Who Else Am I Not? Part Two- “Are you from India?”

A week later, I stood in front of a dilapidated wooden structure. My father said it was to be my new school.


In the 1970's, Nagaland had a lot of Christians, but surprisingly, it did not have the kind of schools that the missionaries built in popular hill stations and the plains of India. The Indian government was hated, and therefore, not allowed to do much.

We had just arrived a few days ago to Mukokchung, and had settled into a nice big wooden house on stilts, in a little valley surrounded by hillocks.


We were to share it with another family from my father's organisation.

The road trip from Mariani to Mukokchung that usually took three hours, had taken us five, as, just outside the town, had occurred a mud slide. I have yet to see again such a huge pile of soft silky light brown mud.

I distinctly remember how peaceful the long line of vehicles on both sides appeared. No honking, no gathering of irritable people desperate to get to the other side. Loved ones would simply assume the best, and not the worst as is the case now.

Laden with memories of the vast expanse of my previous school, with its sunlit classrooms, manicured lawns, and pretty little flower beds, I looked with distaste at the structure my father now ushered us into.


My brother and I wrinkled our noses at the smell in the ‘office’ of the disheveled ‘principal’, and giggled, silenced by the stern look on our father’s face.

Soon, both of us were escorted  to our respective classrooms.


I looked around for polished desks with small attached seats that I thought every classroom would have,  only to find rough long wooden tables, with one long bench shared by ten or twelve children. The ground was littered with pencil shavings and paper.

I noticed, many of the children were wrapped in red and black shawls, some of which were faded (I don’t think the school had a uniform).

They looked at me curiously, standing there in my yellow frock, and when the teacher read out my name haltingly from a slip my escort was carrying, amid much laughter and giggles. It was deja vu time.....

The girl I sat next to (I don't recall her name. In fact I don't remember a single person's name from that school) turned towards me and asked, in halting English, "Are you from India?"

I took my time to reply, as I wasn't sure. My concept of India was vague at the time.


"No, I'm from Kalimpong."

That broke the ice, and though I was very different in many respects ( I wore frilly, sometimes starched frocks to school, while many children wore either the tribal dress or jeans, which the missionaries got them),I was accepted very soon, as my English, Math and Science was the best in class, thanks to my three years with the Scottish nuns.


Although I gained the respect of my classmates easily, there were many things about my new friends that invoked envy in me.


I noticed that the world (comprising, for me, of Kalimpong and here) was full of girls and boys with black straight silky hair, skin that was hairless and smooth, and eyes that were small and sparkling.


I spent many hours in front of the mirror pulling the corners of my eyes upwards in a slant, to see how I looked.


I felt like the ugliest creature in the world (that was, for me, made up, just to remind the readers, of Kalimpong and here) with my strange large eyes, hairy arms and legs, and curly long hair that my mother dutifully made into two long tight plaits every morning.


My prowess in class did assuage some of my feelings, but deep down I wanted to look like the rest so much!


However, the one thing that I was glad was different from ours was their food.

Once, on a holiday, I asked my father to drop me off at one of my school friend’s house to play. It was raining, and the evening air was full of little bugs flying all over, and crowding the streetlights.

My friend’s mother called out to her and gave her a little mug, with some instructions. She ran about with the mug in hand, trying to catch as many little bugs as possible.


"This was a great game", I thought, and joined in, collecting as many as I could till the mug was full.

We handed the mug over to her mother, who then, to my horror, proceeded to fry them in hot oil! All for my benefit!

My vegetarian mother, equally horrified at the ‘honour’ accorded to me, forbade me from visiting other friends’ houses, and didn’t wish to entertain them either. For a woman enterprising enough to follow my father to the "ends of the Earth" as she put it, eating bugs was where she drew the line.

The hillocks around our house had little huts on them belonging to the labourers who worked on the roads that my father’s organisation was building.

Every evening, they burnt their wood fires, and cooked rice and (I learnt later, after the loss of our Alsatian, Peter) sometimes, dog meat.  While waiting for it to cook, they strummed their guitars, and sang quaint songs I had never heard.


I noticed that every family for miles around, rich or poor, owned a guitar.

The sight of the beautifully burning fires lighting up the night sky is still fresh in my memory.

The knowledge of how differently we were perceived was brought home in a rather unwelcome fashion one summer night.


That night, three or four men quietly broke into our house via the back bathroom door, with the intention of causing bloodshed.


The Naga insurgency was at its peak at the time, and my father's organisation was a part of the Indian Army, which was enemy number one for the insurgents.

As children we were blissfully unaware of this fact. I just remember waking up that night by the screams and shouts coming from my parent’s bedroom.


On hearing the commotion, my father's colleague and another friend who was staying the night, rushed in to my parent’s bedroom, to find my mother, shaken and alone.


