September is not really a bad month. It falls in that strangely pleasant zone between summer and winter, when the swarms of mosquitoes grow thinner and the cups of tea become stronger. It comes just when we have had enough of the scorching sun and pouring rain; when we can look back at the calendar and repeat the familiar cliché of how and where time flew by so soon.

It comes to remind us of the long hot days gone past, and of the long cold nights yet to come. But for many, September will always remain a dark memory. A memory blackened by images of murder and massacre, and of precious lives lost forever to the cruel insanity of hatred and terror. It will be a memory which many will find difficult to forget. For many, it will relive the trauma of a nightmare beyond belief, and a tragedy without reason or conclusion.

I can still vividly remember the horror that was September the 11th. The images of death and destruction seen that day were probably the most extensively watched events in the history of television on this planet. I don't know anyone who had a television and did not watch the twin towers disappear in a cloud of smoke. I don't remember anyone who watched anything else but the news channels when the attacks were taking place.

I remember the phone ringing throughout the evening, and answering calls from people who don't normally change their soap and serial settings for any time of day. I remember repeating endlessly that 'yes I am seeing it' and 'no I don't know who did it' to a host of excited voices on the other end of the line. I remember the sheer disbelief and panic on all of our faces. I remember and I still do not understand.

I cannot understand how man continually invents new ways to bring about the end of his own species. No other living creature has the acquired ability to self-destruct with relative ease, and managed to do it frequently on a large scale. Its inhumanity spares no one and it leaves no stone unturned in its quest for Sui caedare extinction.

Its savagery knows no age, color, nor creed and its evil knows no limits. Beslan is the latest chapter in this tragic journal of darkness. 9/11 remains the most widely read chapter in that black book of horrors. But that same dark horror had earlier visited our own little corner of the world - a little corner in Tamenglong district named Zoupi.

Zoupi is a fairly common name for a Kuki settlement. Loosely translated, it means "thick forest", which was a perfectly normal name for this remote village and quite appropriate for its secluded location. It was an abode for the 80-odd families who had settled in it, and who lived off its land and surrounding forests.

Until September 13th 1993, it was a perfectly good place to live in. It was a peaceful place until the hit men came calling. It was a home until it became a killing field. Its rivers teemed with life until its waters were tainted red with death.

Of the 93 men, women and children hacked with machetes and pushed off a cliff that day, only 5 survived to tell the tale. From their testimony and from the others who managed to flee earlier, we know that it remains the most horrific slaughter of innocents ever witnessed during the entire ethnic conflict. It remains the blackest spot in our show of civilization for this corner of the world.

Zoupi has become an icon for many, and there are those who have used it as a symbol to gain sympathy and favor for continuing the hatred, but it will always depict only one black event - of man murdering fellow man, woman and child without guilt or remorse.

Few will look beyond the obvious barbarism and see the deeper reasons behind it. Zoupi was prime land, and it produced a tidy harvest from its fertile soil. Its farmers harvested a healthy crop of everything from mushrooms to paddy, and its forests provided a wealth of timber and cane. For centuries, both sides have claimed the rights to these lands, and both have regarded each other with suspicion.

It does not matter which tribe got there first. There are no credible records or evidence to verify whose roots and tails are longer than whom. What matters is the evidence which proves the extent to which terror can be used to define and enlarge a warped nationalistic design; and the level to which it can stoop to conquer and exterminate anything which comes in its path. Zoupi exposed that twisted outlook 11 years ago.

The rest of Manipur realized it only recently when three words - "without territorial limits" found an offensive place in its newly found vocabulary of integrity. But the damage has already been done. Zoupi has long buried its dead. Its huts and houses have long since been abandoned and consumed by the ways of the jungle. Its orphans and widows are the only proof that Zoupi ever existed.

Beslan, Manhattan, and Zoupi are examples of the worst acts of terror that man can inflict upon the weak and defenseless. It is an ominous warning for the future of this lonely planet. Our world has not only become smaller, it has shrunk all pretensions of being the morally advanced species. It has put a question mark on our freedom in this age of terror. There is a new animal which has been resurrected from within our primal beings.

It walks among us hides behind a thin mask of tenets and ideals. It strikes without warning or reason. For some cruel reason, it chose September as its target month. I cannot say when or whom it will choose next, but I will put up a black flag outside my gate every September and say a prayer for the dead. I will pray that it is not me.