Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, OCTOBER 1
THEY were classmates. And both of them spoke fondly of 1951-the year of their matriculation. Thirty of their batch mates are no more today.
Out of the remaining 10 alive, the duo of Khrielenuo Terhuja and Dr C Tarep Jamir were presented with awards in recognition of their exploits “in education, medicine and philanthropy” Tuesday in Dimapur on the occasion of International Day of Older Persons. Sat next to each other, inside the conference hall of the Deputy Commissioner’s office, the former classmates could not even recognize each other until the moment when DC Dimapur N Hushili Sema announced their names as recipients of the award, halfway into the programme.
“I was not aware that the person sitting next to me was a former classmate, until I heard his name being read out,” said the 80-year-old Khrielenuo Terhuja after receiving the award. Sixty two years since 1951, they were sharing the same room once again. Today, she said, her generation is living on borrowed time. “But these are the best years (of my life). I know that even a cup of cold water is rewarding for me today,” she shared.
Her classmate, the 83-year-old, Dr C Tarep Jamir, recollected the years when it was simply unsafe to wear “half-pants” to school “because your friends are always pulling them down.” It was the early 1940s when I started wearing half-pants to school, he remembered.
The doctor also recollected how their generation had participated in the Naga Plebiscite and subsequently suffered through the years of upheaval that followed. We were also there when Nagaland attained statehood, he said, while remembering the inflow of cash, along with the statehood status, that would gradually infect the Naga society.
“I am not that old but I have lived long enough. And I know that integrity, today, is the most important thing (for Nagas),” Jamir said. The only way out for the Nagas is through “religion and God,” he suggested.
Fellow survivor and classmate, Khrielenuo Terhuja-a theologian with a master’s degree in Divinity- could not agree more.
