– Janet Moore Hujon
Like so many of us you were once unknown
Yet your life was familiar to those who loved you
Your children, your mother, your husband,
And maybe the thirsty traveller out-or-homeward bound
Stopping by for the cup of tea you brewed
In that remote neglected part of our world
Now suddenly you are national news
Your brutalised body the stomping ground
For political groups
You are either the reason for their existence
Or the pretext to wipe out another
Yet was the status of cause célèbre one you sought?
Weren’t you just caught in the din of crossfire
Never allowed to speak for yourself?
Now you cannot even stand upright to argue your case
To explain why, with head held high,
You hoped for a better life
Just like we all do.
Did you not know you were not protected
Unlike those who controlled your destiny?
Those patrons and dispensers of power
Who enjoy the kind of protection
You and I can only dream of.
There was no need to enthrone you on a blue plastic chair
Matching your dokmanda
Bare feet planted on the ground
You were hardly a moving target
Fear alone would have rooted you to the spot
For the gun speaks the language of threat
Needing no explanation, allowing no argument
And completely ruling out debate,
As shadowy forces unleash with relish
Their reign of terror
Defending their love for the Garo Hills
So this harvest of lives must needs continue
If your compatriots are to make a living
In the huge silence following
The crack of gunshots
Snapping the column of your neck
Flecking the sun-warmed rubble with your blood
Your shattered head unable to mouth
A last farewell to your children
Those innocent inheritors of war
In beautiful battlefields
Then and now your silenced form still asks:
Why does this kingdom floating in the clouds
Have so much blood on its walls?
When will the land of perpetual winds
Reclaim her right to peace?
Will the hills just echo to the sound of gunfire
And not to choirs of birdsong?
When will we remind ourselves that for a child
A mother is someone who is always there.
(Report in The Shillong Times, August 5, 2014: A core member of GNLA’s hit squad from Chokpot that was involved in the cold-blooded execution of Josbina Sangma, mother of four children, on June 3, has given himself up to police in Tura. Police sources revealed that GNLA cadre Rakman Marak surrendered to authorities at Tura police station on Sunday citing unhappiness with the ‘methods’ of the outfit in its fight for a Garo state.)