Still I am an Indian!!!

R K Brojen *

Still I am an Indian!!!
When my home is burning with the flame of tortures and atrocities
I was searching for the meaning of democracy;
I remember my home politics
With my burning red eyes and biting my lips;
But still I am rooted to home.
In this birthplace of Non-violence
When I shouted for the lady who struggled for nineteen years
Her story faded in the national newspapers in Delhi;
When the parliament was rocked by the scams
Her voice of demand was packed inside the unopened files
Even though her voice pierce millions of people in and out;
But still I am an Indian.

When India fought in Kargil war
The pillars 66 and 94 in Indo-Myanmar border are unstable;
The Macmohan line in Indo-China border is still undefined;
For every promises made by the rulers
I am losing my faith;
When the prices of commodities increases
Beggars in the streets become skeletons and increased
They don’t have rules and laws of existence.
When the case of Godra incident re-opened
The case of fake encounters in my home standing far behind;
So Manorama dies in the field naked
Rose, Luingamla,…were covered with the blood of cruel rape
The same blood flows in the beds of Ahanjaobi, Mercy, ...., villages, hills;
When Sanjit and Rabina were shot death near the Assembly
I was confused by the meaning of law and justice;
When I saw the death pictures painted by dried blood in Tehelka
I was asking why the statue in the court is blindfolded; Then
The death questions are coming up one by one again
From the ground behind the Heiranggoi bridge in 1984
From the death civilians in Tera Bazar in 1993
From the crowded RIIMS gate in 1995
From the bus stand in Airport road in Malom in 1999
From known and unknown deaths in different time and place;
You can find their names in internet
Or in the untouched old files of judicial enquiries in queue
Whose justices had never come;
One can find the historical stones there
With unseen tears and cries
But things that needed to be changed remain unchanged.

On that smoked day in June, 2001
Running around the blood pouring wounded and death bodies
Scattered in the rain of bullets in the streets of Imphal and
Sitting beside the death bodies in the RIIMS morgues
I am still hanging around and asking
The definitions of Aristotle, Plato, Marx, Lenin, Mao Tse-Tung.
If this is the consequence of what we learned in our curriculum, then
I will never send my children to schools anymore.

But I am rooted in my home
Seeing my own people killing my own brothers and sisters;
Within the faded faces of friends, I saw
Manipur, my mother! Standing alone
Her own children torturing her.

But still I am an Indian
Rooted to my home
In India!!!!!