Where will I survive? Where will I live? Where will I exist? Where is my path?
Ningombam Bupenda Meitei *
When I was a child, almost everyday, innocent Manipuris used to get killed by anti-state militants or state armed paramilitary cum police. When I grow up, in order to survive peacefully, almost all bright innocent Manipuris come out of Manipur to reside in India and abroad. While those who could go out of India are safe from getting racially attacked, but those who have stayed in India, out of Manipur, again have to face the old devil which I witnessed when I was a child, because the devil is the same as it, even today, kills the innocent people of Manipur outside Manipur in India.
The story for the innocent Manipuris is the same. In India including in Manipur, all innocent Manipuris are forced to live in fear with mental agony and to all of them, 'success' means to have survived a day without any physical impairment so that all the family members in a family survive (not to talk about living with dignity and meaning) the day and have dinner together; and it is in that togetherness, the family rejoices even more than the happiness of any American becoming the President of the United States.
Today, I, as a common innocent Manipuri, am standing at a crossroad thinking and asking myself, ''where should I go from here - to stay in my country, yet to be a nation, or, leave my country to live a more dignified and meaningful existence somewhere on this planet because I am a human being and Earth is my home?"
Today, I question myself whether having been born in Manipur of India is a crime or sin. I don't blame anyone but blame the time 21st century (21st India and 21st Manipur) in which I have been forced consistently to frame such question not only in my mind but also in my heart.
If almost everyday, an innocent Manipuri is killed or beaten in India including Manipur, where will I, an innocent Manipuri, go? Where will I survive? Where will I live? Where will I exist? Where is my path?
Again asking myself and not to anyone else, where will I survive? Where will I live? Where will I exist? Where is my path?
Whether Manipur, with its Chief Minister of hardly 3 million population, has 2 MPs ( Members of Parliament) in Lok Sabha and 1 MP in Rajya Sabha or not, I keep asking the same question of my existence to myself searching to discover my right path. After all, whether I am from Manipur or not, I am a human being. My place and timing of birth can not bind me in the same place and similar era, but certainly, I do not dream of leaving my place because circumstances of the present space and time force me to leave.
I love India but to say that I am an Indian and I love India, I must express, and to express, I must exist, and to exist, I must live, and to live, I must survive. But, is India including Manipur making me, at the least, to survive?
Where will I survive? Where will I live? Where will I exist? Where is my path?
After all, I am also a human being. I know since I am born, I shall die one day, but the reason of my birth should not be to die because I am an innocent Manipuri in India, because I want to die as a human being because I am a human being.
Where will I survive? Where will I live? Where will I exist? Where is my path?
- By a common innocent human of Manipur in India.
* Ningombam Bupenda Meitei wrote this article for e-pao.net
Ningombam Bupenda Meitei is a writer, poet and orator.
This article was posted on October 23, 2014.
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