Soon after the Tatmadaw, or Myanmar’s military, seized power in a coup d’etat in February 2021 by displacing the National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government, Sumi, 18, fled the country. She crossed the border into India and finally secured a job in Treasury Square, the administrative hub of Aizawl, Mizoram’s capital.
Sumi was not too worried about leaving her home in Tedim, the second largest town in Myanmar’s Chin State, for Aizawl, covering 255 kilometres over five days by public transport. “She knew she would be among her own people in this foreign land that is much safer and more peaceful than ours,” says Margaret Ngaihi, Sumi’s family acquaintance.
Sumi became Margaret’s apprentice. Margaret, too, had left Tedim about 40 years ago to work at the house of L.R. Sailo, a former director of Mizoram’s Information and Public Relations Department at Treasury Square. Margaret says Sumi, from the Chin community, did not take long to settle down at the house of Sailo, a Mizo.
