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Theme Of Violence In These Hills Called Home By Temsula Ao

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Representation of Violence in the Short Stories of Temsula Ao
Dhriti Sundar Gupta
The North-East of India is quite different from other regions of the country. The seven states of the North-East namely Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura are affected by several insurgent groups. The North-East, having 262 tribes and 31 million populations (1991 census) has proved very vulnerable to insurgency due to its sharing international boarder, availability of arms and training camps, demographic imbalance created by immigrants, nexus(tie) between politicians and insurgent groups, huge economic underdevelopment and pressure and isolated standing from the mainland India connected through a 50 kilometer corridor called …show more content…

This is what Temsula Ao writes about in her volume of short stories “These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone”. Ao’s stories take us to the heart of a trouble-torn land which is historically and politically located. She describes how ordinary people cope with violence perpetuated by various militant outfits as well as the armed force. Temsula Ao’s stories echoes her protest against such atrocities.This paper is an attempt to foreground and highlight the underlying theme of violence in the short stories of Temsula Ao. In the introduction to her book These Hills Called Home, Temsula Ao says about her stories that “Many of the stories in this collection have their genesis in the turbulent years of bloodshed and tears that make up the history of the Nagas from the early fifties of the last century”. (Ao x) Referring to the violence inflicted on the people she says “for the victims the trauma goes beyond the realm of just the physical maiming and loss of life --- their very humanity is assaulted and violated, and the onslaught leaves the survivors scarred both in mind and soul.” (Ao …show more content…

The offerings or help that the village people made to their so called ‘brothers’ fighting for their Land was a voluntary act but the bitter realization of the truth and the loss of the intitial romantic fervour have made them feel that the rebels are nothing more than extortionist. The starting of the story aptly presents the feelings of the poor villagers: “There was an uneasy quiet in the village: the underground extortionist had come and gone and along with them the hard earned cash the vilagers had earned by digging the first alignment for a motorable road to their village.” (54) The poor villagers were fed up of the viloence wreaked by the overground as well as the underground army. They succumbed to the pressure and gave up without any resistence. The following lines reflect the fear and the helplessness of the villagers: “they knew that these fierce looking goons from the forest had come to the village at night with only one purpose: to rob them in the name of underground government. Resisting them was of no use: they carried guns and the consequences of any conflict would only mean retaliation.” (55) At one point of the story, when a poor man appealed to the leader of the rebel group to excuse him this time as he

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