Flight of a Fallen Angel

Homen Thangjam *

Often heard about them
In drunken schmooses
From "committed" activists
Drivers, doctors, engineers, lawyers
Professors, intrepid Commandos and IRBs
Women in the North AOC
Paona Bazar, Old Nambulane, etc.
Varied stock and ages in varied roles
Vegetable vendor in the morning
Kala Bazaar toubi in day time
Liqour vendor in the evening
Flesh seller anytime
"Pleasure" creatures for money.

Rs. 300 and Madam returned with Angel
A pair of wired Moreh bras
Supported her puerile frame
Sought passion in her glazed eyes
Hunted for warmth in her decrepit body
Flies and mosquitoes danced
Along with the moths
Mocking our silence
Bed bugs crawled on the straw bed
Espying our inactivity
Unwashed body and cheap perfume
The "Rice Hotel" smelled like a sty
Puked away my libido.

She played with my golden cufflinks
Asked if they're made of "real" gold
Caressed the silken Versace shirt on her face
Said in accented tone
She could see herself on my shoes
Toyed with the contents of my wallet
Said she was not a "regular"
Her mother thinks she's a cook
She needed just few more big bucks
Then she'd return to her village
Where the brooks sing and chase butterflies
Give up strange men and stench of the Hotel
Madam shouted: "Shhhh! Commandos are around".

Read about them in the Sangai Express
(Imphal, March 10, 2009)
On the night of February 27, 2009
When greater Imphal was under curfew
(Kishan, Token & Rajen were murdered, right)
Four Commandos of Thoubal Police
Wielding weapons barged
Into a "Rice Hotel" at North AOC
The intruders shouted:
"There is no use for women like you
We have additional bullets to eliminate you
Why you infected women are
Trying to spread diseases to others?"
The Commandos ordered the women
To remove their clothes
Threatened to shoot if they refused
Molested and man-handled
Inserted sticks into the private parts
Forced into various sexual activities
Merrily recorded the activities
Later, forced them into a Bolero jeep
But at an isolated place forced them out
The Commandos once again molested
Youngest of the victims (about 16 years old)
Demanded oral sex from her
When refused severely beaten up.

Days later Sangai Express reported
(Imphal, March 22, 2009)
About an "agreement"
Stated that the "unfortunate" incident
Occurred owing to a "misunderstanding"
And that the police agreed to "instruct"
The involved security personnel and others
Not to mete out such acts in future
There was no news of punishments
Or about compensation and rehabilitation
Neither the negotiator involved
Nor the ministry of social welfare
Cried for justice mutely accepted the agreement

The reported news items
I discovered later
Were cuds of amusement and leisure
Chewed by the learned civil society
In flies laden tea stalls
Air-conditioned hotel suites, etc
But what can you expect
In this Land of the Half-humans
Where fire, water, air, earth and sky
Are more valuable
Than the nameless citizens
Rape, harassment and killing
Are devices of ordered-democracy.

Angel showed me
The black and blue bruises
She suffered on the day
Complained of pain in her private parts
During urination after the assault
With gritted tooth said
She'd comply if I desired
She needed money, pay back Madam
And fly back with her clipped wings
To her village which was burnt down
By those who aspired
For a "Greater Motherland"
Where ghosts of her folks roam
Along with the flightless butterflies.