“Abruptly, a furred dark glove forced itself through the darkness. Its hard blunt nail made its way into Juni’s clothes and with one sharp pull tore her only honour into two. Ghosts burst into laughter. Exactly in a human voice it commanded in the national language, ‘Abbe saala, batti bujhaa, batti bujhaa.’ And all semi-spherical yellow eyes went off. Entire house was plunged into impenetrable darkness. Horrified, Juni screamed for the second time, a huge rock from the dark cell itself fell heavily upon her. Strangling her, it tied her to the bed. She desperately fought to push the darkness aside. She was floundering like a lunatic for a little bit of light. She made every effort to tear off the thick fur and stout skin of the darkness with her teeth and finger-nails. But the darkness, now even darker, relentlessly kept descending upon her, and grabbed her completely exhausted body, and wildly tearing all the remaining obstructions the darkness, with its all brutishness, thrust itself into her furthest depth.”

This is the English translation of a paragraph from Nunko Chiya, a novel in Nepali version of Bengali original Nun Chaa by Bimal Lama. Nepali translation is accomplished by Samik Chakraborty. Isn’t it very interesting that the novel was written in Bengali by the one whose mother tongue is Nepali, and it has been translated into Nepali by the one whose mother tongue is Bengali?

In the paragraph quoted above, (English translation mine), the writer, employing the metaphor of darkness, dark fur etcetera, has so grippingly brought alive the rape scene committed by an armed raider during the period of the Gorkhaland movement in 1986 – 88. The scene created with the words in the paragraph violently stirs the reader’s sensibility. Isn’t it like a powerful symbolic scene come out of the mind of a highly creative and deft cine director? Isn’t it like a great cubistic painting?

The novel, Nunko Chiya, is undoubtedly a work of great artistry. The subtle interlacing of two strands of the story beginning a few chapters later is simply superb, outstanding. Ending of the novel exhibits even greater artistry of the writer. Only the one with great craft and aesthetic sense can create such kind of work. I wish this novel be translated into English by some competent translator and published by internationally well known publisher.                             

 

Pope Francis’s apology to the Canadian indigenous people in his recent visit to that country reminds me of one famous saying by the colonial English poet Rudyard Kipling – “The Whiteman’s burden.” Several centuries after wiping out the indigenous and ethnic faiths and cultures by the European Christian Whites, the Pope’s apologizing for what was done to the indigenous North Americans in the process of converting them is indeed a generous gesture which his predecessors could not do.        Although no amount of apology can ever exonerate those White bigots, Pope’s gesture nevertheless is historic. He has termed what Catholics committed there as “Cultural genocide”. Such genocide was carried out not only in the two Americas but also in the continents of Africa and Australia. Some other institutionalized religions are also equally blameworthy for such cultural genocide in other parts of the world,    

Having conquered and colonised almost two third parts of the planet Earth, the process that really began with much gusto since fifteenth century till the beginning of twentieth century, the European White conquistadores, mostly British, French, Spanish, Dutch and Portuguese, believed themselves as superior to all other human beings. The English poet Rudyard Kipling famously remarked – “The White man’s burden” and these three words brought forth even more enthusiastic colnialistic narrative for the European Whites justifying their plunder, obliterating the indigenous cultures and colonizing them that passed as a process of ‘civilizing’ the coloured peoples. All the rest of the human beings with various cultures and traditions other than Europeanized Christian culture were thought to be savages and were subjected to forceful conversion or massacred.

Today, North American indigenous people are making utmost effort to trace out their ancestral cultures and revive whatever little they can. Despite being aboriginals they are pushed to the farthest line of the fringe.       

 There's a myth of Cerce in Greek mythology. Cerce the sorceress had the power to allure her enemies and other people she liked into her castle and through incantations and magic wand she turned them into animals like swine, sheep, lions and tigers. However, the 'lions' and 'tigers', bereft of their natural ferocity, behaved quite docilely and meekly.

One day, Ulysses, flabbergasted by his mysteriously lost soldiers whom he had sent to find some food, came out of the camp in search of them. As he walked to the direction his men had gone to, at a distance he heard an enchanting music coming out from a castle nearby. And he was irresistibly drawn towards the castle from where the music flowed. As he reached near the porch there stood a lion and a tiger on either side as guards, but guards looked quiet and cool, their eyes and ears drooped, tails hanging low to their hind legs. Before he stepped into the wide porch, a sweet voice from inside welcomed him, 'Welcome, Your Majesty, to my humble abode.' Ulysses was seated on an attractive seat and offered wine in a beautiful cup. As he was lifting cup with a hand, Cerce approached to him with her magic wand, uttering 'To your sty!' And instantly, with a lightning speed, Ulysses drew his sword and stood still. He then roared to Cerce - 'Where are my men? Bring me back all my men at once, or else my sword will fall on you like a lightening.' Trembling, Cerce led him to the pig sty and sprinkled her magic water over all the animals in the sty. In a moment, the animals got back their human forms.

Since long I've been waiting for 'Ulysses' here in the Darjeeling-Kalimpong region where our men who had set out to find "Something" for us all, have lost themselves to sorcerer or sorceress. We don't know which animals or birds or reptiles or amphibians or insects they might have been transformed to.

Is there any Ulysses out there to redeem our men??? Is there?

And I hear my own question echoing and echoing all over the hills and valleys: Is there any Ulysses out there to redeem our men?...

 

Untitled

 

Leaving their men

back in the battered streets  

women are heavily heading to

dark uncertainties across the border

 

This International Women’s Day

now frequently sounds like siren

warning them to promptly lie down

on the ground that now smells

burnt flesh of the earth

 

Leaving their hearts and wombs behind

a caravan of women is dragging itself  

toward the west of west

Their bleeding sun has already sunk

behind the horizon

 

But even in the thick of bomb shelling

a young woman emerges

out of a burnt house,

walks straight to her fiancé

who has just turned a soldier,

hugs him tight and plants a passionate kiss

on his quivering lips.

He, now more charged,

firmly takes position aiming at the approaching tank.

 

And his fiancée’s eyes are already on the wings

to nurse the wounded sun  

and bring it back to glorious new radiance   

_________________

                                                 08 March 2022.

[Dedicated to the Ukrainian women on the occasion of this International Women’s Day.]

-          mps