Apenyo, a young girl, was born with a talent for singing. Her mother would take her to community singing events, but her singing antics often caused embarrassment. Apenyo’s mother believed her singing genius came from her father, Zhamben, who was a gifted singer of traditional folk songs and Christian hymns. After Zhamben’s death, Apenyo and her mother lived alone in the village.
Apenyo excelled in school and weaving, and her singing voice became a star. She was inducted into the church choir and became the lead soprano. Her beauty blossomed as she approached her eighteenth birthday, earning her the nickname’singing beauty’ in the village. Libeni was happy that her years of loneliness and hardship were well rewarded by her beautiful and talented daughter.
The villagers were excited about the upcoming dedication of a new church building in their village, which had taken nearly three years to complete. The village was preparing for the event, with eminent pastors from neighboring villages attending the service. However, troubled times for the Nagas were brewing as the Independence movement gained momentum, and even remote villages were paying taxes to the underground government. The government forces decided to arrest the leaders for paying taxes to the underground forces.
On the dedication day, the choir sang before the formal inauguration, and gunfire surrounded the village. The choir sang without fear, and the soldiers retaliated by pushing and pushing the pastor and gaonburas. The villagers tried to escape, but Apenyo remained unharmed. Her mother tried to pull her away, but the army leader grabbed her by the hair and dragged her away from the crowd. The villagers were left to mourn the loss of their sacred church.
A group of villagers were attacked by soldiers, leading to chaos and a desperate search for their missing daughter, Apenyo. The villagers found the young Captain raping Apenyo and a few other soldiers, who were unable to save them from the bullets. The Captain ordered his soldiers to open fire on the villagers, causing the old church to burn down and the new church to suffer further damage.
The villagers found many villagers injured and six members of the choir missing. The villagers found human bones and a piece of Apenyo’s shawl, and buried the bodies in separate coffins. The villagers debated where to bury the deceased, as they were considered unnatural deaths and could not be buried in the village graveyard. A compromise was reached, with the villagers buried outside the graveyard to show that their remains were not abandoned to a remote forest site, but no headstones would be erected for any of them. The village’s inhabitants were left to face the consequences of their actions.
The gravesites in a village which were once buried beneath grassy knolls maybe uncertain about the fate and the history behind it but the story of the young girl whose last song died with her last breath lives on in the souls of those who survived. The Captain and his band of rapists, who thought they had burnt all evidence of their crime, are unknown.
An underground network has managed to piece together the events of that black Sunday and ascertain the identity of the Captain. On a cold December night, an old storyteller gathers a group of students to listen to her stories, and they hear a strange sound, which is Apenyo’s last song. The storyteller hums the tune, and the young girls ask about Apenyo’s last song.
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