Naga Army Blues
I would like to remain anonymous but I have a brother who is in the Naga Army. I was very young when my brother not content watching the atrocities committed in Nagalim joined the movement for a free and united Nagalim. Throughout the years till the Ceasefire he served his calling to his utmost abilities.
And after that he had to retire due to ill health and his inability to serve to the fullest. Now he is married and runs a small business in the outskirts of our village. Whenever I go home I love to sit by the fire listening to his stories of life in the jungles. Though he is very reluctant to talk about all that he saw he does like to tell tales of the humorous side of living in the jungles.
He told me once that he was assigned to supervise some newcomers when he was in the Alee Command of the Naga Army. Since the boys were in a new place and were not familiar to the customs in a foreign land he had to keep them near so in the evening he took them out to dinner with him. As they had to reach an eatery on the 10th floor of a building he decided to take the elevator.
But at the entrance his boys hesitated, and then one by one they saluted and said “Sir Bhitor tey ahibo paribo” and entered much to the amazement of locals nearby. The point being his boys had travelled by foot and boat for more than a month and had never seen an elevator in their lives so they thought they were entering a room.
He also loved to talk about his time when he was assigned a unit near the Bangladesh-Myanmar border. It was so remote and isolated that the women there wore nothing above their waists and lived much like our forefathers. When they arrived there first they had a hard time talking to the people there looking them in the eyes for about a month until they got used to it. He had many tales about this far off place.
But the stories I loved most were his stories of how things were back home in Nagalim. He told us how the villagers used to pray for their safety and always shared what little they had with the Naga Army. Even when they went around the village to get a cup of rice from each household for rations he said women used to pray for them and give them dry meat/fish and eggs though they never asked for it.
He told me that he will never forget an old widow who lived in the outskirts of a village and how she used to always greet them with such joy and offered them everything she had and treated all the boys like her own children. One day when the Indian Army arrived suddenly they had to hide outside the village and the old widow was the only one who would hide rice on herself and pretend to be crazy and come and give them food. The Indians never suspected anything and so my brother and the rest of his unit ate even when surrounded by the enemy.
Of course he has shared many more stories of his life fighting for the nation but maybe another day. I wanted to tell this today because I see our Naga people forgetting what previous generations did and endured but never gave up on their belief of a free and united Nagalim and it saddens me that many younger people don’t even know where they stand and are so confused. No matter what you think of those who lead our quest for independence today let us remember that it is the principle that endures not individuals.
KUKNALIM
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