In the pre-dawn warmth of togetherness, they made love again with the fervour of lovers meeting after a long absence. They were indeed meeting after a lapse of about five months, but lovers would be a misnomer to describe these two. They were a most mis-matched couple. When their marriage was first announced in the village, people stopped in their tracks, gaped in wonder at the sheer improbability of this match and tsk, tsked, some with disbelief and some in Utter disgust at the thought. The girl’s father was soundly berated by his clansmen, who said he was lowering the prestige of their clan by agreeing to the match. Why was he condemning his beautiful daughter to life with such a man, they wanted to know.

The relatives’, as well as the general public’s, indignation over the proposed marriage was due to the immense disparity between not only the outward appearances but also the family positions of the girl and her betrothed. The man was short, dark and had buck teeth. He was a mere driver who knew some mechanics and was employed by a rich man in town to drive a one-ton vehicle called a Dodge, now long gone out of use. He had read only up to class five and could speak some Hindi and a smattering of English picked up in the course of his journeys. He also came from a minor clan in the village.

But the woman. Ah! She was quite another story! She was tall, fair, slim and possessed of the most charming smile. Not only that, she came from a good family and belonged to a major clan. Her elder brother was studying in the engineering college; her sister was married to a Dobhashi in Mokokchung. Another brother was studying to be a veterinarian doctor. It was rumoured that this beauty had had a string of suitors who courted her

but every single one of them eventually drifted away to marry some other village girl much inferior to her in many ways. The villagers were amazed that any sane man would reject such a comely and eligible girl and marry these typically dowdy looking ‘village’ girls.

But then there it was, the apparent mismatch was on, and the marriage took place in due course. The couple moved to a house of their own, as was the custom, and seemed to be leading a normal life. The man, whose name was Punaba, earned enough to keep his wife in relative comfort. The woman, who was called Khatila, seemed happy and content in her new role as a housewife. Many years passed, but the couple did not have any children. At first the villagers did not pay much attention to this fact. But as it happens in any community, soon rumours began to circulate: the man was either impotent or sterile; or the woman was barren. Some even went to the extent of saying that she did not allow her husband to touch her. Just as the initial announcement of their marriage had produced adverse reactions, now their childless state became the subject of many lewd comments and absurd speculations.

All through this period, the couple, though not unaware of village gossip, ignored the broad hints and snide remarks and appeared to be totally absorbed in each other and their own household. Punaba went on regular trips to nearby villages and after collecting the fares, would go to Mokokchung to give the money to his boss and to receive his salary. Khatila cultivated a small field on the outskirts of the village and grew some vegetables in her kitchen garden. The years of married life seemed to suit her; her beauty remained as fresh as it was during her youth.

It was after a year or so of Khatila’s marriage, that the entire land was caught in the new wave of patriotic fervour that swept the imagination of the people and plunged them into a struggle, which many did not even understand. This particular village also became a part of the network, which kept the underground outfit supplied with information, food and occasional arms. The subject of independence became public talk; young people spoke of the exploits of their peers in encounters with government forces and were eager to join the new band of ‘patriotic’ warriors to liberate their homeland from ‘foreign’ rule. Some actually disappeared from the village and their names henceforth were spoken only in whispers. Skirmishes were taking place close to the village and the atmosphere within the village became one

of fear and mutual suspicion. People returned from their fields much earlier than they used to. It seemed that a pall had descended upon the entire land.

Some villages, to which the underground leaders belonged, were severely punished. The houses were ransacked by the security forces, the grain in their barns was burnt and the people themselves were herded into camps away from the village and kept in virtual imprisonment inside areas fenced in by bamboo stockades. This form of group incarceration was the infamous ‘grouping’ of villages which the Nagas hated and dreaded even more than bullets. Numerous stories proliferated of women being molested by the security forces and the obstinate ones who refused to giye information being severely beaten; not only that, sometimes they would be hung upside down and subjected to unspeakable tortures like chilli powder being rammed into their extremities. But so far, Khatila’s village was not touched by any of these horrors as none of their boys who joined the underground movement was of any importance in the eyes of the government and many of them even managed to remain unreported.

