Thokchom ongbi Lalita

You are here: Home » features » Profile of Manipuri Personalities » Thingnam Anjulika

E-Pao! Profile Feature - Thokchom <I>ongbi</I> Lalita

Thokchom ongbi Lalita
— Meira Paibi —

By: Thingnam Anjulika Samom *

This is a story of one of the women whose wizened hand first held the torch that has now become synonymous with the fight against oppression – a tale of camaraderie, of sacrifice, of tears and of progressive women.

Thokchom ongbi Lalita, now in her mid-seventies, married at the age of 14 and a half years. Her father-in-law was a strict disciplinarian and both she and her younger sister-in-law Ramani strove hard to learn the responsibilities and duties of a Meitei mou.

Lalita’s husband, ten years older than her, died after a long illness when she turned 36, leaving the parenting responsibility of their eight children solely to her.

“My husband was a jeweller. After he expired, I started making silver jewellery to ensure that my children had two meals a day. When my youngest child had just turned one, some of us women felt we should do something about the alcoholics in the locality. Someone suggested we should give them to the police to be locked away till they see reason. None in my own family drank alcohol.

The Meira Paibis

So we started our work. But the police would set these drunkards free the next day. Then they would drink again and abuse us, and we would catch them again. This cycle continued for a long time, and the policemen started asking us why we are catching the same persons again and again.

Once we caught a drunkard by the riverbank. He was dressed in khudei and we didn’t want to take him to the police like that. So we brought a pair of trousers from his house and asked him to put it on, shifting a little further away out of modesty.

Suddenly we heard a splash; he was escaping. Some of us ran to the other bank shouting, “Catch the thief, he has snatched my earrings,” to wake up the people around. We frantically searched around but couldn’t find him.

Later he told us he had climbed a nearby tree and was watching us. What cheek! Now he is a sober man and we are all old, we laugh over it and he tease us saying, “I haven’t forgotten you called me an earring thief.”

Those were the days of nishabandh. The meira came afterwards after they took away Ibomcha. We all knew this boy. He wanted to join the army and he would run early in the morning as practice for the physicals. That day too he had gone to the meadow and run.

How could he know that there was a bomb planted nearby? He was sweeping the courtyard when the army brought their dogs. They say the combing operation at Heirangoithong was the first of its kind. We couldn’t even go to the pond to fetch water.

The dogs sniffed at Ibomcha and barked, and he was taken away. I went out to the hotel by the road, waiting for Ramani to come back. She came soon after and I told her what happened. Then, Momon, Ramani and I, we rounded up all the women in the locality and went to the army post at Langthabal.

We all stood there in the midday heat waiting. When Ibomcha was finally released at night, he couldn’t even walk or talk. It was dark and we gathered straw from the nearby fields, twisted it and used it as a meira, a flaming torch to light our way.

After that we started keeping vigil – dividing into smaller groups and guarding all possible entry points into our locality. We would be tired after the long day’s work in our houses and feel sleepy too. So we fried some rice and mixed it with boiled sugarcane juice to make cheng kabok, a whole lokmai of it. For the smokers we brought bidi packets – all these just to keep awake. But some of us would be extra tired and promptly fall asleep.

It was hard; most of us had small children. We would feed them and make them sleep, after that we would come out. But it was love that bound us women together. Then even educated women, officers and doctors joined us. Now there are so many splinter groups. Love seems to have lessened today, while the urge to be the leader is strong in each.

We used to go to different places to tell the women to gather themselves into groups for the sake of the society. The first trip to a village in Chandel in 1967 I cried so much. I had never gone like that before. Iche Momon shouted after us, “Don’t worry, I’ll look after your kids and house.”

All the time we worked for the safety of other’s sons and families. Yet my own son was killed so ruthlessly and I couldn’t do anything. Khamba, my third son and fifth child was the best in studies and I had so much hope on him. He used to tell me, “Why do you worry so much? When I am all grown up I will make you happy.” His brothers never said that to me. He wanted to be a teacher or an army man, that too an officer, not a small sepoy.

It was two days before Yaosang, a Wednesday. As we couldn’t afford it, his coach had supplied him with an old uniform and shoes for a match at Kangjeibung on Friday. He had just finished washing it. There was a volleyball match going on in the playground by the river.

Shortly after he went out to watch, we heard the guns – the CRPF stationed nearby had fired at the spectators after some unknown youths had snatched their guns. Later I learnt that 13 people were killed. Khamba was one of them. This was in 1984 and ironically, the match was between Manipur Police and the Border Security Force teams.

All my children weren’t at home at that time. I ran out to the lampak and saw it strewn with bodies. I thought they were all my children and I fainted. When I came to I was at home, in bed. My elder sons had come home, but Khamba wasn’t there.

I ran out again to search, I asked all by-passers – some covered in blood, some in grime. I asked them if they had any news of Khamba. Maybe they all knew for they looked away and went by silently.

My other two sons are also dead now. At least in their cases I am satisfied that I had taken care of them in their illness and we tried our best to save them. We could console ourselves saying that their rice had run out. Yet for Khamba, I don’t even have that consolation.

He went hale and hearty without any prior notice. His football uniform was still hanging out to dry in the courtyard.

Even now every time Yaosang arrives I think of him and cry. After his death I was bedridden for about two months, I couldn’t eat a thing and became like a mad woman. He was the most promising, yet he was the first to go.

Nowadays, they have made me one of the secretaries of Nupi Samaj. I tell them, “I am old now, you younger lots should take over, there is no one to look after my young grandchildren at home.” But they tell me, you have to be there.

Ramani often sleeps over at the office, I go only when there is a major event. Back home too, my daughter-in-laws has joined the meira vigil. I rest.”

Thingnam Anjulika Samom wrote this article for The Sangai Express . You can contact the writer at thingnam(at)yahoo(dot)com . This article was webcasted on October 09th, 2007

* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.