The Naga #MeToo Moment – A Review of Love. Lust. And Loyalty

 

Author: Yuimi Vashum

Publisher: Penthrill Publication House

Year of publication: 2018

Pages/ Price: 105/ 299/-

It is quite unusual to start a book review on an apologetic note, but I want to put on record that this is a long pending one. But I write this not so much to please the author and publisher, but to bring to fore the subject child sexual abuse, or sexual exploitation in general, which the book so powerfully articulates, and it has too long been silenced in the Naga society, as also in many societies across the world. It was only at a recent launch of the book, The Marys of the Bible: The Original #MeToo Movement by Boaz Johnson cum a panel discussion on sexual exploitation, in Delhi that I got prompted to the immediacy of talking about the subject. The Marys of the Bible argues that the Bible started the #MeToo movement because it does not hide the sexual abuses in the historical/biblical times, and that in fact, Jesus came to redeem the broken people and the world we live in.

The book's title Love. Lust. And Loyalty sums up pretty much what most poets write about. Those three words are what most people juggle with in relationships. But what more appealing to me of this book of poetry is the section on “Forgiveness” that didn't find its way to the title. Divided into two parts, the first section on “Forgiveness” deals with the struggles of the poet in coming to terms with the memory of the menacing past of being sexually abused. The second section on “Love. Lust. And Loyalty” shades light on the poet's encounters of love, heartbreaks and all that most lovers sing of! However, what captivates me is not just that it upsets the usual style of poetry by having the title at the end but also the brutally honest experiences of what poet as a young girl goes through.

Telling one's life story is not an easy task, especially when that part of life is a traumatic one. Yet, narrating them can be a therapeutic experience, as psychologists/psychiatrists would say. In a “bare it all” way, Yuimi confronted the demons that haunted her since the time she was “seven years old”. “It all started with Robinhood / A tiny illustrated book he brought with him that summer” she recounted in the poem “waves of abuse”. As excited as a seven years old would be to be read bedtime stories, she fell into the bait, easily becoming his victim - “He fucked me over and over again / Until he finished the book”. She tells of how for years she would still “have my haunted dark days” and even driven to the brink of life wishing to “jump of a tall building” or “throw myself at a running train” (“childhood to adulthood”). Her pain was even made worse when the society wouldn't come to defend the defenseless - “And parents, aunties, uncles, sirs, madam, / All of them lecturing Your virginity is your virtue / Do they know? Do they think about girls like me?” (“the problem with virtues”).

But the true strength of the poet lies in the fact that she was able to “brave the demons” - “I gave my nightmares a closure fifteen years later; / For my freedom, / From the fear, the beast(s) and society” (“waves of abuse”). The sarcasm on the society's indifference is subtle here. And yet, greater still is the poet's ability to forgive the perpetrators/demons - “Because, Forgiveness, / It liberates you” (“let go and let God”). I think this is the highest virtue one can hope for from victims of abuse of any kind. This is true Christ-likeness. And the largely Christian communities like the Nagas need to take this as a way forward to find healing from the wounds of the past.

Love. Lust. And Loyalty is a daring book of poetry that is utterly honest on the part of the young poet to pour out the trauma of sexual abuse she experienced as a child. It is universally accepted that many children suffer sexual abuse but remained silent because of fear or are usually silenced by elders in the family and the society. Recognizing the need to deal with this issue, the United Nations declared 19th November as the World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse, and 20th November as the International Day for the Rights of the Child. Yet, despite these recognitions many cases go unreported or many children still suffer abuse because they are not aware of their rights, or are silenced, and many people live in denial.

By telling her own story, Yuimi Vashum does not simply fascinates in poetic experiences, but she does set an agenda that the wave of abuses would be confronted:

Today, as I sit here and write this,

Recalling feelings I never wanted to;

I weep for the little children (like me) who suffered,

Alone.

I hope they get to read this,

and in their lowest moments,

I hope they remember-

We moved past the abuse;

We can move past anything.

(“childhood to adulthood”).

I hope Love. Lust. And Loyalty would not just be another book of poetry that is shelved in your collection and forgotten after a while, but that it would spark off the #MeToo movement in the Naga society or the society you find yourself fitted to. Silence make the victims suffer over and over again, and the demons grow bigger and fiercer. Let's stand for those who have been wronged, especially the little ones!