One day, Punaba did not return from his usual trip but Khatila did not seem unduly worried by this. A month passed and then another, but there was no sign of this quiet man. When asked about his absence, Khatila replied that he was plying his business in Mokokchung. That sounded plausible, because people there had greater need of a vehicle than the villagers in the area. Before long however, the village grapevine brought news that their very own Punaba had joined the underground army and was, in fact, doing pretty well for himself. It was also reported that strange people visited Khatila with provisions when the adults were away in their fields and disappeared before their return. She became more reclusive and her visits to her parents’ home also became less frequent than before.

Not long after the news of Punaba joining the underground army reached the authorities, the government forces came to the village and began questioning the villagers about Punaba. Even Khatila was summoned and asked where her husband was. She replied that she did not know and she did not care whether he came back or not. Judging from the description of the man given by the gaonbura, the officer concluded that a beautiful woman like her could not be heartbroken over the disappearance of an insignificant man like Punaba from her life. So they went away after threatening the villagers that if they were withholding vital information about the rebels, they would come back and raze their village to the ground.

They even cautioned Khatila that if she was lying to them, she would be punished in a very special way. ‘We know how to deal with women like you,’ the officer said giving her a lascivious look. In the evening some of the village elders came to her hut and asked her to send word to Punaba not to visit her. Khatila merely nodded her head and meekly replied, ‘I shall try.’ She knew that even if she could not get in touch with her husband, he would surely come to know about the incident through the underground grapevine. But she had to play the part of a dutiful woman because she knew that in her position she could not afford to antagonise the village authorities in any way.

It was not long before the entire land was engulfed in the flames of conflict between the rebels and the government forces. The oppressive measures adopted by the army to quell the rebellion backfired and even those villages, which were till now not directly involved in the conflict, became more sympathetic towards the underground forces when they heard of the atrocities committed by the armed forces on innocent villagers. By this time, Punaba’s fellow villagers were in total sympathy with the so- called rebels and this village became one of the main conduits for supplies and information to them. Punaba sent messengers to Khatila regularly and she knew all that was going on in the underground outfit that her husband was now heading. Because of his age and leadership qualities he rapidly rose in rank and after only three years of service, was made a captain in the rebel army. During these years he even managed to visit his wife several times, even though the visits were short. While he was in the village, lookouts would be posted at strategic points to note the movements of the other army, which patrolled the outskirts of all suspect villages as a routine.

This was one such visit when Punaba had come to see his wife after a gap of five months during which he had been wounded twice and was at the moment recovering from the most recent bullet wound on his right arm. The restful stay with his wife after the arduous and dangerous activities of underground life seemed to be doing wonders for Punaba; he felt healthy and happy for the first time in many months. But all that was soon to be over. That morning, before they could get up from the bed exhausted from the morning’s bout of ardent lovemaking, urgent thumps on the bamboo walls were heard, with the whispered warning, ‘Sir, sir, wake up, they are almost here, our sentries fell asleep. Run away sir.’ Another voice, that of Punaba’s orderly joined in, ‘Sir, I will hide under the house, throw your gun

and uniform to me and I will wait for you on the northern bank of the third well.’ The voices melted away with the approaching dawn.

Khatila was in a quandary, what should she do? How could she save her husband, herself and the entire village from the approaching soldiers? She could now hear their voices and the sound of their footsteps on the rocky path leading to their house. For Punaba trying to escape now was out of the question; he would be immediately spotted and shot down like a dog. He would never surrender and she could not lie this time because their small bamboo and thatch house had no hiding place. Though extremely agitated, this woman had enough presence of mind to first bundle up his uniform and gun in a sack and throw it down to the waiting orderly who immediately grabbed it and vanished into the thick jungle. Next, she fished out some of her husband’s old clothes and ordered him to get into them, then she smeared his face, hands and feet with ash from the hearth, hid his sandals, ruffled his hair and began shouting at him, ‘You no good loafer, what were you doing all day yesterday? There is no water in the house even to wash my face. Run to the well immediately or you will rue the day you were born.’ While she was shouting at the top of her voice in this fashion, she was at the same time emptying all the water containers through the bamboo platform at the back. By the time the soldiers reached her house, she was loading the water-carrying basket with the empty containers and showering more abuses at the hapless servant. Someone called out her name and thumped on the door but Khatila continued with her tirade ignoring those standing outside her door. When there was another loud thump she shouted in an irritated voice, ‘Who is it now? Don’t you see what I am doing?’ Taking her own time she opened the door with a loud yawn. ‘What do you want?’ she growled at the young Captain who looked somewhat surprised at her manner. Whereas he had expected to see a cowering woman, crazy with fear for her husband and herself, he was confronted by a dishevelled but defiant person who displayed no agitation and seemed to be utterly oblivious to any danger. He stood there in confusion; surely the intelligence report was right; that Punaba had come to the village on his periodical visits to his wife and that this was his house. Bur where was he? He could not have escaped through the tight cordon that was so efficiently put in place by his boys.

