T R I U M P H

#SpoilerAlert: It's a long read.... 😊 

Triumph may be of several kinds.

There 's triumph in the room

When that old imperator, Death,

By faith is overcome.

There 's triumph of the finer mind

When truth, affronted long,

Advances calm to her supreme,

Her God her only throng.

A triumph when temptation's bribe

Is slowly handed back,

One eye upon the heaven renounced

And one upon the rack.

Severer triumph, by himself

Experienced, who can pass

Acquitted from that naked bar,

Jehovah's countenance! 

     ~ Emily Dickinson

My story begins as all stories do, with that of my parents. My father was I think ten years old, about a year younger than  my youngest is now, when he was faced with a situation that sadly we see all too much around us. It was the tail end of World War 2, the Japanese had reached Manipur and rapidly proceeding inland on to the next state of Nagaland.

My grandparents as everyone else in the village were afraid, uncertain what each day would hold. Would the Japanese pass by their village? If so, the dangers were untold and fearing for the safety of their children, had instructed them to flee to the jungles and hide.

My father being the oldest was tasked with the responsibility of looking after his remaining four siblings, three sisters and a brother and had been given a belt strapped with 1 rupee coins, should for some reason, they were unable to return to the village. I cannot imagine what it must have been like.

Ten years old, with no adult in sight and four other younger siblings to look after, alone in the forest, especially when it grew dark. I do not know how long they stayed and hid and I cannot even begin to know what that must have been like for him.

But the danger passed, they were back home, soon reunited with their parents and my father began his pursuit of a life for himself. If you ever get a chance to come back home and visit the village, not much has changed since my father and grandfather lived there. The roads are still terrible and although there is television and electricity, it is sporadic at best. There is now a fairly decent hotel and sometimes you can get cake and pizza and the houses have improved, mostly for the leaders of the militant groups who also drive around in the latest SUVs but that is another story. Apart from that, nothing much has changed – it is a small sleepy town trapped somewhere in the passages of time.  And looking at it, perhaps one would say, but what good can come out of this? This nowhere town?

My father proved all that and his father wrong. Before he left home to pursue his studies, he promised his father, my grandfather, that he would return one day in a helicopter. My grandfather had smiled at him, perhaps a bit indulgently as all parents do.

My father went on to study law, was a practising lawyer for a bit, taught in a school for a few months prior to that, then finally prepared and sat for the civil service examinations. On his second attempt, he made a good enough ranking and was assigned the Indian Police Service. He paved the way for others from a region the rest of the country knew little about (still do not know much about unfortunately) and was the first IPS officer from his tribe, the Kukis.

About a decade later after joining the service, he was assigned to a para military force, the BSF (Border Security Force) and flew into the village in their helicopter. I wish I had been there to see the look on my grandfather’s face but I remember the look on my father’s face as he told me this story. He had made a promise and he had kept it.

Coming to my mother, she is the youngest of her five siblings, the baby if you will of the family. She grew up surrounded by numerous cousins and aunts and uncles, a large family that shared Christmas and holidays and every other time together. When she married my father, she left all that behind.

In those days, a police officer’s pay was meagre to say the least. There were no other amenities given, just a bare shell of a house, if we were fortunate enough. Many times it would have to be the barracks or a room at the officers’ mess.
We had little or sparse furniture, living most of our life out of trunks and suitcases. Trunks that served as tables, or a place to sit on, folding beds that we would double up and carry with us everywhere. There were days when my father’s salary had to be stretched to its limits to look after three children and a wife and for the longest time ever, my mother had only two sets of saris because she could not afford any more.

Birthdays were always home-made cakes sometimes if we were lucky with a bit of chocolate icing and my best gift was on my 7th or 8th birthday – a new pair of sandals.
We moved frequently and often, since my father was never known to be the ‘diplomatic’ type, especially with his superiors, the repercussions of which were vague postings; with him being assigned towns in the backway and beyond.

But in those years of packing and moving and finding and getting used to a new school (8-9 in total), a new neighbourhood and new friends, I do not think there was ever a time when I saw or hear my mother or father complain or let us feel in any way that there was something wrong. It was more like, this is life, it gets difficult but you have to face it and move on.


We still moved and travelled but later on, close to before he could retire from service; there was a period of utter and complete darkness. This was the one and only moment in my life though that I have seen that faith of his falter and the one time I have seen my father despair and my mother cry.

It is a terribly hard thing to see the agony of your parents and perhaps that is why I now choose to not allow myself that emotion. I promised myself that no matter what life offers up to me that I would never let myself break, not in front of my children.