Published on 18 June, 2019, Morung Express

https://morungexpress.com/the-naga-metoo-moment-a-review-of-love-lust-and-loyalty/

Of Love and Loss – A review of A Respectable Woman

Author: Easterine Kire

Publisher: Zubaan

Year/pages: 2019/184

The opening line of the new novel by Easterine Kire, A Respectable Woman, resonates with the popular passage of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 where the wise king Solomon articulates that there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven. In verse 7 of the passage we read of “a time to be silent and a time to speak.”The narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kevinuo, says, “It took my mother, Khunuo, exactly forty-five years before she could bring herself to talk about the war.” The statement indicates a period of silence on the subject. And interestingly, silence is not about forgetting but a process of letting matter, the trauma or tragedy in this case, sink in until one can be strong again to talk about it. Most cultures, in a sense, share this truth.

A Respectable Woman (ARW henceforth) is woven around the story of a mother telling her experiences of growing up at a defining moment of Kohima and people who lived through the Second World War. Divided into three parts, the novel chronicles the memories of the mother and traces the family relations in Part One. Part Two begins with the birth of the protagonist-narrator and her growing up “to witness different happenings, some of them good, some much worse…” Part Three is largely a continuation of the narratives from the previous one but focused on personal battles the protagonist had to confront mainly with the tragic death of her closest friend, Beinuo, due to abuse by her husband and taking custody of the orphaned girl. While the plot of the novel is centred on the stories of Kevi and her mother, it is interwoven with the memories of the grandmother and other elders of the community about certain aspects of the past, and in this case the times around the war.

Memory of the period is important because it was a time of tremendous changes, not just for people living in and around Kohima, the centre of the action, but also for the Nagas as a whole as there was a paradigm shift in the political and social dynamics. So significant is the war in the novel that there is repeated use of the phrase “before the war” to demarcate a historical timeline. Just like different seasons mark the timeline of the year, “the war” became an important historical reference point for the Nagas. Though the war was not of their making, the Nagas were caught in the war and were forced into bear the brunt of it. In the recent times there has been few works by Nagas narrating their accounts of the war. Notable ones include The Battle of Kohima (2007) by Mekhrie Khate, Aphriilie Iralu, et al. (Eds.), The Road to Kohima: The Naga Experience of the 2nd World War (2017) by Charles Chasie and Harry Fecitt, and Easterine Kire’s bestselling semi-fictional novel titled Mari (2010). These narratives help us assess the impact of the war on the Nagas. The brutality of the battle of Kohima led the military historian Robert Lyman to remark that the war fought in the Naga Hills was “[t]he most desperate and bloody struggle in the entire war in the south Asian land mass” (Japan’s Last Bid for Victory: The Invasion of India 1944 (2011), p. 215). The centrality of the war is also depicted in the novel wherein Amo, the narrator’s maternal uncle, became a war hero after he survived the Japanese bullets, but couldn’t live long for the same reason.

ARW holds an important place in this regard as it documents a lot of what has been side-lined in the current discourses of the Nagas. In an interesting way, the book even becomes a historical source of Kohima’s past because it mentions of when and who set up the first book shop, the first pharmacy, and the famed Kohima Bakery, among others. Also, by mentioning many of the first among Nagas in various fields, Easterine Kire makes a conscious attempt to credit those who contributed to the building of the society, especially in the formative period. As one reads the novel, one gets a feeling that Kohima becomes a character in the novel with all its liveliness, be it bearing the brunt of the war destructions or the makeover it got after it or the restructuring of the township in the 50s and 60s. Certainly, there is a sense nostalgia in the author’s tone as she recounts a lot of what was a part of her growing up years in Kohima. Written in the first person narrative, the autobiographical mode of writing gives a perfect blend of facts and fiction. Though Kevi may not be Easterine in to-to, the reader can nevertheless draw the semblance in various aspects. But in the fine hand of the master-artiste-novelist, the line is nevertheless drawn clearly.

