A Letter From Miss Peace

A few weeks back, I received a very special letter (in one of my dreams though) signed by someone called ‘Peace’. Here’s the letter that moved my heart:

Dear Eta,

My name is ‘Peace’. I hope I haven’t become alien to you or anyone in our lovely home State. If I have been long forgotten, I bear a deep pain in my heart. I was shooed away from the State some years back and have been taking refuge in a bizarre place where I am not much at home. Eta, do I need to tell you how much I miss my home and my people out there? I want to come back and be with the folks again but no one is calling me back there. I wish you could do something for me. Or are you also sailing in the same boat?
I think no one ever wants me back in the State, especially when people seem to be busy rebuking and detesting one another as if they are born with a loathsome obligation. Sometimes it’s quite a puzzle that dazzles them each and every time they look forward to finding the real problem to seeking the right solution. But yes, the valleys and the hills—they know it all. Though they can’t speak out anything, they all know who started what, when, why and how.
While the real perpetrators boisterously loiter around, our people have so far resorted to blame games all the way triggering the problem to a more elevated level instead of finding the means and measures to resolve it together. Well, it is quite shameful to admit but this hatred seems to be gradually killing them all before the real death that is ordained for each one of them. Meanwhile, the dogs keep barking though no one let them out. A funny revelation is that the dogs were innocently imported, trained and tasked to hoarsely and rowdily bark and scare the hell out of them. Oh! Dear, it’s better to forsake the poor dogs that are at least loyal to their owners. God Bless Them At Least For Their Dutifulness.

By and by, amidst all the mayhems, more than my absence, I feel terribly sorry for the ‘Once upon a time happy valleys and tranquil hills’ that are unknowingly compelled to involve in all these sickening messes. Of late, people have created many despicable ghosts on their minds and these ghosts haunt them every time they want to dream of me. Smokes keep flaring up from the valleys all the way making the hills tearful and the same valleys are but flooded by the tears from the hills. The times, they are indeed changing from bad to worse. From cheerful to tearful days, everyone has seen it all. And what’s more saddening is that the seasons have even changed their colours so far. The wind of erroneous animosity sweeps to and fro the valleys and the hills and vice versa. It seems like things are not going to stop for a long time or is it something like some mongers never want these unwanted things coming to a death-end? I am not sure, Eta, if I should ask or discuss this but why don’t they just adjourn the court forever and let these mongers rest peacefully somewhere in a mental asylum? Maybe they need a ‘Judge’ to suspend the case, but this judge in question seems to be nowhere in sight.

Eta, I am really sorry to relate you all these woeful accounts. I just want to share my grief with you dear that it simply doesn’t make any sense why I have been shooed away from home like this as if I am so unwanted. However, I blame none but my fate and I am still hopeful no matter what, why and how. I will eagerly wait for that day when I would be called back home and be with you all again.
Till the D Day, please pray for me.

Missing you all badly
Peace

Duh! That was quite a dream, quite a letter too and I got a little confused about the dream letter from Miss Peace. She just mentioned her name as Peace without any surname, without any insinuation of a clan or a community. Maybe she was trying to be politically correct using just a name, maybe she belongs to none of the communities in Manipur. Lucky Peace as for us it is a different case. A Hindu or Paangan name is as much different from a Meitei name. Like wise, a Naga name is as much different from a Kuki name. Thenceforth, we can easily figure it out whom to befriend with and who to ignore just from a mere name or surname, right?

Forget it all, we should instead try to launch a ‘Call Peace Home’ crusade. After all, the valleys and hills do have hearts and they will wholeheartedly support the cause. Let us wipe away the tears and hold festoons in our hands to call Peace home and give her a chance to breathe in the Shirui breeze or just let her relax beside the Kangla Fort, what say?

This article was published on 3 Sep 2011