(Robin S. Ngangnom)
The Poem:
Not once can I say
I am the captain
behind this wheel of fire.
I remember misplacing
a bronze bell
somewhere, sometime.
I left behind many untended hearths.
Rushing back I discovered
something had changed me.
I can say
I am this or that,
that I envied the character
of water and stone.
that I envied the character
of water and stone.
As a boy I was made a sheep,
now I am enchanted into a goat
that the townspeople
enjoy driving to the square
with a marigold garland
between my hornş.
At twenty-four
I invited myself to Bohemia.
The kingdom of Art,
where people never grow old,
was my affable neighbour.
Moved by curiosity,
I found myself lingering
at backstages, where painted girls
and poor blind boys
came to do their parts.
In the evenings now,
I often mix my drink with despair.
Love, of course, made me entirely useless.
This is the story of my people.
We sowed suspicion in the fields.
Hatred sprang and razed the crops.
Now they go to gloating (glorying) neighbours,
begging bowls in hand,
fingers pointed at each other.
Their incessant bickering (backbiting)
Muffles (quiets) all pity.
Our intentions are clear.
Slash (Tear) and burn,
let fire erase all traces,
so that suspicion cannot write
our murderous history.
Somewhere inside the labyrinth
we met, locked horns, and
went our feuding ways.
Our past, we believe, is pristine
even as we reaped heads and took slaves.
When we re-write make-believę history
with malicious intent,
memory burns on a short fuse.
As boys return to Christmas,
escorted by hate and fear,
they take a circuitous route
to outwit an enemy
who will revel too much in the birth
of a merciful son. When these boys
reach home, their dreams will come
dressed in red.
II
Hands filled with love,
I touched your healing breasts.
Like the beaten-up past
scars appeared on your body.
I ask, who branded the moonskin of my love?
Who used you like a toy doll?
And my hands returned to me
stigmatised with guilt.
When I turn with a heavy heart
towards my flaming country,
the hills, woman, scream your name.
Soldiers with black sçarves (mufflers)
like mime artists
turn them in seconds into shrouds.
For the trucks carrying
the appliances of death and devastation,
for the eager rescuer in his armoured car,
for the first visitor to the fabled homeland,
the graves of youths who died in turmoil
are the only milestones to the city.
But the hills lie draped (dressed) in mist.
Instead of the musk of your being
I inhale the acrid smoke
of gelignite (explosive) and pyres.
With cargoes of sand and mortar
Mammon came to inspect the city.
He cut down the remaining trees
and carried them away
like cadavers (corpses) for dissection.
Morning papers like watered-down milk
sell the same bland items:
rape, extortion, ambushes (traps), confessions,
embezzlement, vendetta (campaign), sales,
marriages, the usual.
There is talk on the streets,
in dark comers, in homes, words
caught by the ears of a restaurant.
We honour the unvarying certainty,
and pay routine homage to silence.
Everyone has correctly identified
the enemy of the people.
He wears a new face each morning,
and freedom is asking yourself
if you are free, day after sullen (morose) day.
III
Uprightness is not caressing (touching) anything publicly,
Integrity is not drinking,
Worthiness is contributing generously to a new faith
to buy guns for unleashing (set free) ideological horror,
Service is milking the state
and when you can lift no more
to start burgling each other
so that we can become paragons of thievery,
Chastity is forbidding our women
from exposing their legs,
Purity is not whispering
even a solitary word of love
so that it will not be mistaken
for unpardonable obscenity.
Nothing is certain:
oil
lentils
potatoes
food for babies
transport
the outside world.
Even fire water and air
are slowly becoming commodities.
Patriotism is the need of the hour.
Patriotism is preaching secession
and mourning our merger with a nation,
patriotism is honouring martyrs
who died in confusion,
patriotism is declaring we should
preserve native customs and traditions,
our literature and performing arts,
and inflicting them on hapless peoples,
patriotism is admiring
the youth who fondles grenades,
patriotism is proclaiming all men are brothers
and secretly depriving my brother,
patriotism is playing the music of guns
to the child in the womb.
Stones speak, the hills speak
when we finally fall silent.
History, hunch-backed friend,
why do we fear you,
why do we love, hate, lie,
conceal, merely to enact you
in the coarse theatre of time?
IV
Today, I stand alone and acknowledge
the left-handed gift of a man
without a woman, and
a tiny land bound by fire.
Slave to an unexamined life
all that I’ve done
I’ve accomplished blindfolded:
love, fear, anger, and old despair.
The penitent (repentant) year wears sackcloth
and pours ashen leaves on its head,
the sky’s dress is in shreds.
When stars appear, they hold up the sky
like nuts and bolts so that
the firmament will not fall.