So where does this story lead you ask? This week I came across a saying someone had shared – “maybe the journey isn’t so much about BECOMING anything. Maybe it’s about UN-BECOMING everything that isn’t really you, so that you can be who you were meant to be in the first place..”

So this is what I have learnt and am still learning –
1. Our circumstances do not define us – I guess nothing brings that home to me more than the faces of the children that I see whenever I visit any one of our schools. There are children there who have seen so much in their span of 5, 9, 11 years that perhaps many of us have been fortunate not to witness.
India is a country deeply entrenched in a caste system that systematically tears away at the basic fundamental right of who you are. It tells people, women, children, you are NOT worthy.
You can never amount to anything because you are low born.
You can NEVER achieve or aspire to be anyone better because you are a girl, you are a woman.

My father never once let any of the voices outside define who he was or what he was meant to be. Because he believed deeply in his heart that his Father, our Heavenly Father, said and says otherwise. That we are all special, made in His image. It matters not the how and where and what of the circumstances that surround us.


2. Our choices do not define us – In life we make choices every day. Only after the choice has been made, we realize whether or not the choice was poor or made wisely. But bear we must the consequences of our choice. Often times than most, we choose out of fear or compulsion or with an inability to decide which path to take.

But if we allow ourselves to be trapped in the regret and the remorse and the guilt and shame of it all we are doomed. I am quite sure there were many moments of what ifs in my father’s life.

Times when he questioned whether it had been wise just to keep his mouth shut and his opinions to himself.

Times when he had to move his family out in a matter of months from one desolate town to another.

If he did though, he had no regrets; he just stuck his heels in and made the best of each situation that life gave to him.

From the good, he was grateful and for the bad, he was grateful as well, for the lessons it taught him, for discernment for the future and humility for the mistakes made.


One more thing. My father loved hunting and fishing, especially mountain river fishing in the Teesta river and I remember one of the many sunny afternoons when he would come back home, his back riddled with sun burns. Or of the day when he came home all muddy from the swamp, having shot 12-14 different types of ducks and birds. My mother refused to help clean up so it was up to my father and me till late at night, boiling water, dunking those birds in and plucking the feathers out, then cutting and cleaning. I was eleven years old then and for the longest time ever, the smell of the marsh clung to my nostrils and etched in my memories.

Since my childhood then, growing up, getting married, having children, life has presented different scenarios in front of me, trials even, if you can call it that. But I have to thank my father and my mother for that, in instilling in me a fact that I cannot deny, even if I want to – that God is in control.

Yes, circumstances can change and there are sunny days and there are storms.
Yes, we make choices, sometimes terrible ones but they are not our downfall.
And yes, we need to understand that sometimes in life you just need to chill. Take the day off and just relax. Enjoy the best and simple pleasures that a day can bring.

My father loved to read and he loved music and he loved to dance. All three habits that I have inculcated fiercely, although the last I haven’t, not danced that is for over two decades now.
My fondest memory is of my father waltzing with my mum over a tune from Engelbert played in his scratchy record player. Two years ago at Christmas at the village church service as the younger members got up to dance, my mother prodded me. Go on, she said, you love to dance. I refused – it had been ages and I would embarrass my teenage sons I said. But now maybe I will.. :)

When I look at the faces of of my own children, I hope I have been able to let them know as often as I can -  You are loved. You are special. And You have been made for a purpose.

I wish I can be there in their moments of doubt and despair and tell them it is going to be all right, I know I cannot, for sometimes not even for my own self can I bring myself to say that.

I wish I could take away any and all moments that bring pain and hurt and the darkness. I know I cannot.

But I can and will continue to tell them and hopefully show them as well, that it is going to be all right. No matter what.
Life will not always be easy; in fact it will be more challenging and demanding than most. People will always judge for what you look like, where you come from, what caste you belong to. No matter.

These past few days as I have grappled with my own sense of purpose and grief and the whys of life, I took the afternoon off with my daughter and the girls from the office to go watch a movie. It was a movie, you guessed it right, on the life and travails of a cop. It was fun though, a lot of which made no sense whatsoever in real life (as can be expected from a Hindi masala blockbuster) but I think truly apt for a day like this.

Today would have been my father’s 84th birthday and  watching the movie that was soppy at parts and idealistic, a bit on the extreme vigilante due process of meting out justice and full of tongue in cheek humour, but a fitting remedy nonetheless for an aching heart.

As I watched the men in uniform once more and as I remembered my father, in his uniform, I can almost hear him say “What rubbish” and laughing at the same time at the antics played out on the screen. So Happy Birthday papa – here’s to you singing and dancing up in Heaven.

P.S. I think you would have given the star of the movie a run for his money…… 😊