When was the last time we laughed?

Heroic Philem
Manipur, the jewel of India, has been melting since May last year because of the conflict between Kuki and Meetei/Meitei. There has been a substantial loss to both communities. And we, in the relief camps, have forgotten when we last laughed. The conflict has caused so much suffering that we can no longer remember when we last laughed.
The conflict not only made us homeless, but also destroyed our dreams. The fire that burned our homes also burned our hearts. How quickly the fierce heat leaves each of us! When we think back to the happy moments we spent with our families in our homes, new pains arise. The pain will never end. When we think about our bleak future, the pain becomes multiple. The fire swallowed up our lifelong incomes.
We are emotionally and psychologically disturbed. When we see our children growing up in refugee camps, our hearts burst and the lava of anger bursts through them. But we can do nothing, only sit and think about the things that are beyond our control. We have nothing, only the body that carries our soul, no home, no property and a dark future, and to reach it, we have lost our way.
We believe that time heals everything, but with every passing second, we are forced to leave our homes. We feel ourselves sinking deeper into the ripple of pain. When we try to forget and start anew, an object or an incident always reminds us of our homes. Even seeing a dog or a bicycle reminds us of our possessions – the possessions we bought and earned through our sincere struggle. We remember the street we walked on, the land we played on, the field where we grew rice and the riverbank where we grazed our cattle. Words in a dictionary cannot describe the emotional attachment we have to our hometown. But we have been in the refugee camps for so long and trying to break that attachment, which is impossible. We will always have an emotional, identical, political and social bond with our hometown. The wealth that was turned to ashes will never come back. The pages of history preserve the story of the conflict; it cannot be erased. We can acquire far more wealth than we ever owned or possessed, but that wealth cannot obscure the story of the conflict and our suffering in the refugee camps.
We have only one life, but we have many roles to play. And right now we are innocent victims waiting for sunshine. No matter how long this devastation lasts, because there is always a morning after the night and spring after the winter, we hope that one day we will have our own home. The writer can be reached at [email protected]. He is a teacher and author and is an inmate at Mani-pur Trade and Expo Centre, Lamboikhong-nangkhong.