Just when he decided to affect a sterner stance, Khatila turned her back on him and began to shout again, ‘Hey, where is that lazy so and so?

Haven’t you gone yet?’ The servant, now with the water-carrying basket on his head shuffled out from the bamboo platform at the back and proceeded towards the front door. The young Captain tried to stop him, but Khatila was prepared for this; she said, ‘Sahib, no use talking to him, he cannot talk. Besides, don’t you see there is no water in the house? What do you want with a servant?’ So saying, she gave a shove to Punaba with some more choice abuses and he hurried out of the house and onto the path leading to the third well. Soon he and his small party vanished into the jungle and out of the cordon set up by the soldiers. The Captain did not actually have a clear idea about the person they were looking for, except for the fact that the woman’s husband was the wanted man and this house was the target of the search, though several other searches were being carried out by different groups simultaneously in different sectors of the village. The army often employed this tactic to protect their informers, so that in the course of a general search, they would exultantly ‘discover’ their quarry. Watching the retreating back of the ungainly ‘servant’, he thought, surely he could not be that person. The young and inexperienced army officer did not realise that the beautiful but simple village woman had thus foiled a meticulously planned ‘operation’ of the mighty Indian army and that a prized quarry had simply walked away to freedom.

Alone in the house now, she assumed another pose, asking the Captain coyly whether he would like some tea; she could get that much water from her neighbour. The officer was temporarily dazed by Khatila’s beauty and would have sat down for tea; but his JCO politely but firmly reminded him, ‘Sir, aor bohut gharka talashi baki hai. Hame chalna hai’. (Sir there are many more houses to search. We have to move now.) Though slightly irritated, he said ‘Thik hai, chalo’ (All right, let’s go.) Reluctantly he led the search party away from the house. Only after the entire search party left the village could Khatila relax and she was never more grateful than on that particular morning for the ugliness of her husband which had saved not only them but the entire village. Had he been killed or captured that morning the entire village would have been punished for harbouring a notorious rebel and not informing the government forces about his presence in the village. As had happened to other villages, their barns would have been set on fire, their houses destroyed and the people would have been taken to the ‘grouping’ areas. But thanks to the audacity of Khatila’s ploy, the entire village was saved from such a fate.

Meanwhile the struggle between the rebels and underground forces continued. So did Punaba’s periodical visits to see his wife. It was never discovered whether one of their own villagers informed the authorities or the information was supplied by someone else. The escape of Punaba and his party that day was, however, construed differently by the underground bosses and the credit was attributed to his shrewd planning. He continued to serve in the outfit for some three more years and for this particular escape and several other subsequent exploits, he was promoted to the rank of Major in the underground army. When a general cease-fire was announced, Khatila persuaded Punaba to come overground and be with her. She told him that life was becoming too lonesome without him. It also happened to be the period when the government was trying to rehabilitate the ‘surrendered’ cadres of the underground army, and though he did not possess a regular certificate, Punaba was given a job in the State Transport Department as a mechanic and was posted at Mokokchung.

Years later, the real story of what actually happened on that morning was told, at first only to a few close friends. But by and by this ‘exploit’ of Punaba, the jungle major, soon became the favourite subject whenever friends dropped in to share a drink in the evenings. Every time the story was recounted, Punaba would look at his wife and ask playfully, ‘Aren’t you glad that your jungle major is so ugly?’ And equally playfully she would answer, ‘So, where is the water I sent you to fetch that day?’