An Apology for “Home”: Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone

Abstract

Temsula Ao’s anthology of short stories, These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone (2005), represents the first instance in which the varied experiences of ordinary Nagas during the peak of Naga insurgency (1950s to 1980s) are retold from the vantage point of hindsight. Ao’s stories represent an attempt to contextualise the actions of Naga individuals in a way that complicates the rigid notions of right and wrong, patriot and traitor, etc., that are characteristic of Naga self-discourse about their past. The overarching premise of Ao in this revisionism is the recognition of the dynamic relation between the existential impulse of self-preservation (at the individual level) and the demands of revolutionary ideals (decided at the collective level). In Ao’s conceptualisation of this dynamic, the abstracted idea of home functions as the default hermeneutical paradigm for individual action. Accordingly, in this article, Ao’s stories in the anthology are read to test and explore the viability of this alternative interpretive frame for Naga literary criticism.