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secrets in families are never sacrosanct.
But why did it have to be he who was placed, in this particular instance, at the centre of the eternal contest between man and animal for dominion over the land?
villagers still identify the spot where it had stood as Imchanok’s bend because it was located at a turning of the jungle path.
‘What examination, what fees? Don’t you know what sacrifices we have made in our fight against the government? And how we are suffering in the forest? Are you saying that we should not collect taxes so that your sons can give examinations and become big “babus” in the Indian government to rule over us?’
At home, in fields and in forests their minds were filled with resentment and anger at the injustice inflicted on them over the years by the various players in Nagaland’s murky politics, plunging Naga society into anarchy.
why had I not resisted more vigorously,
Very soon the entire land was gripped by terror unleashed both by the underground forces as well government soldiers.
take off her waist cloth which he knew was the ultimate insult a Naga woman could hurl at a man signifying his emasculation.
a coarse and illiterate village woman had managed to unsettle his military confidence
Sonny was entering a twilight zone in the struggle for freedom where one could not identify the real enemy any more
for the rural people, it was simply seen as an opportunity to return to the utopian state of self-rule before the alien rulers had come and overturned their ancient way of life.
the retaliatory measures of the government forces blazed through the land like a wild fire, turning villages into burnt-out heaps, and people into creatures herded into concentration-camp-like grouping zones.
the convoluted politics of the ravaged land continue in the self-diminishing moves and counter moves of a people living in limbo.
I hesitated for the briefest while, but I knew I had to leave his dying universe.