My father, not one to be scared easily, had momentarily overpowered one of  his assailants. When they all ran back, out from the bathroom door, he followed them in hot pursuit!

He managed to catch that one guy. After interrogation, in a week's time, the rest were caught too.


Post this incident, it was considered too dangerous for us all to stay in town, so in record time, some makeshift accommodation was constructed for us near the project office, and we were shifted there.

Childhood is a time of flexibility, and I had settled in beautifully in my strange new surroundings, but, my parents, it seems, couldn't quite adjust. So, in just a matter of ten months, we were all packed and on the move again.....

To be continued...

Who Else Am I Not? Part One-"What's not in a name?"

There is a popular saying in Hindu philosophy that if we wish to understand life, the answer to just three questions can reveal all:

1. Who am I?
2. Where have I come from?
3. Where am I going to?


In today’s time, when the nation with its demands for separate state hoods simultaneously splits itself along hitherto non-existent seams, while appearing to be united and secular, I often find myself plagued by the first question.


If you know me by name, I appear to be a female Hindu Kayasth. Yet, my mind cringes at the thought of all the stereo types that most people imagine when they hear my name or meet me for the first time.


Being born to a UP man and a Haryanvi woman, raised in different states in the North East of India, living for the past 25 years in the west and south of India, loving Hindustani Classical music as well as Western Classical and Carnatic, I find that I’m at the same time part of all groups, and also a part of none.


Similarities and differences are two sides of the same coin. So, I thought, in order to find out who I am, let me first discover who I am not.....


Here is the first post in a series towards that end.....
                                        
 "What's not in a name?"


There was something funny about my name.


The teacher ran through a list of names like ‘Karma Choden’, Deki Wangmo’, ‘Sonam Tsering’, ‘Charmaine Jones’, and similar other names. Then , a pause, and very carefully, as though trying out a new tongue twister, ‘Smita ************.’

This was my first day at school at *****************, Kalimpong, a boarding school that also allowed day scholars, in the year 1969 or was it 1970?


I forget which, but that trivia is insignificant.


What’s significant is that I felt different that day, and I didn’t want to be different.


Being too young to know that one could take all one’s grouses to God, without fear of a reprimand or a shouting-at, I went home and cornered my mother. Why on Earth did I have such a funny name? I wanted it changed at once!


How should I do it? Should I tell all our neighbours, friends, my younger brother, my father’s friends, or would she and my father do it? Why was I named by them? Shouldn’t I have some say in what I would like to be called for the rest of my life?


I wanted it to be Sonam Caroline Wangmo.


That way it would be better than all the others.


I raved and ranted, to no avail. She just gave me an exasperated look that turned into a dismissive one, and carried on shelling peas. Even at that age, I could sense that I shouldn’t try my luck too far, as she would take just one second to decide whether she could pause long enough in the rapid disembowelment of the peas to give me a whack on my behind.


I returned to school the next day, determined to tell my new classmates my chosen name.


Once there, however, I soon forgot all about it, as we found a surprise awaiting us inside our desks. Each one of us had been gifted an old, empty little metal tin by our teacher, to keep any odds and ends that we might like.


Each tin was different, mine had been an old tea container (in those days, tea and many other items usually came in metal tins), red, with a black pagoda on the top and also on all the sides. Some of the others received old tea tins as well, while some others got biscuit tins, and a few got toffee tins.


Mine was one of the prettiest, and very soon everyone knew my name in the class, as they tried hard to get me to part with my tin. I realised that it didn’t matter if I was Miss Unpronounceable for them as long as I held on to that tin, so I guarded it zealously.


Three beautiful years in one of the prettiest school properties later, it was time for my father to move. The orders were for him to move to an unheard of tongue twister of a place, Mukokchung, in Nagaland.


With packed boxes painted black, that displayed the neatly stencilled name of my father, the place where we were boarding the train (New Jalpaiguri) and the place that we were going to (Mariani-in Assam, the last point that it would take us to), we all headed for Nagaland. Little did I know that the comfort I had arrived at after three years of being ‘Smita *****************’ would be short lived.


To be continued.....

Pride India

This happened a year ago. I was travelling by train from Indore to Mumbai. I had just concluded a hectic six day workshop at one of the city's premier schools.


As I stowed my suitcase under the aisle berth, I looked forward to a good night's sleep.


The coach was an A.C 2 tier, and the four passengers in the coupe were already in their seats. Two men, two women. Perfect.


One of the men, the younger one, looked a little weird, I thought. His face was a little lopsided, with the symmetry slightly askew. He had very short, almost crew cut hair.


Not wanting to stare, I hung my handbag on the peg above my berth, and settled down on it. I then pulled out my mobile phone and dialled my husband's number to give him a "sit rep"('situation report'. My conversation, alas, is peppered with service terminology, the direct result of having a father, father-in-law, husband and brother in the Armed Forces ).
While I was on the phone, three well built young men came in and plonked themselves on my seat. Asking my husband to hold the line, I looked enquiringly at them. One of them pointed to the berth above mine, signalling that it was his. I nodded and went back to my conversation.