But we who sleep under these stars
will not let each other dream.
Love is also a forgotten word.
The ability to suffer, and the ability
to inflict the utmost hurt
on the person you love most,
this is how I’ve known it.
The festival of lights
happened during childhood.
Today, I’m again with widows
who cannot light lamps anymore.
Maybe the land is tired.
of being suckled on blood,
maybe there is no peace
between the farmer and his fields,
maybe all men everywhere
are tired of being men,
maybe we have finally acknowledged death.
My love, how can I explain
that I abominate (hate) laws
When I am gone
I would leave you these:
a life without mirrors, and
the blue ode between pines
between pines and the winter sky.
But where can one run from the homeland,
where can I flee from your love?
They have become pursuing prisons
which hold the man
with criminal words.
Introduction
Written in the year 1959, with a purpose to showcase the environment of Manipur when it first became part of the Indian Union, “The Strange Affair of Robin. S Ngangnom”, is a vivid portrayal of the horrors that Manipur succumbed to during that period.
It is a highly politically charged poem which puts profound focus on the gruesome and atrocious change which filled this pristine land with hunger, death and destruction. Ngangom describes his poetry as “mostly autobiographical, written with the hope of enthusing readers with my communal or carnal life — the life of a politically-discriminated-against, historically-overlooked individual from the nook of a third world country”.
Analysis
The poem starts with the poet excluding himself from the “wheel of fire” which suggests the destruction and violence around him which he cannot control. He does not want to be part of it but is forced to be a witness to such horrors because he has nowhere else to go. The next few lines are the poet reminiscing about his past, his childhood. He talks about how he remembers “misplacing a bronze bell somewhere, sometime” and how “I left behind many untended hearths”, suggesting that he lost his cultural identity and due to the changes, which Manipur passed through, that land lost its traditional values as well.
The scope of the poem shifts from the personal to include the plight and suffering of his land at large, “This is the story of my people”. Gradually the poem traces the entire bloody history of Manipur and the sufferings the people of the land had to go through leading it to the present state of degeneration. Ngangnom mentions how the people of Manipur have become selfish which ultimately became the cause of more hatred in the already doomed land, “Now they go to gloating neighbours, begging bowls in hand,”. The poet goes on to point out that no matter how many times the past is re-written, no matter how many fictitious provocations are added in the “make- believe history”, the truth will always prevail.
He talks about the youths returning home for Christmas but they are met with hate and fear. They take long, indirect routes to outsmart their enemies who would be happy in “the birth of a merciful son.” He refers to how the women always faced the worst consequences in the form of sexual assaults and rapes, “I touched your healing breasts. Like the beaten-up past scars appeared on your body.” He draws attention to the conflict between the Indian Army and insurgents in the land.
Therefore, Ngangom turns to his land with a heavy heart to describe the suffering that the land is bearing. “When I turn with a heavy heart towards my flaming country, the hills, woman, scream your name.” This is also a reference to The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) permits the armed forces the authority to shoot anyone on the basis of mere suspicion which often resulted in mass killing of innocents/peaceful protestors. “But the hills lie draped in mist. Instead of the musk of your being I inhale the acrid smoke of gelignite and pyres.”
There came a period when capitalism started to rise and the violence against humanity became so common that it started to sound “bland”. “He cut down the remaining trees and carried them away like cadavers for dissection. Morning papers like watered-down milk sell the same bland items: rape, extortion, ambushes, confessions, embezzlement, vendetta, sales, marriages, the usual.” The poet points out that the words like patriotism and uprightness have lost their values. He talks about patriotism is mourning the merging of Manipur with India and honoring those souls who died in midst of chaos. To him, patriotism is declaring that their native customs and traditions, literature, and performing arts should be preserved. “Patriotism is proclaiming all men are brothers”, nevertheless, his brothers have been deprived. Patriotism is playing the chattering of guns to the child who is sleeping in the womb. The brutality of the violence has taken such stern courses that people have forgotten basic emotions which define their humanity. “But we who sleep under these stars will not let each other dream. Love is also a forgotten word.”
But even though the land is covered with such destruction and ghastliness, the poet can still not decline his motherland. He is depressed to think about the state of his land and how it has become “tired” now and can no longer tolerate the hideousness of violence. He is in despair while writing this poem, calling the land “My love”because he also knows no matter how far- away he runs he can never deny his love for his birthplace and can never run away from his roots.
Conclusion
“The Strange affair of Robin. S Ngangnom”, points out the awful situation that surrounded Manipur and attempts to presents the outcry of helpless people of the land. The poet has become tired of the events which are taking place in the land.
Therefore, Robin S. Ngangom, through his poem “The Strange Affairs of Robin S.Ngangom” is hopeful about the peace in his land.
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