Beautiful Woman - Lalsangliani Ralte

Beautiful woman,

It torments me deep inside to know that I cannot call you by your name because people would then know of the secret that has been gnawing at your heart for so long. It breaks my heart that yours is a story of a six year old girl violated by a man when he should have been protecting her instead.

It bothers my conscience to no end knowing I am a part of a society that imposes silence on victims; silence imposed through prejudices and judgments. We are taught of the dignity of silence, but what good is silence if it does not bring justice? What good is silence if a victim has to live alone with memories that haunt her every day, forcing her to live a life of shame and sense of worthlessness?

Sometimes I wonder how different things might have been for you had you spoken out against him. Perhaps you would have found freedom from the clutches of your past. But how were you supposed to know that you did not have to be silent? How were you supposed to know you were not to be touched by a grown man the way you were? How were you to know no man’s hands have the passport to travel across your body without your consent? Claiming to understand what you have been through would be an injustice to you. I was not there when you were terrorized over and over again. Nobody was there when you felt alone and frightened. Nobody was there to tell you that not all men are like him, and that you need not fear all men.

But I wish I have words that could make you accept that what he did to you does not make you all the horrible names you call yourself. You are not defined by what somebody else does to you. Your future is not destroyed; you do not have to let it be. You are not in any way a lesser woman or a human being. You are still the beautiful woman God created you to be, as pure as any woman could be. You can only be defined by the strength, wisdom and grace with which you face every new day, and for that you are a beautiful woman.

This powerful, beautifully written piece comes from this blog. It is something new in Mizo writing in English - a first person narrative voicing pain, guilt and sorrow, addressing in poetic prose an issue again not often seen in our genre. Perhaps it is a happy indicator of how Mizo writing in English is slowly coming of age.

The Cord of Life - Mafaa Hauhnar

Translated by Zualteii Poonte

“We are connected,
You and I,
By an invisible cord,
Not seen by the eye.”

The most powerful cord that holds my life together, the single strongest strand that binds life to mankind for me is literature. Often it is my only solace of refuge and rest.

Without it, I would be but a paper kite without a string, set adrift and wafted about by every breeze that blows, buffeted by unkind storms and eventually battered down.

When the silver cord that binds this body and soul (Ecclesiastes 12:6 ) is severed, I shall no longer be mortal. But the chain that binds my heart, with apologies to P.S. Chawngthu, is literature.

When the world becomes too much, and life turns ugly, when brutal waves bash me around, it is the anchor that keeps me holding on and saves me from drowning.

Riches and wealth, houses and lands, positions and privileges, power and authority – of these I have none. Like the popular song that goes, “It’s only words, and words are all I have,” my words and writings are about all that I have.

I am the kind that kicks shut opportunities opened by others. I spill more than I get into the pot, and knock down more than I get to prop up. I chop off more than I can even hope to pick up; fling away more than I can ever hope to gather.

“I am such a mess, even at my best” as the saying goes. At times that I try to shine I am frivolous, and even in my finest moments I am flippant.

That I am inept, ineffectual and incompetent I am all too aware, and need no one else to point it out. The knowledge of my own foibles and follies leave me downhearted and downcast, despondent and disconsolate. At such times when my spirits hit rock bottom, it is the rope of literature which hauls me back to sanity.

Certainly there are many points that my detractors can focus on to deprecate me. They are right when they say I am nothing and the truthfulness of it exacerbates the painful fact.

Much like the lines, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I, scene II), it is simply that I am so flawed. Nothing else is to blame. The only thing that I do have, my writings and poetry, I treasure deeply and will guard with my life. It is, after all, what bonds me to life.

You may know my face, perhaps you even see me often; but do you know the details of the ups and downs of my life?

Believing you know me inside out, will you be so quick to damn and condemn me?

You hear me laugh and often see me in a joyful mood, don’t you? But do you also see my tears?

When the clouds can no longer hold in the water they carry, rain falls. When the heart can no longer bear the pain within, tears fall.

Despite that, the pain I carry inside is not usually revealed in tears. Instead it is sometimes the cheerful facade I somehow project that reveals the deep sadness I feel within.

If you will accept me, take me for what I am, with all my faults. If you embrace me hoping to turn me into what you want me to be, then you are in for disappointment.

Because my weakness is often so strong, I can never really live up to your expectations or fulfil your ideals.

That I am a happy, jovial person, always laughing and keeping everyone around me in splits is how many see me, I am certain.  Perhaps even as gregarious and sociable, spreading laughter wherever I go, the life and soul of every gathering.

But I spend more time on my own, a lonely man, brooding over sad and vexing thoughts that bring me to tears and cause me sleepless nights. A man who prefers solitude to company, like a ship stranded far out at sea and gently rocked by sea waves.  As lonesome as a solitary sparrow drenched in the falling rain. A man who enjoys his own company and spends time at home on his own.

I am a lone wolf. As the poet I greatly admire Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “He travels the fastest who travels alone,” which is echoed in the popular Merle Haggard song, “For he who travels fastest goes alone.” Our forefathers used to advocate following in the path of the most number of footprints but I would rather set off on my own so I can concentrate on my life’s pathway.

