A False Kingdom
- Part 5 -

By Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei *

An opulent place with chandeliers hanging, the huge hall was fitted with Marshall Speakers and there were amplifiers of the same brand around the podium. At the back of the podium an unfurled screen facing an IBM projector suspended from the ceiling, a meticulously dressed man with muddy shoes was on a corner, behind an IBM laptop computer.

They began with holy songs and the lyrics were displayed on the screen. Everybody read and everybody sang. Then there was a long lecture by the messiah-like man pointing "that chapter" and "those chapters" in "that page" and "those pages." He tried hard to be religiously hilarious but the biblical words didn't help and besides it wouldn't make much sense since the majority of the people there wouldn't get the language he was using.

When the lecture was over the messiah-like man brought in some thin young people in cowboy outfits, they were the members of a rock band from another city. The holy place had to employ tactic like this to draw more crowd. The band members banged their heads, their sombreros fell over the carpeted floor then their faces were behind the long hair. They sang about maker and his messages and everybody sang after them and jumped as though the spirits had got them and the bodies were doing the wishes of the spirits.

When it ended the lead vocalist of the band went on praising his maker and then he invited the band manager who was accompanied by a lady who could have been mistaken for a Hollywood star with the pearl necklace around her white slender neck matching the light greenish dress, her soft slender arms clasped and placed upon her belly. When her bright face smiled,framed in long black hair, revealing the perfectly set teeth, everybody in the hall must have forgotten the maker. She stood smiling next to the band manager, his closed eyes looking up and the moving lips speaking the memorized phrases from the book then he extended what the vocalist had already extended about the maker.

The mass was over and everybody stood up, I thought they were going to go home. They huddled around the veranda where tea and snacks were served. There was more brainwashing going over the tea. The veranda couldn't hold the immense crowd; half of it was now spilled over the empty concrete courtyard. Above the courtyard the sky didn't appear to be in a good mood. It had gathered enough clouds and now signaling it would be unleashing it power. It did and the spilled over crowd came rushing in and they all sank back in their previous places with stark indifference. Then I was able to see the hasty enthusiasm, which easily fizzled out. It was rather like an imposed thing to them.

With the holy places all over the place and the people with betel-nut juice-stained mouths in nice suits, they looked like some recent settlers, who had brought an entire civilization from another land and they were in the process of building up the whole settlements and yet before they could accomplish they had lost the courage and the idea to carry it out. And the civilization-like process they wanted to plant didn't start with seeds and seedlings, it began with imported plants and the plants were imported without testing the soil-suitability as well as the relevance.

As it was done in that reckless manner those who were responsible for the importation had now become aggressive and, therefore, from preaching it had become coercion and in coercion people experienced obliteration, obliteration of their indigenous culture and tradition. Another word it was a false western world which they had discovered in some films or in magazines and noticing their naïve ignorance the opportune missionaries seduced them to be a party to their religious expedition. What ignorantly conceived as the discovery of a remote corner in the map was now turned to a hotbed for faith, where people were blindly convinced and brought up with the false idea that Jerusalem was below the ground upon which they walked.

She was bored but she pretended she wasn't. I took her hand and said "let's go" and with much enthusiasm she asked " what about the bloody rain?" I took her till the veranda, with my waterproof jacket I went down to get a taxi. She jumped in and we went back to her place. I asked her why she was dying to get out of that place about which she was gung-ho about. She began telling me stories that had happened after our encounter years ago.

She couldn't finish university because she was an alcoholic and when she had nothing in her life few good-looking Americans came with some men from her community to talk to her. They discovered her problem and her unskilled life. The manner in which they spoke to her made her feel she was a waste and the only place where she could get rid of that misery was to attend their world. The Americans were good-looking people so she took interest in them, after few visits they opened the door to their maker and what more could be done in his name. Through him she was sent on a mission in some state in America. When she broke the news to her closed ones they all swooped down the place and right away joined the world.

To her the sojourn in America was an eye opener and she was led from one holy place to another and when she was done with the holy visits she had no time left for shopping. It, however, brought her fame in her friend circle and also in town. Then more people starting going and upon their returns her fame dwindled and now she was an ordinary holy place goer. For living she had been working for a marketing company.

I believed she had more reasons behind her problem, though I didn't press more. The rain didn't stop and the whole place was still as gloomy as I had experienced since my arrival. We stayed in and feasted on each other acting out what we might have imagined at some point and when we had exhausted ourselves we slid into slumber. In our conversations she never uttered a word suggesting I prolong my stay there, instead she looked at me as someone who would wake her up in the middle of the night to bid adieu and I thought I shouldn't make a significant compromise with my trotting life.

It became much more clear to me why she didn't say when she shed some light on her another life. She was married to a man of faith, it was a marriage her parents and the holy place couldn't approve. They couldn't handle the pressure; the family thought of the man as a stranger and the holy place told her to get rid of him, because of the child they had to be together for sometimes. When the child was three years old they separated and the child was placed in the custody of her parents.

I felt that she was eagerly groping for an articulate form to express her opinions of the holy place, but not really so sure she had been telling the stories. The stories of her life which was bound to an establishment and from which she couldn't unhook herself as the grip of that establishment had become so powerful that every element in the kingdom had to surrender to it lest they be ostracized.

In the early part of the morning she said " People were talking about us there and when I'm back there all eyes will be on me. If you could become one among us then they would happily embrace you." I said I didn't need their hug to live my miserable life, my misery had a reason. Despite my adamant rejection she began to beseech I become a member so that we could be together. I said we could always go and live in some city, but she said she couldn't tear herself from the establishment.

Knowing my stubbornness her face changed and in her silence she began courting anger. I didn't come here for that silly religious thing nor to face her anger. I stood up and announced it would be better for both of us if I left the place. She was possessed by the anger I spoke no further and came out early in the morning to leave the place. To leave her and her false kingdom.

Concluded.....

Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei

* Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei, a resident of Bangkok, contributes to e-pao.net regularly.
The writer can be contacted at bobomeitei(at)hotmail(dot)com
This article was webcasted on March 12 2011.