It is now more than 40 years when I was working as an executive engineer under the Government of Nagaland. I was posted in Mokakchang, district headquarters of the area of the Ao Naga people. My job was to build roads, bridges, buildings, water-supply, and everything else that goes with construction and maintenance of townships in a rapidly developing area, forcing me to neglect family chores, despite my wife Juthika’s compelling reminders. One day, she told me very privately, “Do you know, Shantila and Dhruva are in love!”

Shantila Ao: a young, educated, “first-generation Christian” lady from the Ao Naga tribe. Dhruva Choudhury: a young, educated Hindu man, youngest son of a landlord family in a distant town Tezpur, working as a lecturer in a local college in Mokakchang. Shantila, very fond of our baby daughter Upa, was a good friend of Juthika. Dhruva considered me as his elder brother and met me often on study oriented discussions. Without having an inkling that they could be in love with each other, I retorted back to Juthika in my usual non-understanding way, “Impossible! How do you know?” She said, “I know.” I challenged, “did they tell you?” She replied, “No. They did not tell me. But I know.”

There is something strange in feminine character that I never understood all my life. How do they recognize things that we men can’t even imagine? Yes, Juthika was right. A few days later, Shantila told everything to Juthika and both of them cried a lot, because marriage between a Christian Ao Naga lady and a Hindu young man was unthinkable in those days. Privately, and very quietly, Juthika told me that I must make it possible. “You sound like my boss, the chief engineer. I can make roads and bridges, but this is something very different!” I was seeking a way out. “I don’t know anything. You must do it,” my wife Juthika had an uncanny habit of pushing me into a point of no return.

A few days later, I talked to the bride. I do not remember the exact conversation but I do remember some of the tell-tale words. She told me she had a very powerful aunt in the ‘underground’. The word ‘underground’ meant those Nagas who were fighting for a ‘separate’ independence by seceding from India, whereas a majority of Nagas did not mind enjoying the independence together with the rest of India. In fact, in the same family, a few members might be in the ‘underground’ whereas the rest would like to live a law-abiding, peaceful and constructive life. The ‘underground’ rebels were dauntless fighters and were very much feared by all concerned. The aunt about whom the bride was referring to was a senior ‘underground’ official in the Ao area.

“What did your aunt say?” I asked the bride. “She asked for two tablets of Novalgin,” she said. I remember the word ‘Novalgin’ very clearly. It was a strong headache medicine in those days. Fighting with a niece was not as easy as fighting with an army. If a powerful ‘underground’ lady needed two tablets of a strong headache medicine, the problem has got to be hard for me! However, I did not give up. “Did you tell your father?” was my next question. “Yes, I did,” she said. “He asked me what will happen to my religion?”

I could now visualize her staggering inside a dark, endless tunnel. Her father was a very staunch Christian. He gave up Hinduism and got converted into Christianity when he was a young man. He was not going to stand any nonsense like his daughter marrying a non-Christian young man! Holding my breath, I asked, “what did you say?” the bride replied, “I told him that I would go back to my grandfather’s religion.” Yes, she did use the phrase “my grandfather’s religion.” With all the danger sensors working overtime in my mind, I blurted out my next question: “What did he say?” She said, “he did not say anything. Instead, he gave me such a hard slap that I fell down.”

Modern young persons may raise their eyebrows, but such a thing was quite common then. I saw the gravity of the problem. To find a solution, it took me a complete overnight thinking. Next day, I called the would be groom privately to my room and told him that we would write a letter to the President of India. “What?” He almost jumped off his chair. I said: “Yes. The President of India. Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. I’ll draft the letter on your behalf and get it typed. You just sign it and mail it to him. It is the President’s job, not mine.”

Out of my draft of that letter to the President of India, I remember the following words: “Respected Dr Radhakrishnan, my mother passed away a few years ago, my father died last year, I am an orphan now. I don’t have anybody to advise me what to do. You are the Father of the Nation, I beg you to show me the path...” and so on. It was just a one-page letter, wondering how he and his bride could get married, seeking advice from the President of India! We waited, waited and waited. Reply did not come from the President. Time passed very heavily. The groom, who was skeptical right from the beginning, started to lose faith in this last straw of hope. In the mean time, Shantila had to leave Mokakchang and go 200 miles to her university in Guwahati where she was studying for her MA degree.

