Reaching our Destination

Dr Omila Thounaojam *

Who knew that it would be like fighting an endless fight? Who had the slightest of idea about the distance we would be conditioned to travel?

Where is the desired land situated? Are we ever reaching the ideal ground with the ideal system woven around the ideology of providing the best for the common man?

It seems like we are tormented beyond explanation. The mere truth is we are running a marathon without a clue about “how much” distance we must cover. It is not like we were so ignorant and headless or mindless. All the more it could be confessed as well that we were betrayed from all the corners.

We were cornered and we were not even conscious of the fact that we were. We are bombarded with a series of tormenting situations by the people whom we believed were our saviours, our representatives. The definition of a welfare state, or welfare group or public heads is most inconsistent in our land.

The more we thought we were nearing a state of perfection in understanding the most difficult bunch of people in our world, the more we were carried away by the impossibility of understanding them.

It makes the existing turbulent situation before us all the more complicated. Whom should we rely on and depend on for justice – has become the most rhetorical statement for the moment.

Our house is on fire and the services that could be best utilized to put off the wild flames are nowhere to be found. Many thought help would reach soon but it hasn’t yet.

The political leaders of the state have turned their faces away. All they seem to be most concerned about is pleasing the head of the country. Whether the laymen suffer or die has no effect whatsoever to them. It is the man on the golden chair positioned at a far off land that matters the most.

As such your soul remains untouched when you see bloody sacrifices done by your countrymen for the sake of your motherland. If power could corrupt the soul so deeply then we are to be blamed to a certain extent for giving you that. Had we known that you ll be ruined with the obsession with power then we wouldn’t have given it to you at all.

The situation has become so absurd that we are running all around to protect who we are and to preserve our existence that is reflected gloriously through our traditional and cultural heritages. We are doing whatever we could to salvage our indigenous identity and elements of our great ancestors that must be kept protected.

And yet it is our own people – some of them – who are betraying his own countrymen.

Collectively we have lodged a fight demanding for our rightful rights and instead of encouraging such a meaningful claim, we are tortured and proven illegal by the agents of the state government who are ironically the sons and daughters of the same mother whom we are trying to protect through raising a public voice.

Today we see the common man suffering so much in this process. Families in our state are surviving in the midst of fear and anxiety. They have been eating meals that consisted of the limited stock of whatever they could get hold of or arrange under the pressured situation of bundhs and curfews in the state.

The brave souls never complained for they believe that their sacrifices would be rewarded one day in the near future. Dirty politics could not discourage their strong wills and to carry on with their most challenging ambition of reaching the desired destiny. Together they march forth, never to look back.

May be there are multiple attempts to harm their high spirits and to crush their strong will by dark elements being injected in their midst. May be some tried hard enough to play the most old fashioned trick of divide and rule formula as well but trust me, this time our courage will not be tampered by any such evil force or factor.

Today we suffer for a brighter future tomorrow. So no harm if we continue running the toughest marathon ever in existence in the history of mankind.

Until and unless we reach our destined land, we will sing the song of our courageous ancestors and continue with our duty of aiming for that civil society that must include the genuine welfare of its people.