11. Silent Lips and Murmuring Hearts
"Mouna Ounth Mukhar Hriday".......Yeshe Dorji Thongse
A story set in Arunachal Pradesh. A riveting love story told by the award-winning write Yeshe Dorji Thongse.
As a young girl, I always thought love stories were supposed to have 'happily ever after' endings where the handsome man rides away in slow motion into the sunset with his lover on a white horse. Well, not all the time! I learnt early on from mother that love and marriage were poles apart. I couldn't quite understand then but now when I look back, I am sure what mother meant was it is best not to marry the person one loved. To let go can be the biggest love story one can tell later to one's grandchildren. Or so we try to pacify?
Yeshe Dorji Thongse weaves a story just a little before the Chinese Aggression. It involves two young persons from two different tribes, the Wangi and the Serdukpen, who come together to build the road from Bomdila to Dirang. They fall in love inspite of the fact that they are already engaged to be married to someone else. Theirs is a love story that surpasses all boundaries. Though language had never been a barrier between them, yet it was for all to see how passionately they were in love from the time they met in the jungle to when they were ruthlessly separated because of strict tribal norms.
The end of the story moved me to tears when the girl Yama ran through the crowd of people towards Rinsin, trying to flee from the people who had previously paid her brother mithuns in lieu of her marriage to a boy from her tribe. As Rinsin looked on, helplessly, at his beloved Yama, being dragged away by her groom's family, screaming his name, "Rinsin, Rinsin," his eyes brimmed over with tears, knowing too well that he can never live his life with her anymore!
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"Mouna Ounth Mukhar Hriday".......Yeshe Dorji Thongse
A story set in Arunachal Pradesh. A riveting love story told by the award-winning write Yeshe Dorji Thongse.
As a young girl, I always thought love stories were supposed to have 'happily ever after' endings where the handsome man rides away in slow motion into the sunset with his lover on a white horse. Well, not all the time! I learnt early on from mother that love and marriage were poles apart. I couldn't quite understand then but now when I look back, I am sure what mother meant was it is best not to marry the person one loved. To let go can be the biggest love story one can tell later to one's grandchildren. Or so we try to pacify?
Yeshe Dorji Thongse weaves a story just a little before the Chinese Aggression. It involves two young persons from two different tribes, the Wangi and the Serdukpen, who come together to build the road from Bomdila to Dirang. They fall in love inspite of the fact that they are already engaged to be married to someone else. Theirs is a love story that surpasses all boundaries. Though language had never been a barrier between them, yet it was for all to see how passionately they were in love from the time they met in the jungle to when they were ruthlessly separated because of strict tribal norms.
The end of the story moved me to tears when the girl Yama ran through the crowd of people towards Rinsin, trying to flee from the people who had previously paid her brother mithuns in lieu of her marriage to a boy from her tribe. As Rinsin looked on, helplessly, at his beloved Yama, being dragged away by her groom's family, screaming his name, "Rinsin, Rinsin," his eyes brimmed over with tears, knowing too well that he can never live his life with her anymore!
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Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi is a prominent name inAssamese literature and he
has received national recognition with his novel Mouna Ounth Mukhar Hriday
which won the Sahitya Academi award in 2005. As an insider, Thongchi
has been able to present a new perspective of Arunachalee society-its rich
social and cultural diversity. Thongchi announced his arrival in the
literary scene of Assam with his first novel Sonam (1981). The story
of the novel is set against the Brokpa tribe (a section of Monpa), a
community owning yak herds. Polygamy and polyandry are widely accepted in
the Brokpa community. The family system of the Brokpas, where a woman is
socially allowed to marry more than one man is the custom around which the
story of the novel revolves.
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