Yiu Yi’s mother sat near the children with her head drooping. She often sat like this, leaving her work midway. She had almost lost her mental balance. Sometimes she behaved normally, but on occasion she became unstable. She did not want to work or eat. In the beginning, the supervisors abused her, but later they just left her alone. She received very little pay because of her lower work points. The others could not feed an extra person with the wages they earned. Still, they helped.

Yiu Yi’s mother didn’t complain even if she got nothing to eat, whether she was cool or disturbed. She had become uncommunicative and indifferent. She sat silently and sometimes cried her heart out.

‘Her father cheated me! He lied to me and brought me here. He didn’t even show me where they put her to sleep. What will I do now? What will I do?’

She was not alone; most of them frequently broke down in helpless tears. And those women too – the ones who had left behind their kin and their motherland for their husband and children, the ones who were forced to desert their Indian identity and citizenship, perhaps forever.

Parbati and several others would often mope about their circumstances. They wore Indian clothes. Worshipped Hindu gods. They even made altars for their own gods in their rooms and followed the rituals.

It was difficult to know what was going on in Pramila Gogoi’s mind. Never had anyone seen her get carried away by emotions. She always tried to enthuse everyone around her. No one had ever seen her mope for Xonpahi and Ah Chin or for her older daughter and her family, whom she had left behind in far-flung Assam. Nor for that matter did she pine for Tung Chin, who worked in some remote factory in the interiors of China. This dignified, educated woman was respected and loved by all.

Yunlin’s Naga mother-in-law Koneng and Akong’s mother Sukmati had also become subdued. They worked and ate quietly and, the rest of the time, sat brooding.

Most of the returnees cried. They cried because of the unbearable toil and hunger. They cried for their children, who were gradually becoming emaciated. They cried for the families they had left behind and cried relentlessly remembering their good days in India.

The memories of the past were hugely alleviating for their insufferable present.

Mei Lin felt the same way. Holding the baby to her chest, she would begin to see a rainbow of hope.

She had to live. She had to live for her baby. She had to live to see Pulok again.