Graffiti at the 2020 anti-CAA protest site at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi. Graffiti at the 2020 anti-CAA protest site at Shaheen Bagh in New Delhi.

In the by-gone days of the other lifeBefore the advent of the WORDSpilling the blood of foesWas the honour-code

Head-takers became acclaimedTribal heroes, earning the meritTo wear special clothes and ornamentsAnd live in grand houses.

We believed that our gods livedIn the various forms of natureWhom we worshippedWith unquestioning faith.

Then came a tribe of strangersInto our primordial territories  Armed with only a Book andPromises of a land called Heaven.

Declaring that our Trees and MountainsRocks and Rivers were no GodsAnd that our songs and storiesNothing but tedious primitive nonsense.

We listened in confusionTo the new stories and too soonAllowed our knowledge of other daysTo be trivialised into taboo.

We no longer dared to singOur old songs in worshipTo familiar spirits of the landOr in praise to our legendary heroes.

And if we ever told stories it wasTo the silent forests and our songsWere heard only by the passing windIn a land swept clean of ancient gods.

Stripped of all our basic certaintiesWe strayed from our old waysAnd let our soul-mountain recedeInto a tiny ant-hill and weSchooled our minds to becomeThe ideal tabula rasaOn which the strange intrudersBegan scripting a new history.

We stifled our natural articulationsTurned away from our ancestral godsAnd abandoned accustomed ritualsBeguiled by the promise of a new heaven.

We borrowed their minds,Aped their manners,Adopted their godsAnd became perfect mimics.

Discarded our ancient practiceOf etching on wood and stoneAnd learned instead to scratch on paperIn premature tryst with the magic Script

But a mere century of negationProved inadequate to eraseThe imprints of intrinsic identitiesStamped on minds since time began

The suppressed resonance of old songsAnd the insight of primitive storiesResurface to accuse leased-out mindsOf treason against the essential self.

In the re-awakened songs and storiesA new breed of cultural heroesArticulate a different discourseAnd re-designate new enemies

Demanding reinstatementOf customary identityAnd restoration of ancestral groundAs a belligerent post-script to recent history.

In the agony of the re-birthOur hills and valleys reverberateWith death-dealing shrieks of unfamiliar armsAs the throw-back generation resurrectsThe blood of Other Days

(This poem refers to the general situation in Nagaland)

Temsula Ao, Assam(Temsüla Ao was a poetjollibee.bet, fiction writer, and ethnographer. She was a professor of English at North Eastern Hill University from where she retired in 2010. She served as the director of the North East Zone Cultural Centre between 1992 and 1997 on deputation from NEHU)

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