Intoxicated with madness,
I am in love with my sadness.

In public view and with company, I may guffaw as loudly as one stoned on weed. But since early childhood I have always chosen to shun company for my own, playing quietly by myself. Engrossed in my own imagination, I talk often to myself. Wanting to engage in serious conversation with my heart, I crave quiet time. It seems to me that it is the weak and those lacking in self-confidence who need to be constantly surrounded by other people.

As different as my fingerprints are from everyone else’s, so is my character and I have no intention of changing just to impress or appease some; I am no chameleon. I do not aim to please everyone, I am not Lengzem magazine.

I do not change my traits to force myself on others so they will accept me.

This is who and what I am, take it or leave it. Just as I have never apologised for my diabetes, I have never apologised for my character.

I have a mind separate from yours, allow me to have opinions of my own.

Were you to attempt to understand my life, you would never succeed; I myself fail to understand it.   Walt Whitman’s lines

“Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

describes me exactly.

Sometimes I feel like a paper kite with broken string, cast on a tree branch by the wind and hanging there aimlessly.

Not just any kite but one with eye-catching colours and made of quality paper is what I would like to be though.

One that someone walking out in the wilds catches glimpse of and happily climbs up and takes home contentedly. Repairs with great care the spine, the spreader, the cross, the tail, and reconnects with a strong, sound string.

Perhaps you are that solitary walker who finds that paper kite.

It is my dearest wish that you and I remain thus connected, with I being your source of joy and happiness.

But when the day comes that you grow weary of playing with me, take me to a wide, open hilltop on a bright, sunny day and release me into a light, cheery breeze. That is when you will break off the connection between us.

Perhaps the kind breeze will lift me onto a nearby tree branch again – to be rescued once more by someone else.

Then he will lift me up and let out the line, and I will sail the skies and dance among the clouds.  And when he wishes, he will draw me back in, and taking a quick sniff of me, will exclaim, “Ah, a scent of heaven!”

Photo credit:  Mala Pachuau & Amtea Hauhnar, with special thanks to C. Lalawmpuia Vanchiau

  

Translator’s Note:  I am so pleased to finally bring out this memorial tribute in the form of a translation of this soul-baring Mafaa Hauhnar piece,  the introductory essay to his last anthology of prose writings Hringnun Hrualhrui (published March 2018). The book would earn him a posthumous Book of the Year (2018) award from the Mizo Academy of Letters four months after he passed away in the early hours of December the 30th 2018 due to complications from diabetes.  

I began working on this translation shortly after Mafaa’s death but had to shelf it temporarily due to work pressures. Despite buying the book at its launch last March, I somehow never quite read the introduction. When I eventually did though, it took my breath away especially the poignancy of the paper kite analogy: Mafaa the writer, the paper kite blown around by every current of air, then nestling forgotten in the branches of a tree only to bring immense pleasure to those who take time to spend time with him, soaring high above the skies and bringing back a taste of heaven as he does time and time again to his readers.

I really got to know Mafaa in early 2015 when I was asked to work on a translation of one of his writings for an anthology (Contemporary Short Stories from Mizoram - Sahitya Akademi). We connected on Facebook and I quickly realised he had a tremendously quick mind which often reminded me of a witches’ cauldron because it always seemed to be bubbling over with some interesting thing or the other! Since unlike other Mizo writers, he also wrote in English, he became a permanent fixture at our Mizo writing in English events such as HillTalk, and assorted seminars and workshops: he was always one of our own.  And despite his boisterous, laugh-a minute reputation, I found him to be thoughtful, well-read and respectful. It surprised me though when he talked about his love of solitude, no, his preference for solitude because he always struck me as such a people person.  In this essay, he touches on all that and in hindsight, I wish I had known how  vulnerable and sensitive he had been as a person.  Rest in gentle peace, my friend.

Mombati Sarkar & Nostalgia Spills Over - Ben Zongte

Like words from a stammering tongue,
Power keeps eluding us in the hills.
It slips away unannounced
and when it comes back,
as though a war hero has returned -
is met with bursts of applause
and the mothers’ resounding ‘hallelujah’
can be heard across the land.

Its absence brings talk of politics
And the angry menfolk have even
branded the government ‘Mombati Sarkar’
Some proclaim that they
are being forcefully cut off
because the government
is making up for losses
While others in defense
Shout, ‘It’s because of the rain!’

In some houses, the darkness
lends room for an eerie setting
to talk about encounters retold
of creatures pale and cold
that rode with lone riders
on their way back home.
And on this note, the storyteller
would send the youngest boy
scurrying reluctantly to fetch
a glass of water, though
none seemed thirsty at all.

Meanwhile in corners
mothers and grandmothers gather;
cradling infants frightened by the dark.
They hum hymns from Church
and talk softly of the impermanence of darkness,
and how it makes the stars appear brighter.
They pray to God and ask for light to be restored.

