Sandhya Singzango
Every chapter of our history
speaks of battles fought with valour and spirit
great victories and legacies
heroic biographies and memoirs.
But our story will be different now.
All I can tell you is that
the story will be different and poignant.
Our story will remain intertwined and interwoven.
We will be both heroes and villains stuck on the same page.
We have grown from the same root
but spread in different directions.
Like twins born from the same embryo
but with different destinies
confused by muddled theories and identities.
There is both love and hate. There is a strange unbreakable bond.
Sometimes we are the cause of our downfall. Indescribable and supernatural.
No Fedangma can fix it.
Is this some primitive magic spell or ancient curse?
More remains to be understood.
Once known for strength and bravery
We fight and live in a very contradictory situation.
When the power of unity is forgotten
all the beautiful parables and examples will be
only ruins and remnants if not realized in time.
Beware, this is now the last fight for survival
the last fight for identity
the last opportunity to live.
Name, geography and state all in one place
all these things are in peril.
Come, lets us chase away the Sogha-Sugup
Internalising Tagera Ningwaphumang within us.
Wake up like a Phoenix after the last battle.
Our history will be different now.
Let’s rewrite our history.
Stories of the Imbiri Yaungthangwa generation
stories of the Yakthung civilization.
[Sikkim based Poet Sandhya writes mainly in English. She is an author-activist who writes for preservation of Yakthung Civilisation. She has authored several papers and books on Limbu literature and culture in English. She has published two volumes of the translation of ‘Mundhum’ brilliantly compiled and written by poet Bairagi Kainla into English. She has historically archived the Sikkemese Limbu shamans in her work ‘Limbu Shamans: A Directory of Limbu Shamans in Sikkim’. Her recent work ‘Yakthung Civilisation’ is the first of its kind socio-anthropological, historical book that logically explores and excavates the great Limboo lifestyle, language, rituals and culture in a broad and unified structure. She is currently working on the rest of the volumes of ‘Mundhum’ by Bairagi Kainla as well as her own research work ‘Yakthum Mundhumlore’.]
(Translation from Nepali: Raja Puniani, acclaimed poet and translator based in Siliguri, West Bengal, India )
