It’s a chilling December night. I am in a dream somewhere in Naga Land. There is no electricity. Someone tells me that the success story of Edison’s lamps at the Menlo Park seems to have little impact in this part of the world. There is darkness all around –pitch darkness. Visibility is almost zero.
Alone stands a solitary kerosene lamp on the table and burns happily. Beside the lamp, the face of a teenager glows rhythmically as the light from the lamp flickers. She has a dream to live for. Her dad is a skilled carpenter. Many Naga dads are. And that’s how the family is looked after. Her mom has chronic colon problem and cannot do much work. She has one younger brother. But he is deaf. She says,” My name is Aien, the language I cry in –anguish,” following Senti Toy’s song. Every night she claims that the stripes of Jesus have healed her beloved mom and brother. She must be an angel, I presume. Sad indeed, many parents have stopped praying for their children in Naga Land. But transformation and transfiguration are coming, she says. I don’t know how she got these words but it’s a dream and so all things are possible.
Tonight she is preparing for the HSLC examination in February. It’s just another night of study for her. She is aiming high and wants to make her family proud. She wants the Mayangnokcha Award beside the solitary kerosene lamp –from darkness to light. She knows she can make it. That’s what she tells me with a smile. So, I smile back to encourage her and her dreams to shine. I continue telling her that there can be fulfillment in all aspects of her life –both a vertical one towards God and a horizontal one towards others. She struggles to get the point but she listens intently as she always does. Then she tells me that the solitary kerosene lamp keeps her dream alive. If December darkness cannot overwhelm the capacity of the solitary kerosene lamp, neither can the surrounding bleakness bring her down. The bleaker the surrounding the brighter the light.
Afar, I hear Christmas carols billowing up and down. But she sits by the table and sings a folk song of forlorn love and hope. She says folklores give her courage and above all, identity. After a while she turns to me and says, “I have a dream. Do you?” She doesn’t tell me what her dream is but her smile again assures me that she is already riveted on her dream. Little wonder that dreams and realities go hand in hand.
Am I still dreaming? The solitary kerosene lamp burns on.
The ‘roaring twenties’ (1920-29) are still roaring into her ears, she says. People can still have cheerfulness and confidence. She says that we can plant cherry trees along the hillsides of Naga Land thereby adding odd beauty as they bloom in December. Tourists would certainly enjoy that winter beauty as a prelude on their way to the Hornbill Festival. She points me to one such tree through the window. Then she shows me a list of names of Naga heroes. She wants the roads and streets across Naga Land to bear those names –a legacy of victory. And yes, it’s not far. All things are possible in a dream. The solitary kerosene lamp burns on.
The ‘roaring twenties’ (1920-29) are still roaring into her ears, she says. People can still have cheerfulness and confidence. She says that we can plant cherry trees along the hillsides of Naga Land thereby adding odd beauty as they bloom in December. Tourists would certainly enjoy that winter beauty as a prelude on their way to the Hornbill Festival. She points me to one such tree through the window. Then she shows me a list of names of Naga heroes. She wants the roads and streets across Naga Land to bear those names –a legacy of victory. And yes, it’s not far. All things are possible in a dream. The solitary kerosene lamp burns on.
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