A PILGRIM’S PROGRESS

By G. Khamkhokam Aizawl

One day in the month of May 2005, I started my pilgrimage to my heart’s holy land. As a wide eye pilgrim, my heart caressed the sacred soil where my forefathers once roamed its forest and all the genes in my body bears the indelible imprints of its sunshine, fresh air and its food stuff.

Every one has his own holy land. My holy land happens to be the only land in the world, lovingly called Zogam by its inhabitants. Here, the soil is a part of my forefathers. They fertilized the soil with their own mortal remains for the sustenance of their grand, grand children. Every grain of its soil bears the organic remain of my people and every ground demonstrated the footprints of my ancestors. I can see messages from my forefathers written in every leaf. In this wide world, there is no place like Zogam!

I crossed river Tuivai at around 6:00 PM and I stepped on the soil of Zogam. The road started to be covered by overgrown grasses. The surfacing bitumen could not be found most probably, I still thought, due to lack of light considering the time. Any way, any deficiency on the condition of the road was compensated by the usual satisfaction of home coming. At last, a village appeared suddenly.

On the outskirt of the village, there were two or three dilapidated, melancholic and apparently abandoned huts on the road side. In the dark, I could see a ghost like moving entity in an open door. Gathering all my courage, I approached the moving being. The moving thing called me in my name. He was the famous Home Guard ‘Sap’ in another time and place. He told me that the village was called Sinjawl.

He volunteered to lead me to YPA leaders and the reigning guardians of the road. After entering Zogam, I could not find the usual electrical transmission lines. The area was as dark as death itself. People call the present age as digital age. But in my beloved Zogam, time stands still and it is still the golden age of firewood! I was eager to proceed to Songtal as the village played a significant part in making me who am I now. But I was ‘advised’ to halt the night here.

YPA leaders of the village were as nice as they could afford. The otherwise pleasurable stayed in the village was completely scattered by the chance remarked of one YPA leader that children were difficult to control here due to absence of schooling! The speaker might not remember any more but it hit me like a ton on my head and heart. The next day, they saw me off at the outskirt of the village.

I was looking for the house of chief of Khuanggin village from down below. In my haste for reaching the next village, I postponed my plan of courtesy call to the chief for my returned journey. But on the returned journey, fate decided otherwise.

I reached Songtal village at around 7:30 AM. In this village, I spent three valuable years of my life more than three decades ago. The village that exists in my mind’s eyes was not there anymore. I could not locate that famous “Kawngmual” where young boys sang love songs every night playing guitars. Even the playground and the site of my previous school were simply untraceable. I should have died with my memory of the ‘real’ Songtal village than visiting this fake Songtal village. I don’t see any progress and development. Rather, the village seemed to loss a part of its hope and vibrancy. Everyone had left for jhum and worst of all nobody recognized me any more.

I nurtured an illusion that the village would still crawl with relatives and even would remember me. I thought that there might be some old women who would narrate to me how my father looks like in his boyhood as in the olden times. It is rather humbling to realize that the village may have never remembered me. After all, illusions have to die some times.

I am happy that Mualnuam village is more developed than thirty years back. The village may probably the only village that shows resemblance of progress in the area, however insignificant it may be.

At last, I took the much needed meal at Tuima village. It was a new village for me. Coming from the adjacent State created some sort of curiosity. Even though, I didn’t know anyone here, they were so curious to know what I did for my living in the place I came from and all that. Even the hotel owner refused to take my money. After much prodding, I could convince her to accept at least fifty percent. The gestured of good-will overwhelmed me. The financial involvement may be small but the message is too big not to notice. This incident is one of my most cherished experiences in life. I simply feel belonging and welcome here.

Well, every returnee prodigal son has his own story to tell! The memory of the incident lifted up my spirit even today.

The name of Lungthul village always evokes in me nostalgic feelings even though I was never associated with the village. Pumlong hamlet was completely new to me. New Suangdoh and Empai hamlets were even more new to me. It is rather difficult to imagine now that the area was thickly wooded with native trees like ‘Liim sing, Se sing and Tosaw sing’ in the not so distant past and every bigger Liimsing borne the scratch marked of wild bears. Time changes not only people but also changes geography!

Relatives from my mother side live here at Empai. I stopped for some time in the hamlet and had a cup of tea.

I saw some very young students with shabby uniforms. Seeing the economic condition of their parents, it is scandalous that children have to go in fee paying private school even in this small hamlet. I was curious what dream the children would nurse for their future. I shuddered to think what might lay in store for them. I wanted to get down from my vehicle and kneel down in front of them begging “Forgive my generation. We fail you, children. The community fails you pathetically.

The landscape between Empai and Tuivel River was breath taking and evaporated the burden of my heart.

The Maukot village of my childhood could not survive the wear and tear of time. I assumed that the tectonic plate of Maukot village moved south-west and stopped on the eastern bank of river Tuivel. So much water had flown under the bridge of Tuivel all these years, I think. After climbing uphill for some time, we reached Singngat village.

Singngat Police Station was converted into cowshed! I obtained my Tribe Certificate in the office of Sub-Divisional Officer in this village thirty years ago. Now, there is no SDO office any more. I could still clearly see in my mind’s eye Pu T.Chinkhothang (RIP), MCS sitting in his office down there. “This is your hand writing?” he asked me seeing my hand writing that looked like the footprint of chicken in the application Form. He might be turning in his grave seeing the plight of this village. The village was my childhood’s big town. It is now reduced to the ghost of its former self. My friends of yore had flown away from this village for greener pastures decades ago. They might be busied some where in the cities, looking for fame and fortune.

The famous late Pu Vungluai’s Khualbuk didn’t existed any more where we often stayed the night and relaxed our tired bones after selling dried chilli. I didn’t see in the street any ‘cowboy’ with his khukri in his belt. Singngat ‘cowboys’ were the terror of my boy hood. Luckily, there was a telephone where I could contact my family in Aizawl and my parents at Lamka.

I asked one young boy, “Where is Singngat hospital building?” He looked at me as if I were inquiring where to find Khupching’s Zozam garden. Once upon a time, there was a hospital in Singngat complete with its own building and staff Quarters! At that point of time, three doctors were there. I still remember as one of the doctors, Dr Ngulzadal, sternly told me in his quarter not to wear wet shoes. The big story was that I was fighting a war of attrition and endurance against water at that time. I was putting on wet shoes then as the shoe factories had not made spare shoes for me. The wet shoes were making sound like duck. As usual, I out-endured the water. Given sufficient time, the water in the shoes conceded defeat and retreated. The shoes became dry as bone. But, the good doctor told me putting on wet shoes was injurious to my health.

I knew that my youth’s beau lived here with her family. I convinced myself that I could not leave Singngat without meeting her. But their house near the Bus station was locked with a big Godrej Tala. “They are in the jhum”, some one informed me helpfully.

I was enjoying a cup of tea in a road side ‘Tea Hotel’. The owner of the hotel recognized me. Looking at his dimly familiar face, that painful experience locked some where inside the inner recess of my psyche floated out and consumed me. The anguished, the despaired and the nightmare of the time were the undeniable part of my history, our history. That summer madness of 1997 left me having acquaintances at unlikely places.