Then by strange consonance, or utter luck,
a star indeed appears victorious
to form a new government,
which sends the people asking,

If this could be the answer
‘Will the star restore their light?’ or
Have they been cursed with yet
another ‘Mombati Sarkar’?

              ~~~

Nostalgia spills over
this soul like a hedge
of pink bougainvillea
on a white picket fence
in spring.

Yet, amidst the billowing
and spring songs,
the warm reverie
and my gandmother's memory.
I still cannot make amends
with what time has done.

Yellow - Lalrinkima "Seiji" Ralte

It is illogical to think
that any one who doesn’t like you,
Likes everyone who doesn’t like you.

A land belongs to its people,
& people like us —
who are alienated, segregated
and isolated in these hinterlands.
From a great civilization
whose fame expands
far beyond boundaries
and eons of history where
the greatest achievements
of mankind have been
witnessed then and now.

We are its illegitimate brother,
bonded by the imperialist white.
And a conflate
of brown & yellow can never
become something nice.
Though we too,
chant ‘Jai Hind’, our voices
fade in the midst of
disdain and discrimination
since we are the
shallow yellow fellows
who are not more
mammals than a cow.

But we too
sing ‘Vande Mataram’
& pledge our allegiance
to the Tiranga,
Even when we are asked
to pay extra rupees
to enter the Taj.
Because we are
the yellow pad that lets
the magnificent lotus
float on water.



Lalrinkima "Seiji" Ralte is currently working as Guest Faculty in the Dept. of Economics at Mizoram University. He enjoys writing in both English and Mizo, and his take here on the 70th anniversary of India's Republic Day from the marginalised Mizo point of view is particularly interesting.

A Haiku, Haiga and Haibun Collection - William Zote

1.  

2.     A Different Kind of Art

.

I tear out the page in furious exasperation and rip it to pieces. I simply can't write anything. 

.

And the suffocating humidity sure doesn't help relieve my throbbing headache.

.

After a while I decide to paint something. But I soon give up again...even sooner than I did writing. 

.

I can't focus my mind on anything. Any creative idea that starts to flow quickly evaporates in the sweltering heat. All that's flowing out of me is sweat. Sweat, sweat.. and more sweat. 

.

I give up.

hot evening

i lay down my skills and watch the sun

paint poetry

3. A piece of sheet music falls at my feet. I pick it up and walk towards the violinist.

.

It's a pretty windy evening. And the lane is practically empty except for the two of us.

.

I look at the notation. There's not a single symbol that I understand.

.

I used to be a musician too. But I never got around to learning music notation. I didn't have to. I was a natural. I learned and played by ear. All I had to do was listen carefully and I was able to identify even super fast scales and arpeggios. And I never forgot the pieces I'd learned or composed.

.

I know... I'm sure I'd still play the guitar had I not lost the use of my left fingers (partially).

.

The accident. The wounds. The smell of the hospital. The surgery. The pain. The realization that I'd never play the guitar again. The long nights. The tears. The times I wanted to die. Well, I did die. A part of me died in the accident.

.

And now it's all coming back to me. My ghost is coming back to me.

.

crows on wires

the street fiddler's

haunting notes

4.  Beacons of Love

.
I want to tell you another story; a folktale I heard many times as a child.
.
Long time ago, there was a young man named Hrangchhuana who was in love with a girl from the neighbouring village. Her name was Chawngmawii.
.
Unfortunately, the two villages were bitter enemies. But in spite of all the danger, Hrangchhuana would regularly sneak into Chawngmawii's village at night to spend time with her.
.
But eventually he ran out of luck and was finally captured one night.
.
He was executed, and his severed head was placed on a pike (as was the custom).
.
When she couldn't bear to see it anymore, Chawngmawii stole Hrangchhuana's head, walked all the way to his village, and gave it to his parents so they could give him a proper burial.
.
When the men found out, they were outraged. To make a long story short, they killed her too.
.
It is said that Jupiter and Venus are the souls of Hrangchhuana and Chawngmawii. And sometimes you can see them meet in the sky.
.
Now, every time you look up and see the two planets, I hope you'll remember the story I just told you. The story of a love that bloomed amidst the thorns of enmity; a love that couldn't be torn apart by war; a love that outshone the flames of hate...and still continues to shine to this day. A story written in the sky.
.

old windowpane

i draw a love song between

Venus and Jupiter

William Zote is an extraordinarily gifted writer and artist who lives in Aizawl, and specializes in haiku, haiga and haibun. While he began writing poetry (as well as prose) on social media around 2012, he developed a real interest in haiku through his Facebook friendship with Josie Hibbing and subsequently became part of a haiku group where he was strongly influenced by Sandi Pray. Some of his poems were included in an anthology entitled Heart Breaths: Book of Contemporary Haiku, published in 2016, and another is due sometime this year in a publication of the haikufoundation.org.

His art, which complements his writings, is also uniquely creative, being created on assorted medium such as glass and concrete walls. While he was always interested in drawing as a child, he abandoned it temporarily as he grew into adolescence and only picked it up again after he began writing haikus.

We hope that he gets to publish these beautiful pieces of writings and art sometime very soon in the future.