Goodbye Mrs. Boa

by Nazrul Haque

Boa, an eighty-five-year-old woman was the last member of the Bo tribe and the last speaker of the Bo language. She lived in the Andaman Islands. Boa died on January 26, 2010 and in her death she took her tribe and language with her. The old woman was very lonely in the last few years of her life as she was the only surviving member of one of the oldest human cultures on earth which lived in the Andaman Islands for as long as sixty-five thousand years. She had no one to converse with as she was the lone speaker of Bo. Her death may go unnoticed but it is a bleak reminder to all of us.

Goodbye, Mrs. Boa!
We shall miss you.
The last of a tribe,
a lost language,
and those memories
You carried,
for the last 65,000 years.
Alone.

Aren’t you happy, Mrs. Boa?
In death you are reborn.
Just after crossing the bridge,
You shall meet them all.
Won’t you laugh again?
Will you joke about us-
In ‘Bo’?

Goodbye, Mrs. Boa!
Soon
We shall depart too,
Just like you,
Lost and lonely.
Civilization is a great burden.
So is being human!

Nazrul Haque is a Guwahati based author.

Image Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsumin/4261244100/