Peace as the way!

 This cat in the above photo is a regular visitor to our garden!. 

It takes the same route to come in and go and stays at the same spot, where it can get a  view of Daffny and Dulcie. They bark and indicate their discomfort, but the cat spends its usual time and returns. Often stray cats do not harm, except that they can occupy any safe place they can find, to have their kittens. 

I notice that even stray cats like a remote human contact, because, it stays quietly even when any one is moving about in its viscidity. 

I heard a friend say yesterday that the culture of hatred is a human creation! Even wild animals  live fearfully of humans as they were hunted for a game for ages. 

Live and let others live is the message which people need in Manipur! 

I try to gather some information each day about the situation of families and children in Manipur now. As I read or listen to phone conversation, I get a feeling of fear, anxiety and sense of loss which have frozen people from one community! 

A friend told me yesterday, that early in the month of May 2023, when the conflict erupted, there were groups of people moving about to set fire to houses, public buildings, worship places, of those they wanted to target and harm. The senior members of a worship place wanted to give an appearance to a worship place as  already damaged, so that the mob would see it damaged and would not want to set it on fire. They removed the roof and demolished the entrance part of the building in such a way, they could rebuild it later without too much effort or expense.  The way the houses and public buildings were damaged by angry mob was by burning them. A day later a mob came that way to set fire to the worship place. Seeing it already looking partly damaged, they looked pleased and went on to the next village without causing much harm to houses and other public places in that village. 

The people in that village keep vigil every night in two shifts since then. They gather the waste each night to create fire and smoke in the village at night that the mob seeing the village already burning from a distance, would turn their attention to other places. An ingenuity born out of desperation to escape devastation!

I remember the cat whose intention is to socialise! 

Who would bring this message to the people of Manipur!

I wish the national leadership of this country have hearts that would feel, words that would heal and thoughts that would initiate rebuild relationships!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)