The man was listlessly walking around in his kitchen at the topmost floor of the apartment building. He was not thinking about anything; in fact he wasn’t even feeling anything at the moment. Just listless. Was he always this bored with his life? Why was he not able to enjoy his life as it is? It is difficult to answer these questions. It is probably easier to accept that it just is, such is life. As he was listlessly moping around his apartment he was so preoccupied with being unoccupied that he did not notice the thing that was falling down just in front of his window. It went down so quickly that one could hardly catch a glimpse of what it was.
Below the man’s apartment a young unmarried couple was living together. Being fortunate enough to have been able to afford an apartment in the heart of Kohima town they thought they were lucky. But being able to share it with their lover they thought was even luckier. Both their parents were farmers who lived dilapidated lives in a village called Chi , about 300 kilometres away from the metropolitan city, and they had scraped up enough money to send them there to be educated in one of the best colleges in Nagaland. Their parents didn’t know about their relationship, neither did they know about their renting an apartment together, though they always did complain about the huge pocket money that they had to send to their children every month for the mess fee of the hostel which they did not stay in. Being from orthodox Christian families, neither of them was keen on telling their parents about their particular situation. At this very moment, their parents were toiling under the sun and praying with hope for their liberation through their son and daughter who had bright futures because they were studying in the city. While in the second to last floor of the apartment building, their children had skipped college that day. Instead they were going mad over each other’s body, each struggling to be on top of the other. One could smell the lust in the room. They were blissfully unbothered about their parents toiling in the fields far away. Neither were they bothered about the thing that was falling right outside their living room window. The boy swore he saw something big fall right down their window but their lusts were so riled up that soon they forgot about everything other than the gratification of their bodies. The forgotten thing continued to fall.
Mr Poksa who lived right under the young couple’s apartment was probably the richest tenant in the apartment building. He had a son studying MBBS in a prestigious college in Delhi and another daughter who had gone abroad to do her masters in theological studies. But most of his money went toward his drinking expenses; imported wine from France suited his expensive palate the most. This was one of the reasons why his wife left him and also one reason why he was still living in a one bedroom apartment in Kohima. That afternoon while returning home from his office, he had bought a full pack of beer to help him through the night. Nagaland had been declared a dry state in official papers, meaning it prohibited any alcohol to be sold within its boundaries, but all the citizens knew that this was just in papers. Alcohol in Nagaland can be found in every corner if we know how to look for it, just ask any of the local policemen. Mr Poksa was in front of his TV, gulping down his beer one after the other hoping it would dull the pain of missing his family. One after the other he drowned the whole pack and his senses became so disoriented that even if he saw the falling object outside his window he would not have understood what it was that was falling. Fortunately when it did fall past his window, Mr Poksa was sloppily sleeping away dreaming about his next binge drinking session and so did not see the strange sad sight outside his window.
The owners of the apartment building lived right under Mr. Poksa’s apartment. Mr. and Mrs. Murumuru had been handed the rights to the land which was originally owned by Mr Murumuru’s father. Mr. Murumuru had an older brother who, according to the tribal customs, had the right to inherit his father’s property after his death, but Mr. and Mrs. Murumuru somehow haggled it out of his brother’s hand. But even though they owned the apartment and were very thrifty with their money, they never seemed to become richer than they already were. They knew how much of a spendthrift Mr. Poksa was and yet they could never have all the luxuries that he seemed to enjoy. This irked them a lot more than they would ever stoop to admit. Mr. Murumuru was an employee of the government who had made his way up to the post of a UDA from his initial humble induction into the office as a peon. Mrs. Murumuru also worked in a government office; she got employed into the service of the Nagaland government in the early nineties when typewriters were at the forefront of printing technology. As a typist now in the modern age, her duties in the office were becoming as obsolete as the typewriter. She and all the other typists employed by the Nagaland government were too old to be learning the operation of computers and so usually resigned themselves to making tea for their co-workers and carrying out other menial duties along with the resident peon. This particular day, both Mr and Mrs Murumuru had been released early from work and were out shopping for dinner together. They were presently haggling with the non-local Bihari vendor in the market to reduce the exorbitant amount of onion prices from Rs 130 to Rs 100 per kilo. As such they were not even remotely close to seeing the thing that would have been falling right outside their windows as Mrs Murumuru shoved a 100 rupee note in the vendors face. So the thing kept falling faster now, gaining momentum. Nobody had noticed its falling yet.
Miss Ainla was the tenant right below the Murumuru’s. She was a 67 year old spinster who lived alone in her apartment and was almost always angry about one thing or the other. She was angry at the children who ran up and down the stairs, she was angry at the dogs who dared to bark within her earshot, she was angry at the neighbours who don’t visit her often. The neighbours called her Ain-dok-la which meant “Angry woman” in the Ao dialect and were rather fond of the wordplay in that nickname though nobody really knew who started it. Today she was angry at the young couple who lived 3 floors above hers. They had been partying throughout the night before and so she could not sleep a wink. She was a model Christian who went to church every Sunday, attended all the prayer meetings and evening services on Wednesdays and Saturdays and so she was not able to understand the rowdiness of the young couple especially as they were Christians themselves. As a Christian she believed that young people shouldn’t be drinking or smoking and that they shouldn’t be living together before marriage in the first place. She made up her mind to scold them again while also deciding to have a talk with Mrs Murumuru about the possible eviction of the couple to maintain the pristine image of the residency. As a Christian she considered this to be her duty. At that same moment she noticed something falling just in front of her window, she couldn’t make out what it was, but she was sure that it was Mr Poksa throwing away his beer bottles in a drunken stupor. Her anger rising up again, she went towards her door to scold Mr Poksa and educate him, as was her Christian duty. The still unidentified object continued to fall.
