile for my mother, and my mentors and yes, if God is there, for him too. I have nothing more left to fight for because I possess nothing more to lose. I will rise again. But pray for my scars, the weight with which I would rise. Have a blessed Christmas and a wonderful New Year ahead, as wonderful as you are. Thank you and may God bless you and create you into an inspiration for someone, somewhere out there, in need of a reason to go on. Like me.