There are also other issues of the society that the author tries to address through the novel. Alcoholism, which had become a byword of the largely frustrated young Nagas, remains an issue which both the church and the state have not contained till today. While critiquing the state for treating alcoholism as a mere crime of the few misfits, the novel also unveils the fact that there is a huge contribution of the “political environment” and the harsh governmental actions on the public which contributed to the social problem. Added to the whole challenging situation is the lackadaisical approach of the church as well as the society. What should bother the reader is the silence of larger society in the issue of alcoholism and its related issue of domestic violence. The twin belong to some of those devils that the Nagas still count ignorable but has eaten into the marrows of the society. The narrator’s shock at learning about his best friend’s marital woes at a much later stage is something to be grasped.

ARW is a book that gives a critical insight into some of the challenges confronting the Naga society today. And in the hand of a commendable writer and ‘insider’ like Easterine Kire the stories she construct powerfully captivates the readers with her own style of narration which is deeply rooted to the storytelling tradition of the Nagas. Even in this novel, her effort to reconstruct the memory of the past is in true spirit of the Naga oral culture wherein there is a conscious passing down of stories of the people to the younger generation. Though the mother finds telling some of her life stories hurting at times she felt the importance of telling about the family because those are the legacies that should be passed on. Every generation’s experience is unique and telling them can be a learning experience for the next generation. As a foremost writer among Nagas there are so much that the younger generation of storytellers can find inspiration in Easterine Kire. Besides the national and international recognitions, the award just endowed on her, The Gordon Graham Prize for Naga Literature, is truly a recognition of her contribution to literary wealth of the Nagas.

Published in Morung Express on 9th April, 2019

http://morungexpress.com/of-love-and-loss-a-review-of-a-respectable-woman/ 

Who says boys don’t cook?

This article is not something on ‘cooking’ as some may have thought on seeing the title. On the contrary, this piece of writing intends to question some of the stereotypes in the largely Christianized Naga society that are carried forward without qualms as they are deeply imbibed in our culture. Like the notion that matter of the kitchen is a woman’s job alone. At times, we love our culture too much that we fail to do what is right in the eyes of God. Though there are many examples that can be considered, I shall only take ‘cooking’ as a metaphor to understand why the denial of ‘equality’ to women in our everyday activities is a denial of justice to a person ‘created’ in God’s own image.

Once I came across a girl who said, “You know, I used to hear that my brother cooks really well, but ever since I started staying with him he has not bothered to step into the kitchen!” Of course, the brother had the excuse of holding a job besides being the older sibling. But raised in typical patriarchal set up like ours, it becomes unimaginable for boys to be in the kitchen when girls are around. Boys’ business seems to be sporting around the whole day and ordering for food the moment they step into the house with a hungry stomach. The girls are expected to take care of all the nerve breaking in-and-around-the-house chores with their mothers as though they were just born to do that. How often do we overlook the burden of women?

However, there is huge visible change once boys and girls step outside of their homes, for studies and other purposes. (I take my experience of staying in Delhi as a reference point). But like acquired habits that die hard there is the tendency for boys to fall back to the system of letting-the-sisters-do-all while they laze around. The level of reluctance is higher with boys staying with sisters. The instance mentioned above can be taken as an illustration. Our boys are a spoiled lot. And often, girls have joined in to spoil them too, sadly. How? Often when we just don the cultural mental without inquiring its validity with the changing times, we are blinded from seeing what is ‘right’. We need to be able to look beyond ‘culture and tradition’ as they are not absolutes but subject to change with times since they are also mere human inventions established to suit certain period in the past. Their relevance need to be probed if we want to see an unbiased society. One good way to start with is at home.

The saying “Charity begins at home” is a hackneyed old adage that we don’t really care about its meaning today. Yet, we can draw wonderful inspirations from it in our daily walk of life. Study says that children who grow up in violent homes become more violent later in life. And most often, stereotypes are first acquired at home; a boy who never see his father do household chores or step into the kitchen will grow up with such mentality. Sometimes, we don’t allow our children to grow up with the actual potentials in them. We always try to ‘make’ something out of them; girls have to be these, boys have to be that, etc. So much so that we reduce our girls to be feeble, docile, fearful, etc. while boys are taught to be tough, rough, fearless, etc. There is nothing wrong in girls climbing trees or boys fetching water for the kitchen. Yet, a girl who is tomboyish is still befriended but loathes a boy who is sissy! Somehow our society has created a deep divide out of what ‘should’ be for boys and girls that we have lost the ‘right’ sense.