As I spoke, the three, while laughing and joking amongst themselves, slowly started hogging up more and more of the berth, while I shrunk more and more into one corner, until I reached the extreme limit of shrinking. Extremely cramped, I cut off my phone conversation, and declared to the three that I wanted to lie down and would they please move out?


One of them pointed to a notice stuck above the berth that said that passengers could use the berth to lie down only after 9 p.m. Until then everyone had to sit.


Before I could give a fitting reply, several of which were on the tip of my tongue, and without my realising it, the young man with the lop sided face was beside me. In a very soft, calm manner, but with a cold gaze, he asked the three to get up and move to the next coupe. The three men looked at my 'rescuer', one of them looked ready to say something, but one look at the young man's eyes, and they quietly moved out.


I turned around to thank the young man, and his "Not at all, Ma'am", gave away, to me, his profession.
"Are you in the services?"
"Yes, Ma'am. Infantry. Came to Mhow for a short course."
"My father and father-in-law were both in the Army."


One question led to another, and our conversation soon turned to the current situation in the country, and especially in Kashmir.


By now our co passengers (excluding the young man who had left with his friends) had joined in. None of them had ever been north of Delhi, and they more than I, wanted to get a first hand account of how bad things were in the valley.


The Army Major (whose name I shall not disclose) then held us spell bound for the next couple of hours with his experiences, of which a few are mentioned here.


As a young officer, his first day in the unit was also the first time he killed a man (a militant), that too at close range. After the incident was over, he was distraught, and it was the care and counselling of his seniors that brought him out of his depression.


He spoke of the utmost trust and camaraderie that he shared with his unit members, which was more valuable than any money in the world, because that was what their lives depended on.


Like a true soldier, he also spoke of values and just behaviour, even towards the enemy.


Once during the Kargil war, his unit had surrounded a post occupied by Pakistani soldiers. They fought fiercely, and finally overcame the enemy. The Pak soldiers, though in mufti, fought with all their medals on, as they knew they were going to die, and wanted to die a true soldier's death. After it was over, the Indian Major had his men identify the soldiers from their I- cards, and sent a letter to their unit in Pakistan praising them, requesting that they be honoured accordingly. It was later learnt that the request had been carried out.


His own face was lop sided because it was shattered by shrapnel during the Kargil conflict. He had a rod in his back and legs, which is why he could not offer his lower berth to one of the lady passengers.


He was full of praise for the Army doctors, who reconstructed his face, and "made it almost as good as new". We all asked him what his family had to say about his new face.


"My wife and six year old daughter feel I look more handsome now", he said with a laugh.
He said the toughest job was to flush out militants holed up in houses in villages. (I was reminded of this while watching the recent Mumbai carnage).


"It's a game of extreme patience and vigilance. The exercise takes place mostly at night and entire villages are cordoned off for the task."


While the army personnel grew more experienced at tackling them over a period of time, the militants too became smarter.


"These days they aim not for the chest or head, but for the thighs, where the main artery is located. At times, if a soldier injured in the thigh is not rushed to medical help immediately, we risk losing him."


I listened spellbound, my sleep long forgotten. I could see the other passengers similarly engaged; horrified, but unable to break away. It was almost an 'ancient mariner' kind of scenario.
At one point I asked him whether he had received a bravery award for all he had done.
"No Ma'am."
"Why not?"
"Ma'am, if the Army had to give out awards to everyone who has done what I did, they would soon run out of medals. "


His answer stumped all of us. What we thought of as extraordinary bravery was in fact an everyday and routine affair for most Army personnel in Kashmir and other insurgency-hit areas.
I sat quietly, reflecting on a real life example of selfless service.


"What motivates you people?", asked one of my fellow passengers.


"Love for our country, its people, and pride in being an Indian."


This simple statement brought out the goose pimples on my arms.


I remembered how as a child whenever we went to see a movie, the National Anthem played at the end, when we all stood up to attention.
Independence Day and The Republic Day were never holidays meant to sit at home, but to go out and march and hoist the national flag.
"Jai Jawan Jai Kisan", was the slogan that popped out almost everywhere, worshipping the two different kinds of people who protected and respected Mother Earth.


We still need these two people, one to feed us and the other to protect us.


"Love for our country, its people, and pride in being an Indian."


I'm sure each one of us has the same pride buried somewhere deep down inside. Its been in the attic of our minds for far too long.
It's time we brought it out, dusted it, and displayed it proudly in the mantelpiece of our hearts, so we can see and feel it with every beat, and have our actions governed by it on a daily basis.


"Jai Jawan, jai Kisan, jai Hind."