Mathew Rongmei
Dimapur
I did not come to Kohima to see flowers. I came for the War Cemetery, like many first-time visitors, in the early nineties. Inside it was quiet, with neat rows of graves and at the top, the old Tennis Court where Japanese and Allied soldiers fought trench to trench in April 1944.
A local guide was walking with me. He stopped near a cherry tree and said, "Sir, this tree saw the battle."
He told me the original trunk was torn apart by bullets and shells, that Japanese snipers had used it because from here they could see the whole Allied line, and that after the war a young shoot pushed out from its damaged base and grew again. I was young then. I took a photo and moved on. It is only years later that I understood what he was really telling me - that even a tree can remember.
That one sentence from my guide led me to another tree, just a short climb away.
From the War Cemetery at Garrison Hill, the Cathedral of Mary Help of Christians on Aradura Hill is barely 3 km by road, about ten minutes by taxi, less than 2 km in a straight line. You can see its tall tower from the cemetery itself. The cathedral was built with help from Japanese Catholics who wanted to build a bridge after the war. And inside its compound, my guide later showed me, is a second cherry tree - planted not by soldiers but by visitors from Japan as a gesture of apology and friendship.
Two trees, ten minutes apart. One survived war. One was planted for peace. My guide did not use big words. He just said, "One is history, sir. One is forgiveness. See, enemies can become friends."
This winter that story will be visible on the road to Kisama too.
From the cathedral, the Naga Heritage Village at Kisama, home of the Hornbill Festival, is just 12 km south on NH-29, about thirty minutes' drive. As you drive up to Kisama, cherry trees will line the roadside in full bloom, their pink crowns hanging low over the winding road in foggy, chilled air, and for a moment the climb will feel like a street in Tokyo. Young people in colourful shawls and warm western jackets will walk together under those flowers towards the festival gates, vendors will pour hot tea in the cold, and tourists will stop for photos, not knowing the same species once stood witness to one of the fiercest battles down in Kohima town.
That is what makes our cherry special. Unlike Japan's spring sakura, our Himalayan cherry, Prunus cerasoides, blooms in autumn and early winter, often on bare branches. Beauty comes when you least expect it, like peace itself.
Cherry blossoms do not last. They fall in a week. In Japan they teach that life is fragile. In Kohima they teach something more profound, and perhaps more needed for us today.
Look closely at a cherry tree in Kohima. It does not bloom by keeping its old leaves. It sheds everything, stands bare, and only then offers its flowers with complete honesty. There is no pretence, no thorns, no bitterness stored from last season. Its purity is its beauty.
I think of our own long, vexed Naga political journey when I stand under it. For decades we have negotiated with papers, positions, factions and fears. Papers can be signed, but peace cannot be signed. Peace has to bloom.
And it will bloom only when our hearts learn what these two small trees already know - that history must be remembered without being repeated, and that forgiveness is not weakness but courage.
The Japanese and the British and the Indians were enemies on that tennis court in 1944. They killed each other from arm's length. Today their children and grandchildren return to Kohima, not to fight, but to visit and pay homage - bowing their heads at the cemetery, lighting candles in the cathedral, walking quietly where their fathers once bled. If they could cross that distance, why cannot we cross the smaller distances between ourselves?
Our Naga solution will not come from Delhi alone, nor from any single group alone. It will come when Naga to Naga, village to village, generation to generation, we shed the old leaves of suspicion, pride and profit, and stand bare and honest before each other like a cherry tree in winter, ready to offer something pure and beautiful to our people.
Wars end when soldiers stop firing. Peace begins when there is clarity of thought and human hearts become as clear and as giving as cherry blossoms.