The Anümas were a family of five who were the tenants right below Miss Ainla’s apartment. Right below them again lived The Nisungs who were a family of four. Mrs Anüma was Mrs Nisung’s sister and they felt that they were very lucky to be living near each other in the same apartment building. Mr Anüma did not have the best of relationships with his sister-in-law’s husband. Mr Anüma was an orthodox Catholic while Mr Nisung was a staunch Baptist, which meant that both their families followed the denominations of the patriarch, so the Anümas were Catholic and the Nisungs were Baptist. This difference in their denominations was often the cause of rifts between the two heads of the families. With Nagaland being a predominantly Christian state one would expect it to be a largely unified state but there were various denominations in the church which had split from the Catholics and Protestants out of which, the Baptist denomination was the majority among all the others and misunderstandings were rife in between the religious practices of the different denominations. Mr Nisung was usually in loggerheads with Mr Anüma regarding what he considered the heretic beliefs of the Catholics. Today the two families were preparing to have dinner together. Four of the younger children were inside the Anüma children’s rooms, left to their own devices as is usually the case when Naga relatives have any informal gathering. The able-bodied women folk; the two mothers and Mrs Anüma’s eldest daughter were busy cooking the food, as was expected of a respectable Naga woman. While the even more able bodied men; Mr Anüma and Mr Nisung were sitting and arguing in the common room, as was expected of a respectable Naga man. Mr Nisung was telling Mr Anüma about how baptism was an important landmark in the spiritual journey of a Christian on how it is an outward manifestation of one’s inward change as a Christian, Mr Anüma on the other hand did not see it as a very significant step in the Christian walk of life. Their conversation was quickly turning into an argument and Mr Nisung was getting riled up. Just the day before, he had had a scuffle with the man living in the topmost floor regarding his habit of throwing down wrappers from his window. As the thing was falling right outside Mr and Mrs Anüma’s apartment window, Mr Nisung started shouting at Mr Anüma, which brought the women out from their kitchen and all their attention went towards the tension in the room. So by the time it went down in front of the Nisung’s window, nobody could give their attention to it. And so it continued to fall, as every single person failed to notice it or just plain ignore it.
The ground floor of the apartment building was occupied by Mr and Mrs Telungpur. Mrs Telungpur was a part-time Deaconess in her local church and Mr Telungpur was a private in the insurgent Naga army. As long as Mr Telungpur was not doing his rounds, collecting taxes from the begrudging business owners and government offices, they were usually found to be fasting at church. The Naga insurgency situation was at its peak in the 60’s and 70’s. At that time, almost every Naga supported the noble cause for a liberated Naga nation, but it never came to fruition. As the years went by, the outlook of the Naga people on the 21st Century bitormanu, which was a loose term for people in the Naga army, had stagnated. Though there were some who still believed in nobly fighting and struggling for the prestige of their own nation, many of the new recruits were simply ruffians and social rejects who had joined the army to extort money from business owners and live their lives comfortably. They had forgotten the struggles that their predecessors had gone through just to establish a Naga army. They had forgotten the excruciating shame and danger that the actual bitormanu had to undergo to fight against the Indian army. Their tag of bitormanu had now become something to be accusatorily whispered between gossiping housewives. But no one could actually vocalize against the stagnating status of the bitormanu, as they had immense power and connections in the social, political and economic aspects of Naga society. This was the same case for Mr Telungpur and his wife, everyone in the apartment was in friendly terms with them, but no one really wanted to be associated with them. Today, Mrs Telungpur was returning from Church. They had had a wonderful bible study session and she was also able to showcase the new diamond ring that her husband had bought for her. She was in a good mood. She knew her husband would be home from doing his rounds and was thinking about telling him about Mrs Mary’s rich second husband whom she brought to church that day. As she neared home, she saw something in front of her front door. Thinking that one of her upstairs neighbours had thrown down their garbage from their window again, she was strutting furiously towards the lobby, with a mind to complain to Mrs Murumuru about the hygiene habits of certain tenants in the apartment. As she neared the thing that had fallen in front of her door, she went white. Red redred.Excrutiating howls. Drums boomboomboom.Black.
It would be impossible to figure out why Mr Telungpur did what he did, which was sad. But what was even sadder was the fact that not a single person in the apartment recognised him falling, nobody had time enough to pay attention to others. He fell alone, without being noticed. He must have seen snippets of his neighbours living their lives through their windows and must have wondered why nobody was noticing him. In that short timeframe in between windows, he must have realised that he was utterly and truly alone and that people care for themselves more than they ever would others. He must have realised that his neighbours were falling down the same pit that he was going down, but he could not tell them that because by the time he had had this revelation, his body had smashed to the ground. It was too late, he had fallen.
