Post # 35 # The Tragedy of an Activist

The only word I can use about writing as a weapon is resistance. This connotes a lot of things in my native place where there is too much political and social violence. One amongst those mess is the presence of so many activists, born out of the turmoil. I'm also an activist. Nobody knows me but I'm an activist. I don't do anything but it is not cool to say I'm not, so I call myself I'm an activist. I am. But I'm worried if I get a government job, which is the only source of white-collar jobs out here in Imphal, possibly I might end up writing elegies and obituaries for nationalists and patriots, who like me, are the activists.

There are people like RK Ranendrajit and Arambam Lokendra in my hometown. I feel self-conscious to introduce myself as an activist to them. Should I carry a gun when I visit them so that they know I'm into something activism? Should I take along some pamphlets? Should I show them my bio-data of the activistic things? Should I tell them that I give financial support to poor people, that I do a lot of social works that even my friends know not, that I don't even remember at times?

No, nothing will do. I'm just an animal who lays eggs and nothing is there beyond my comfort zone. When the police kill the people, in a Kafkaesque transformation, I become an activist. When the rebels kill the people, I become an activist too. Because I have nothing to do than being an activist; because I have also got a big heart that I care so much about other people. Don't call me my name, just call me an activist.