(Speech of Monalisa Changkija during A Kevichusa Citizenship
Award and Chalie Kevichusa Essay Award)
Greetings
In all honesty, I cannot claim to have known Chalie
Kevichusa well therefore it was with great trepidation I accepted Mimi’s invite
to speak this evening because to say no to the occasion of his remembrance
would be saying no to his life and the legacies he bequeathed to us. So, here I
am with the hope that I can share the little that I knew of Chalie
Kevichusa.
To explain my association with Chalie, I have to go back to
1985, when I started writing for Nagaland Times. After I was hired as a Cub
Reporter, I persuaded my then Editor Late TP Bhatta to allow me a column. Soon
I wrote two columns for Nagaland Times ~ on youth and on women. I then realised
that neither the youth nor women live in bubbles in society and State. It is
also injustice to them to deny their integral existence and struggle for
survival in society and State. So, I persuaded my Editor once again to allow me
to write one comprehensive column, consequently my column titled “The State of
Affairs”. If I remember correctly, I also wrote another column for Nagaland
Times titled “Of Roses and Thorns” but it is possible that was another column I
wrote for Ura Mail. Memory fails me and I make no apologies for that.
Now, I knew that my column was (dare I say?) widely read
because of the feedback I received but I didn’t know that Chalie Kevichusa also
read my column. That’s how I also started writing a column for Ura Mail titled
“Of Scents, Sights and Sounds”. You see, there is an unwritten norm, convention
and code of ethics that no Journalist will write for two papers at the same
time in the same town. Indubitably, Chalie was very well aware of this
unwritten “obstacle” but he sure went for what he wanted. Legend has it that he
met my then Chief Editor, Late SK Dutta, popularly and fondly called Kalu-Da,
and requested, perhaps even demanded, that I be allowed to write for Ura Mail
too. Evidently, Kalu-Da relented to Chalie’s request, demand or persuasion.
Chalie worked his magic and made history happen when he got one Journalist to
write for two papers at the same time and in the same town ~ and this against
the background of the fierce rivalry between the two Weeklies ~ but a rivalry
without any vindictiveness.
All this while, I had no idea of the “wheeling and dealing”,
so to speak, between Chalie and Kalu-Da. One fine day, I was informed to write
a column for Ura Mail and that’s how my association with Chalie began. Editors
have no time to chit-chat with rookies so only once in a while I would meet
Chalie when I went to submit my column for the week. When I did meet him, ever
so briefly, I could feel his eyes peering into my soul and I would make a hasty
retreat. You see, he was up there and I was way down below so obviously I was
nervous and acted like all kinds of fools in his presence. There is no word to
describe the impression he made on me as a person and a Journalist but it
endured.
We lost him too early. Nagaland’s media fraternity, not
least I, could and would have learnt so much from him. Our loss is irreparable,
so is our society and State’s ~ and so much more his dear and near ones’. The
irony is: the moment an assassin pulls the trigger, he writes the name of the
assassinated in bold letters in the book of history. And so to remind ourselves
Chalie lives:
Not Be Dead
If tomorrow
my body
is riddled
with bullets,
I shall not be dead.
Nor will I
be defeated and silenced.
The event
would only mean
the capitulation
of those who
cannot think
beyond the AK-47.
The event
would only mean
the recognition
of the impact
of my words
over those who elect.
Unlike them who
pull the trigger
I am not
for hire,
all my words
are for free.
So, if tomorrow
my body
is riddled
with bullets,
I shall not
be dead.
Nor defeated
or silenced.
(This poem was written and published in “Ura Mail” in July
1992. Because of various reasons, I had the Journalist community of Nagaland in
mind while penning the above. On September 23, 1992, Chalie Kevichusa, Editor
of “Ura Mail’ fell prey to assassins’ bullets. I dedicated this poem to his
memory)
I don’t know how to convey what I feel about Chalie so
however imperfect and however irrelevant, please allow me Beethovan’s 7th:
Beethovan’s 7th
These are bad times, sad times, mad times,
as they were since the birth of Time,
as is their wont.
Thrust on its path, we are pebbles,
hurtling up, down, sideways
in all directions
almost sleep-walking
landing in places unimagined, unimaginable
sometimes soft, sometimes hard,
most times unwelcome, unconquerable.
Yet, music is made.
Though incomprehensible to us
all movements have cadence, meanings, messages,
as embossed on Beethovan’s 7th Symphony.
(Written on July 15, 2022)
Chalie, and indeed a lot of us older ones, lived in a
bizarre world at a bizarre time when violence was the lingua franca of those
who claimed to represent and speak for us. It was a time we knew the odds were
heavily staked against us but we actually lived:
Actually lived
I will regale you with stories of yore.
of battles we fought and won,
wars we waged and lost.
I will regale you with narratives of love and hate,
of guts and gallantry,
the standards we held dear.
I will regale you with legends,
of principles and philosophies,
of possibilities and promises.
I will tell you of the myths we burst,
erasing the lines between truth and lies,
but lost the war on trickeries and treacheries
But don’t ask me the reasons why,
That was a time we did and died.
That was the time we actually lived.
(February 20, 2018)
There are a lot of people, who hate questions but Chalie was
born to question:
Born to question
And yes, we’ve reached that age not to question why we
mustn’t question but question we still do because some of us are born to
question.
(February 12, 2017)
Chalie was not only an Ace Journalist and Editor but also
one of our finest writers. While I don’t claim to have read much of his
writings, from the little that I did, it was difficult to decide where his
prose and his poetry began and ended. I believe he would have wanted his words,
his writings, to reach across all shores:
Freedom is …
I write my poems on sand,
the wind blows them away
but that’s alright
because I write
my poems on sand
for the wind to blow them
away, everywhere,
beyond borders and boundaries,
without passports and visas.
Freedom is the wind blowing unfettered
on whose wings my poems ride
to touch accessible hearts.
(Written on May 5, 2013)
The very fact that we are gathered here today in remembrance
of an exceptional person and to celebrate the life he lived is an unambiguously
loud message to those delusional, living in an illusionary bubble:
Crumbling Authority
First they shouted to silence my sobs but my tears spoke
louder.
Then they screamed to smother my voice.
But my silenced words became lyrics and a song was
sung.
So they hastened my exit in a bedecked coffin,
interwoven vigourously with the best traditions of our
culture,
entwined securely with the thread of “our” political rights.
But at my grave, pledges were made,
an anthem rang across the universe
to celebrate the words tears speaks,
to venerate the triumph silenced words win,
to inscribe the defeat of crumbling authority speaking in
shouts and screams.
(Written on March 5, 2017)
Along the same lines:
Murder
It is not death we fear.
It is the well-planned, well-thought agenda
and well-executed murder we suspect.
For after justice is murdered,
now there’s only us, the obstacle.
(Written on September 6, 2010)
Chalie was assassinated very near my parents’ home in the
afternoon of Papa’s 60th birthday. He loved having friends over and celebrating
his birthdays but ever since that day, Papa stopped celebrating his birthdays.
Chalie lives on and we will celebrate him always. Today, this evening, this
gathering, is the evidence:
You said, I replied
“People die, you know”, you said
“Yes, I know. But only if we forget they lived”, I replied.
(July 27, 2015)
Thank you for having me here this evening. Thank you for
giving me your time.
(Monalisa Changkija is the Editor of Nagaland Page)
