A Wicked Dream

Robert Lanky *

Some time back after returning from a seminar late in the night, I quickly munched my dinner and went to sleep. In my sleep I saw a dream which shook me :

There was a vast kingdom called Bindustan. It had a number of provinces and smaller kingdom ruled by their own chieftains and kings. All the provinces lived in perfect harmony.

One of these was called, Heaven Sisters. This province was covered with dense jungle, mountains and rivers. There were many tribes far and wide ruled by their chiefs.

The tribes had their own customs and traditions which differed with each tribe. Agriculture was main occupation while hunting was considered essential for sustenance. There were often deadly clashes between the tribes leading to large scale massacres and killings, as the people were ferocious fighters and very adept at using the jungles to their advantage.

One fine day, expeditionary people from far away land, came to the land of Bindustan. These were white skinned people. They slowly established their control over Bindustan.

Soon, they reached Heaven Sisters in their quest to conquer land. They took advantage of the disunity of tribals and soon started ruling them. Consequence to that the tribal people became slaves in their own land being employed as laborers to do menial jobs.

After a long struggle the white people were driven away by the people of the Bindustan. The tribes suddenly found themselves to be free. A few tribals wanted to establish their own kingdom and launched an agitation against Bindustan.

Protracted negotiations by Bindustan saw a rift in Heaven Sisters and the group slowly split into "two into four, four into eight" and so on till there were so many that, one stopped counting. Down the years, the movement started by the tribal chiefs became a business of extortion, murder, intra group rivalry and petty crimes.

Meanwhile Bindustan was under pressure in terms of resources and financial assistance to Heaven Sisters. Finally one day unable to bear the cost of sustaining the tribes Bindustan dissociated itself from Heaven Sisters.

This sudden freedom came as a surprise and shock to the tribal chiefs. Everybody wanted to rule the new kingdom. Soon there was a struggle for power amongst various groups. Private armies mushroomed overnight.

Mayhem spread in form of looting, kidnapping and coercion to align with group. The finances started drying up as there was no more money coming in from Bindustan and the local industries had shut down. The tribes concentrated themselves in their respective areas for protection and security.

The neighboring kingdoms started eyeing the land of Heaven Sisters, which broke up into smaller kingdoms governed by own tribal chiefs or headman. One fine day, the brown people from neighbouring kingdom of Kina arrived - who were similar to white people except for their facial features and resembled the tribals.

They took advantage of the disharmony and started ruling Heaven Sisters, levying taxes and once again started using tribals laborers for menial tasks. The tribals became slaves in their own land. However, this time Bindustan was not there to drive the brown people away from their land.

There were no negotiations, no representation and no agreements. It was absolute monarch rule under the king of Kina. Protesters were punished severely either by hanging or execution. One of the tribal chief was being executed when I suddenly woke up—afraid to see the scene.

I got on to my daily chores of getting ready feeling sorry for the people of Heaven Sisters. It was with a heavy heart that I went about my job still feeling disturbed also praying to God that ; Unity and Peace should remain intact. There was a sense of unease which I know would go away with time.

But how fast, I only Wondered.