We all know that mannerisms acquired within the home are displayed in the open. Or in other words, you become what you are taught to be. So often I feel saddened to see many women think so lowly of themselves, especially among non-educated village folks. But then, I also realize that it is not them but the society that has made them the way they are. In most homes even today, the boys are placed at an advantage in everything. From the dining table to the school. Just scan around, most men in our society who are standing tall today in various fields have attained that status of sacrifices of their sisters. It may sound contemptuous but it’s true. Yet, we see only the glory of the men and not the sweats of women. I can most assuredly say that if those women who toil in the fields back home were given the opportunity to go to schools like their brothers they would be seeing glory today!

Having mentioned the shortcomings in our society, there are things interesting also. We also have a wonderful tradition. In times of feast it is the men who take more responsibility in cooking large pots, and even serve. How more wonderful it would be if we could also translate that into our homes and ‘share’ responsibilities in the kitchen too! Yet, ours isn’t the only society that needs to re-think. It’s ‘advantage men’ in most societies. Often, outside of home the most visible ‘chefs’ are men, and yet, at home we designate women as ‘cooks’! That itself shows the extent of how reluctant we are to allow women to take the place of honour. If women are masters of the kitchen, they should be crowned ‘chefs’ of all mankind!

The way I see it, the challenge for our generation is enormous when it comes to striving for equality. We talk so much of ‘justice’ and pray that it is achieved in the world. But have we forgotten that ‘justice’ should first prevail at home? And it makes more sense that a society like ours that claim to be ‘Christian’ by persuasion, heed the Bible and treat both male and female alike because they are both ‘created in the image of God’. If our culture and tradition has handed down to us a system that does not place men and women at equal footing, we need to rectify it and do the ‘right’ thing. Christian families should take the lead in facilitating ‘equality’ at home by treating both boys and girls at par in everything. The words we use, the objects we offer and the action we commit to our children becomes the hallmark of ushering ‘justice’ to prevail at home and the world.


(An earlier version of this article appeared in 2012 DZIILA anniversary issue of PBCD and Eastern Mirror newspaper, August 2012)

‘Standby’ Kids: The case for the ‘Lesser’ Children

In a football team, there are players earmarked to be on the bench as ‘standbys’ or ‘substitutes’ who will only get the chance to play if and only if some players in the first line up are injured or retired due to problems. However expert they may be as players, they may never get the chance to play, not only in a match but the entire season even! Sometimes, preference from the managerial team or coach can result in the formation of ‘substitutes’. And so at times, some players on the bench might sulk for not letting them play because they feel as capable and fit as the ones on the field.

Now, I’d like to take this analogy and match it with the nature of family in our social context (reflections are on the Naga 'Christian' society, in particular). Our family structure, if we critically assess it, is so much like the football team. I know this might even cause to raise eyebrows but allow me to make my arguments. Like the football team, there is occurrence of this kind of sidelining of children as if they are mere ‘standbys’ or ‘substitutes’ (pardon me if my words seems ‘too strong’) who might never get the chance to play as the ‘real’ child, and therefore the problematic presence of ‘preferences’ in the family itself! Some children feel less loved than others. And thereby, the development of some complexes in some children that made them think that they are somehow the ‘lesser’ children of the family.

There’s so much of irrationality that operates in the system that needs to be brought to the fore so that good reason takes its rightful place. What I’m about to suggest here is that we re-examine some attitudes that has taken a deep inroad into our society causing serious stumbling blocks for a better quality of life. There is a sense of unequal treatment in the family too, not necessarily in the form of ill-treatment through physical abuse but by being untreated or unattended to. I can identify two areas that lead to the constitution of what I call the ‘standby’ kids.

On the waiting list:

Oftentimes, I’ve overheard parents saying that they need ‘more’ children ‘in case’ something happens to any of the children. This is more often heard when they have a single child or fewer children. In other words, what they really mean to say is that they want to keep some children as ‘standby’ children lest, God forbid, some tragedy, like death of a child, befalls on the family. And therefore, a cause of large families. While I’m not in any way against family with many children if the family really desires to have and provided they have the required resources to manage the family by providing descent livelihood to all its members, I’m of the opinion that there is a need to consider the family life in proportion to the economic viability of the family. Children are not like material things that you can discard one for the other. Expansion of family size for fear of lost of children ‘prematurely’ or for want of more ‘boys’ is only a matter of ruining the prospect of the family condition. After all, we’re not the author of life. It’s all up to the One above, the Almighty, to decide who should live how long! But God has given each individual the intelligence to analyze each condition and make wise choices even in the matter of family planning.

