IPEN - Poems by M Jajo and Labiba Alam

Luingamla

There she is!

Clothed in naked simplicity

Lovely isn’t she, in her smile?

A spirited girl they say

Born of the mystic mountain

Pure with kindly thoughts

Full of life

she would sing and dance to the lusty green fields

like the skylark

Heaven and earth be intertwined

she would freely roam.

                     -Then

Rumours were heard a wicked war is waged

on these colourful people.

Soon followed dark browns in olive green

Marched into her land.

To steal the peace

that nature has bestowed.

                   -In that terrified silence

She was robbed and shame

Her dignity taken,

Was left with this lonely will to die

And in that solitary hour

She snapped off her life,

And in silence she’d traced back into the deep.

-Yonder over there lies her grave

with an epitaph “here lies a story writ in tears”

‘Tis all that I know of her.

                 -But why is this salty dew in my eyes at this hour??

*Luingamla is one of the many Naga girls who was molested and raped by the Indian army unable to cope with the trauma she committed suicide. To know more about human rights violation in the Naga Hills you may read "Nagaland file” by Nandita Haksar and Luingam luithui.

--M Jajo , Ukhrul, Manipur

Dance of an Insomniac

I danced like a dream

In your utter silence.

Then came forth your words, like the summer rains

And drenched my soul.          

           I am speaking of those nights when,

           I turned an insomniac;

           Slumber suffocated

           In the dream- dewed eyes.

My nights burned like incense,

Fragrant and tantalising:

In a trance, your words kept pouring

And filled my mind to the rim.

         Winter it was, and foggy was my mindscape;

        You came with a dream, my eyes once knitted.

        I’ve stolen some moments from those nights-

        They lay in a corner

        Smelling of incense ashes.

--Labiba Alam, Guwahati, Assam