Group that attended the poetry reading of interdisciplinary artist, rōzumarī saṃsāra, at the Sisterhood Network’s office in Dimapur on Friday, January 25. (Photo Courtesy/Mhademo Kikon)
Morung Express News
Dimapur | January 25
Mhalo Lotha (77) first breaks into a love song, then a Christian one, ending with a Lotha song she composed for her daughter. Eyes closed, she sings from the depths of her soul, reaching the audience of women—social workers, artists, poets, professionals, church workers, young, old, single, married—in waves, reflecting the journey of her body, mind and spirit. She is at the Sisterhood Network’s office at Nagarjan Point here on Friday morning, attending her daughter’s poetry recital.
The songs are also on ode to her daughter, rōzumarī saṃsāra (50, born Rosemary Kikon), an interdisciplinary artist,who reads the poems she wrote to free herself from experiences that bottle women up into who they are supposed to be. Alongside its pomelo trees and bamboo shoot, growing up in Dimapur, in the Naga society of 1970s-80s, was a journey that could strip a woman (particularly if she was unconventional) of her human dignity.
Mhalo, rōzumarī and her two sisters converted this journey into lessons that delivered them on the other side of life, sturdy, driven, soulful, empathetic, ambitious, achievers with a sense of ownership of the history, and the current life, they created.
This is how rōzumarī’s poems came to be. On January 25, she recited seven poems from her upcoming book and two from another collection.
The latter two—‘I just hate’ and ‘No, no, no woman’—traced her journey of becoming a woman in a society where patriarchy (and all its brotherly tentacles worldwide) told women how to think, who to hate, what bottles, boxes and frames of reference to fit into.
‘Mother’s Cross’ recognized the harsh struggles her mother (Mhalo) emerged from. With the death of her three sons and her husband, Mhalo bore the cross of cultural baggage on single women, giving her three girl children the wings of fair opportunity. For instance, rōzumarī saṃsāra graduated from Delhi University and Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. She worked with the UNHCR, World Vision and Malteser International before embarking on a journey in physical theater at the Commedia School, Copenhagen.
“And you went to Hong Kong University of Science & Technology,” whispered Mhalo into rōzumarī’s ears lest she forgets, showing us what mutual respect and admiration between daughters and mothers of their struggles and achievements could produce.
In ‘Midlife female,’ rōzumarī explored how women are boiled down to their bodies. With her sister and her choosing not to have children, their mother was subjected to constant doubt cast on this choice; were her daughters barren? Cursed? Mhalo refused to let the barbs clip their wings.
In ‘You will not bury me,’ the poet is shaken by the circumstances that Naga men in the 1970s and 80s found themselves in. Drugs, alcohol “took away fathers, brothers, nephews from every family.”
“They were victims of their generation. A dark cloud came upon our lives and we must remember those lost souls. We must embrace this history of Dimapur,” noted rōzumarī.
‘Not good enough’ was an appeal to women to bury the socialization that tells them, “you are not good enough.” “Women need to be seen as more than their bodies,” the poet urged, as those with skills and the power to transform individual lives as well as the society.
‘Freedom’ explored how freedom comes from starting on the back foot. “Gott sei Dank (Thank God, in German), as an indigenous person, I can learn and absorb from all cultures, philosophies, religions and histories of the world!” acknowledged rōzumarī saṃsāra.
In ‘Faultline,’ she encouraged women to look beyond the lines of colour, caste, bodies, status, wealth, wisdom, to become whole again, to stop pitting one against the other and form true solidarities. In ‘Sad helicopter,’ she reminisced lying on a family mat while growing up in Dimapur, listening to her mother’s songs with her sisters. Did the Naga cemetery in Dimapur offer the same experience of the skies to those buried in it?
“There is sadness, but we can always transcend it,” reminded Mhalo Lotha in her parting song, as women from various walks of life discussed their experiences of living in Dimapur, of breaking, finding the glue, becoming whole again.
