LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

 Stephan C. Hmar, Agartala, 14.05.2014

My father said that his father (my grandfather) was the second or third earliest believer  among  us. Separations left him alone, he stayed with his belief, his God, and did not follow any of his colleagues that fluttered like chaffs in the wind of changes. He was faithful to his original Mission.

He said he was one of the earliest mission pensioners of our original Mission….

I said to myself, “Oh! Another story….. Dad! Give me a break!! ”

My father could study my thoughts from my looks, that I am most interested in the unknown, the delights or the tears it brings. So, he deliberately changed his topic, and started speaking about the unreality of the unknown, in a way I could understand and stay awake.

I arranged my pillow, straightened my neck. My ears started to grow bigger.

He took a deep breath and continued…..

That was during 1910 through 1912. People heard the story of the son of God from missionaries and started giving up their regular ritual of slaughtering animals to pacify spirits. As the spirits knew they were fighting a loosing battle, they attacked the new believers in their most violent ways. It was the time when spirits physically fought the new believers.

One evening, he said, my grandfather was walking along a deserted road in the village with the Bible in his hand. (It was a practice, then, for the new believers, to carry a Bible, as spirits confronted them anywhere). He saw a dark shadowed faceless form approaching from the opposite direction. He, at once, knew it was an evil spirit, but he kept on walking advising himself not to be scared. When they met in the middle of the road, the faceless form grabbed my grandfather on the chest, put the smelly black leg  against him and pushed him. My grandfather was thrown backward. The whole space was filled with nasty, irritating smell. He held back his ground fearlessly and looked around for the faceless, smelly form.  But, like the quickness of a lightning, it had disappeared right under that opened sights and spaces in that half-dark evening.

My father said, “That was the story of your grandfather as told by himself! You see! Believe in God, and don’t look back and even evil spirit will not be able to harm you. They will disappear in thin air….”

He told me that the only thing that remained in his childhood home was poverty.  They depended on the seasonal jhuming farm (where they grow rice and crops) on the slopes of hills in those thickly forested landscapes, far away from the village. The success or failure of the farm depended on the unpredictable monsoon.

The first time when he went to their jhum farm alone, he was 15 years old. It was nearing the harvest season, and he needed to keep guard of paddy and crops from wild animals.

The sky was moonless and he was in the farm hut, making fire, to chase away wild animals. The fire made a reddish sphere, enveloped by an unimaginable darkness, in the middle of nowhere, far far away from the village.  The reddish sphere blinded his eyes to see anything across the swaying paddy field. He looked out across the darkness. He could see one big man approaching the hut. He could not believe his eyes. He rubbed them and looked at it again. The approaching man was bigger and walking faster.

Quickly he put off  the fire, and stayed quietly in the darkness, trying to notice any sound of footsteps. There was no sound, except the sound of the swaying paddy field. He peeked through  the window again. Still, he could see the man approaching. He was almost scared to death. He hid behind the thatched wall.  

He was enveloped by the eternity of fear of the unknown man. He knew he was going to die anyway and a thought came that he must prove the man that was going to kill him.

He then took his slingshot and shot at the approaching man. No sound, except the  sound of the sling stone over the field. He  shot him maybe five, six times. He was still approaching him.

Then, my father took his big knife, walked out of the hut and approached the approaching death. He walked nearer, the man too, walked nearer. When my father came face to face with him, he cut the man right on the neck.

Then, there was this strange knock in his head, knocking him back to senses.

He said when he came back to sense, he realized that he cut the half burnt tree right in the middle of the field.

And then he looked at me, and said, “You see! Don’t be scared. Move forward. Things may appear big, difficult, scary or deadly. If you sum up your bravery and courage, they will be as timid as that half burnt tree, which I mistook for approaching man.”

He would tell me, not of the tribes unrealistic folklore or myth, but of his own experiences in flesh and blood. And he would try to hand over me the morals linked to each of them.

Handed over the morals from his experience?

That was what bored my innocent mind. From my kindergarten to class X (the time when I was with him) in that sweet hometown was filled with tales from him---from the Bible, from his father, his childhood adversities and more.  I was fed-up, to be filled with tales of morals and I was ready to explode like a balloon.

More and more, I wanted to run away from his known morality. I don’t want to live in his shadow. I don’t want to live a borrowed life. Why can't I live a free life as I wish?

I tried running away from his life and from him to mine. I really tried hard! But the more I ran into mine, I see his life in me. His moralities were induced in me. Perhaps, that could be why I don’t seem to give much attention to my own. At times, it seems I am not living for myself, but just for his moralities.

Was my father doing so wrong, to his son by telling him everything, so that I will tell those stories to other people? Indeed, he wronged, and left me empty. He left me empty like a barrel filled with his stories. He left me not having any story of my own.  

Today I am telling some of the stories in brief, but it took my father 70 years to experience them and 10 years to tell them to me to the smallest details and particulars. And today, against my will, those stories let me say out the thing I had never liked to say: My father is the greatest story teller to me.

I am going to be forty years old now. My father died six years ago. I could not go to his funeral even. Death took him away from me. Today, long after my father is gone, I began to know the greatness of my father as a story teller. My father must have suffered so many awfully great things in his life and in his later stage, has something to tell me. He had left me with plenty, of course, plenty of stories that I don’t have any of my own to write----only his.

THE END

A Babel Story for the Real Babels?