At this time, a friend of the groom, a young attorney, came from Sivasagar for a visit to Mokakchang. When he came to know about this letter (the groom told me privately), he burst out laughing! “Letter to the President? Are you crazy? Do you think the President of India will have time for such a trivial matter?”

The attorney friend left after a few days. I found the groom very depressed. Inside myself, I was also losing the confidence slowly, but I did not show it to him. The situation worsened. The groom had received very abusive letters from his uncles and brothers from Tezpur who were convinced that he was deflating the entire family by planning to marry a Naga girl. Juthika eased the situation in her own way: invite the groom for dinner so that he could play with our baby daughter Upa and would forget his woes.

One day, the entire picture turned 180 degrees opposite. Laughing breathlessly, he arrived at our home with a letter at his hand: “President’s letter! President’s letter!” He was in a state of ecstasy — and we all zoomed down to see what he had at his hand. Yes, it was a letter from New Delhi — in the gorgeous Rastrapati Bhavan letterhead — from the desk of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, President of India from 1962 to 1967, one of India’s top philosophers, author of 45 books on philosophy, and respected all over the world.

Marriage of a young couple in the distant Nagaland was NOT a trivial matter for Dr Radhakrishnan — I don’t remember the exact words, but the letter was full of blessings and love to the bride and the groom. As for their wedding, The President’s advice was unambiguous (I remember this piece clearly) — contact the local Arya Samaj and get married. “If you can’t talk to her by telephone (long-distance telephone calls were terrible in those days), go to Guwahati immediately and tell your bride to get ready for marriage,” I told the groom, “Meet the Arya samaj in Guwahati and show them the letter from the President of India.” He said: “What about my uncles and my brothers?” “First you organize the wedding in Guwahati with the help from Arya Samaj,” I told him emphatically, “then go to Tezpur to talk to your uncles and brothers. If they blame you, you put the entire blame on me.”

Telephone contact with the bride did not happen. I told my driver to ready the jeep. Juthika hurriedly took out the bridal dress that she was hiding as a surprise and gave it to the groom. Next morning, my driver took him to Jorhat to catch the bus to Guwahati. We could not go to the wedding that took place in Guwahati after a few weeks, but there were a number of exchanges of telegrams. Telephones still did not work. Young people today with cell phones and webcams may find it difficult to believe!

Afterwards, I met them in Shillong and got a complete report. Arya Samaj was great. The wedding took place very smoothly. A few dignitaries, who saw the President’s letter, attended their marriage and blessed the couple. “You should have been there to give the bride away,” the bride told me. My baby daughter was not yet two years old, and it was difficult for me at that time to perceive what it takes to give a daughter away, but I accepted her compliments in my awkward way by changing the subject: “What about your uncles and your elder brothers?” I asked the groom. “Oh, that was easy,” the groom sailed through the narration like an evening breeze, “You know my uncle LC, the local zamindar who is very tough! Everyone in the family is afraid of him. I kept quiet with my face down till he completed his roaring speech, and then I politely showed him the President’s letter.” I asked, “what happened?” He said, “he read the letter, and became totally quiet. The same thing happened to others. I cooled down uncle after uncle, brother after brother, with this,” he raised the President’s letter that he was holding in his hand.

By the way, the readers may wonder, what happened to me in Mokokchang in the aftermath of the controversial marriage? Well, people, particularly Christians, are very forgiving by nature, you know! The sisters of the bride helped me to pacify the father of the bride with whom I had a discussion in my home. Praying together to a picture of Lord Jesus in my living room, I told him about forgiveness for his daughter and son-in-law, without telling him that I was the prime candidate for his forgiveness! Everything ended well. The bride and the groom lived happily ever after. Truth is sometimes more fanciful than fiction!

Unfortunately, after writing this article, I got the sad news that Dhruva had passed away in February 2005. I am so sorry that I did not write the story when he was alive. His wife Shantila lives in Dhruva’s ancestral home in Tezpur with her son Devendrajit, daughter-in-law Vani, and two grandchildren. Devendrajit told me that as a boy he heard the story many times from his father. The letter from the President was a dear collection of Dhruva all his life. I requested them to give me a photocopy. However, in spite all their efforts, they could not find the letter in the archive of Dhruva’s collection. The memory of the letter is still green in the mind of Shantila, who sobbed on the telephone when she was talking with me.

The letter is lost, but the blessings of a compassionate, noble, warm hearted President, Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, will forever inspire the country to break all barriers and see every individual as a reflection of Divinity.

Himendra Thakur