An August Cicada

In a remote mizoram village stands a memorial stone to an insect that serenaded the hills and inspired a sentimentality competition.

- Adam Saprinsanga

ONE AUGUST afternoon almost 90 years ago, a cicada serenaded the rain-soaked hills near Lungphunlian village in Mizoram’s north-eastern hills. A man stood up on his hill-side rice field, listened to the cicada’s song and remembered what had earlier been agreed upon by the villagers: that the first to hear it should call out to gather all who were in the fields. So he sang:

Today it has sung from the field I am pouring my efforts into, The decree of rest that floats along the hills, Overwhelming me with longing for years and lives that have passed

That song has passed down through generations of villagers who narrate to every visitor willing to listen to the story of how a stone memorial, erected on the loftiest field in the hamlet, came to be. ‘On 23.08.1931,’ reads the now faded etching, ‘The young men and women of Lungphunlian erected this stone so we may always remember the Rengchal.’