The ‘girly’ matter:

Another way to tackle over-sized family is to fight for an equal status of boys and girls, starting from within the family. I’m sure there won’t be debates here even if I put it bluntly that one major reason for unnecessary expansion of family is the ‘preference’ for boys over girls. We’re still plagued by the mentality of ‘boys are boys’ like every patriarchal society. But this mentality is primarily due to the value labeled on the two sexes. Boys are considered the pride to the family, the one who will carry on the family bloodline, whereas, girls are treated as mere agents in serving the purpose of the male legacy. Many a time, there is also an unholy encouragement from the clansmen to increase its fold by saying “we’re from a small clan, we need to increase our numbers”. To them I say: “Are we still waging clans’ war that we should treat our children as walls of defense?” This isn’t the time of taking pride in belonging to the biggest clan, village, tribe, etc. Since we live in a patriarchal setting, too little of this issue has been addressed. And unfortunately, there are lots of ‘educated’ ones who still chose to be silent on this subject though it is a clear form of inequality. It should be taken as a subject of urgent need.

Points to ponder before taking the plunge:

In a society like ours where many families are still dependent on full time agricultural works, a thoughtful consideration on the size of family is crucial for economic reasons. Once upon a time, large families might have served a good purpose because, for good or bad, everyone would end up being farmers. More children means more hands, they said. But with the same logic, it is also true that more children means more mouths to feed! Unlike those days, now agriculture is not the only profession available, there are ample avenues to venture into, thanks to opportunities. And since education is a must to find place in this modern time, our perspectives need to change. Bigger families tend to lack behind when it comes to provision of education to their children.

And the fallout of the dilemma faced by family with disproportionate source of income is that there are unavoidable preferences on who should go to school since the family cannot support every child and so the ‘not so bright’ ones gets left out. Though these kids considered ‘not so bright’ might be excelling in other activities, their talents are overlooked. It should also be seen here that the term ‘bright’ is qualified only with the bookish knowledge and hence, an additional sidelining of those that are talented in other fields. And it is possible that these ‘neglected’ children want to, at times, play the spoilsport! Perhaps, even some readers reading this article could relate to this because, if the truth be told, many are born into those conditions!

Agriculture or farming bear its fruit of hard labour in a year’s time, but education is not so. Education requires a long time investment in financial terms. Inability to find adequate financial support is one main reason for the high number of school and college drop outs, not because the concerned kids chose to but to make way for first born(s) to take the privilege. And at times, it’s sad to see meritorious students being compelled to give up studies because of family financial conditions. Our design of family leads to rise of various unwanted situations in our society. A family that is not able to meet the requirements or needs of the children only paves way for undesirable conditions of poverty, which in turn leads to inability to provide basic education and thereby encouraging a vicious cycle of an all round underdevelopment. One should know that developing a healthy human lifestyle is very essential in as much as we need cleaner environment and infrastructural development for our society.

Hope for the future:

We’re a new generation. Gone are the stories that told us that we need to expand and populate the land. But look around what would the next generation after us feed on? Now, we should be able to tell new stories; stories that will encompass hope for a healthy future. Should the old prejudices and biases still fill our imagination? Change in our perspective is what we need to advocate. We’re now a dominantly Christian society, though we still find few pockets of people who haven’t turned to Christianity. But if we look around, many decades of being Christians seems to have done too little good. We’re still too stubbornly holding on to our old worldview as when we were non-Christians. I do not say that there is no change at all; there are few visible ones. And sometimes, I feel if we are even growing to build dividing walls instead of breaking them down. Our old parochial understanding of the world should be ripped apart that we can see beyond our own little domain of the village walls.

(Published in Morung Express, 12 January 2015. An earlier version of this article was first published in 2009 annual magazine of DZIILA, a publication of PBCD)

http://morungexpress.com/standby-kids-the-case-for-the-lesser-children/