Where the mind is without fear

The other day dad called me from home (Lamka) and said that there was a bomb blast the night before near Churachandpur police station leaving one person dead and two injured. I was like well that's nothing new, it happens all the time out there. There was not even a feeling of surprise or shock within me. Was it because I was still asleep when I heard the news and my mind was not clear at the time? I don't think so. News of gunshots, murders, kidnappings, etc doesn't shock anyone anymore. People have accepted these things as a part of life. In fact, they are even more surprised when a day goes by without any news of gunshots, murders or kidnappings.

A decade or so ago, Lamka was known as a peaceful town-where different communities live in peace and harmony. But then things take a different turn. The first time I heard a gunshot was when I was still a little kid. I don't remember the exact year but it was in the early 1990s. In the middle of the night I was awoken by loud gunshots. I was scared out of my wits and I was like "When will those bullets hit me and rip my body apart?" The gunshots sounded as if fired right in front of our house. I remember praying frantically for divine intervention. The next morning we heard that the shootings took place at Saikot, on the outskirts of Lamka town. As I grew older and Lamka became a hotbed of terrorism, I became less and less bothered by these things. I have become less sensitive. In fact, during the Kuki-Zomi ethnic clashes in the late 1990s gunshots can be heard every now and then. Barely a day pass by without the sound of gunshots or the sight of a village burnt down. During those days, we used to joke with friends "Last night there was no gunshot so I couldn't sleep well". Well, every Lamkan have become insensitised. Is it because we have less compassion towards our fellow beings? Are we less humane? I think not. It is just that we have accepted these things as a way of life and that is what Lamka has become. In fact, I have heard many people saying, "There is no killing, gunshot, murder or kidnapping in today's newspaper, it is not worth reading". Is this what we have become? We don't even want to read the paper if there was no news of killings, gunshots, kidnappings or the like. Even after 60 years of independence we, the Zomis are still far, far away from Rabindranath Tagore's ideal of freedom. Sigh! What curse have befallen my land and my people. Let me conclude with Rabindranath Tagore's famous poem

Where The Mind is Without Fear

WHERE the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-Rabindranath Tagore