Imphal, Manipur:
On the world's longest hunger strike, Irom Sharmila has completed ten years of fasting over human rights abuses in Manipur and promises to continue.
Silently but forcefully, she is highlighting the rarely reported decade-long insurgency in Manipur and the government's response to it with Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), something she opposes.
Irom Sharmila Chanu is a poet, a writer and an activist. She was brought to the jail ward of Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital at the age of 27. Now ten years have passed in solitary confinement.
In the year 2000, she had pledged a fast-unto-death against the imposition of AFSPA in Manipur. She was arrested and since then kept in custody - force fed with a tube.
When we met her, a cheerful Irom Sharmila seemed more determined than ever to continue with her fast. She, however, did not wish to talk much.
NDTV: In Manipur ten years back, there was a 27-year-old girl who sat in Malom for a protest. Ten years later, what do you see when you look back?
Irom Sharmila: Let us realise why we are here in this world. How and when we will go away from here? This is our duty to just self-realise.
This was a rare interview opportunity for both of us. But the one-hour, so hard-earned, was spent mostly in edgy silence. As if she was asking, 'I am living the struggle...I am living my protest...what more can my words give you that my life already doesn't?'