Last month for one long week I had a strange headache, not that kind of headache that would get all right by popping Stopache or Sinarest tablets.

The headache started dramatically from the different sounds I heard. First, those sounds itched my ear lobes, and then vibrated my eardrums and the electrical waves that travelled through my brain produced that headache.

The pain was severe. Considering only the pain, It was serious enough to consult a medicine doctor. But I knew the doctor (after knowing the reason) would refer me to a psychiatrist, who would in turn refer me to a neurologist, who in turn would say that I have a unique headache, and would, in turn, refer me to doctors of outside state.    

That was the only reason why I did not consult a doctor. No one wants to look foolish, you know!!

Huuusssshh! Why do I remember that headache-week, only now? Flop-things should be forgotten…isn't it?

But as I had already started, I better finish it. It is always better, way better to finish what we start.

And here, the story of the headache goes.....

Last month was very hectic for me: Office works, everyday household problems, problems relating to far-ones, etc. piled up. It was very hard and dull to carry on unless you take a leave to set them aside. So I took one week’s leave, with a station leave permission.

I then visited the native side of the state to meet my own people who have a short, blunt nose like mine; narrowed eyes, short stout legs; who also eat my favourite Sodium bicarbonate (soda) curries, smelly fermented fish, fermented pork fats; who would not think even for another second to eat anything that crawls and fly in the sky.  

My whole eagerness could be noted down in one sentence: No place is better than the land of similarity, where even differences come out from this similarity. 

I was eager like a child going to his favourite toy shops, where he will get his heart’s other half.

First, I went to my good Kokborok friend. He had been such a good friend (mainly because we could share thoughts with each other in English) and I wanted to say hi!, to his family. My friend had informed me through the phone he would not be home because of official duty, and that I could see them in his absence and it would not make any difference. 

He was wrong…..

I knocked the door, an old woman opened the door. I said, "Mami, hum Stephan, tera larka ka dost, milne ke liye aia," with my sweetest smiles.

She looked startled, not understanding, not smiling, with noticeable headache. After staring at me like an alien, she said, "Phai-di! Phai-di!"

I thought she was talking about a big flat land somewhere. Phai, in my Hmar dialect means a flat land.

I still tried my best. I switched on to my dialect with action, like a man singing action song. "Kei ka hming Setefan! In naupa ruolpa..I hriet am ka trawng?" (My name is Stephan, a friend of your son. Can you understand my language?)

She had a perfect headache then. My sound triggered her earlobes, and then the eardrums and then the brain, which, at last, attacked her skull.

She said, "Maya!Maya!," and then she looked at me with an interrogatiive expression, "Ani kok bujiya?"(Do you understand our language?)

The only words that created senses in my head was the words Maya!Maya! I read somewhere! Maya reads something like illusion. (I found later on, what she meant was "I don’t know! I don't know!")

Then the symptom of headache started on me, too. My earlobes itch, and then vibrated and the sound waves attacked my head.

I tried, still, at my level best. "Hindi samasta?

"Phaidi! Phaidi!," (come!come!) and she pointed towards the chair.

The next minute, father came, we shook hands, all family members came to meet me, we all shook hands. We all smiled (or tried to smile) with our sweetest smiles and talked to each other in sign language, like deaf people. 

I was a horrible situation. It was the widest gap in the whole universe between two people who wanted to be so close---We don’t understand each other.  

I went out of the house, exceedingly used, without understanding anything.

I just started my holiday inning, and it started with a terrible headache. Would I go back home and cancel my leave? I thought.

I had known Halam tribe years ago. I also knew from someone that they claimed themselves to come from mountain road, and thus called themselves Halam, just like my tribe Hmar, who called ourselves as people coming from North.

I wanted to give a next try. I visited my other good Halam friend.

This time my approach was different. I did not talk with the family, I asked my friend to teach me Halam dialect first.

Bu I fak ta? (Do you take your food?)

Bu maw na nek zai?

It sounded like Hmar olden songs.

Kan trawng I hriet ? (Do you understand our dialect?)

Kan chong na riet maw?

What a similarity!, to create such difference!

Ka hriet nawh. (I don’t know)

Riet naing.

He said there are 19 Halam sub-tribe, having a slight different dialect, then Debbarma, Tripuri, Reang, Jamatia, Chakma, Garo, Kuki. Maybe more.

"Oh!" I said, "What a headache to have different dialects when language is the only instrument to express emotions."

He bowed.

I said that everywhere we are the same. In my home place, there are the Hmars, the Paite, the Kukis, the Zos, the Gangtes, the Lushais, the Simtes. I don’t know all…

And then I said, "English is not just a trend! It is a way to unifying us."

I had head ached more to say that! The story of the tower of Babel from the Bible came to my mind. And then more headache.

God came to see their city and the tower they were building. He perceived their intentions, and in His infinite wisdom, He knew this "stairway to heaven" would only lead the people away from God. He noted the powerful force within their unity of purpose. As a result, God confused their language, causing them to speak different languages so they would not understand each other. By doing this, God thwarted their plans. He also scattered the people of the city all over the face of the earth.

Today, I wonder, why is God so artistic in making us speak different dialects?

All my brothers and sisters are different only for one thing---dialects. I am as strange to them as much as they are strange to me.  The more I wanted to be with them, more headache for me, and more headache for them, too!

Next holiday, I will try to find the cure for my headache, in my own dialect!

Salah!