The other day, my friends asked me to come along for a fresher meet-cum-cultural day of a certain Zomi Tribe. I hopped along hoping to catch some traditional dance or song that I must admit I was hardly educated on. You can blame my parents only for that but I’m trying to help them unload that unnecessarily heavy accusation. Any way, I think it is pretty alright that the function started with a prayer rather than some traditional recantation; after all, we’re Christian! It was followed by an introduction and induction of the fresher with a prayer. The prayer seems like a thousand year especially since I was eagerly awaiting the special item performance that the ‘scheduled programme’ I hold in my hand informed me.
As soon as the Pastor said ‘Amen’, I stretched out my neck not wanting to miss a single thing from the special performance. Then came a pretty girl up the stage in an itsy-bitsy tiny little dress to whose tribe it traditionally belongs I still cannot figure it out. She was closely followed by a gentleman with a guitar and, instead of thumping their legs as I often see tribal do that when they dance in Discovery channel; they started singing one sweet candy bubbly song.
I never heard of such cool traditional song, it rather sounds to me like some Britney Spears’ if only her voice didn’t shake and for too long as it ached my jaws. My aching jaw and neck quite disappointed me and that is when I take a second look at the programme and realize that this is the first session and all sorts of entertainment are allotted for the second session! Silly me, if only I have had known that I could have had more time to nap!
I was not that very disappointed when my friends woke me up and interrupted my dream when the first session ended since it means I don’t have to wait much longer. I tried to reason the interruption while scrambling out of the auditorium but it rather makes me wonder how these people are going to perform some tribalistic dance while they are fully clothed except for quite a few girls. By the way, I think the Jeans skirt and pants worn by those girls were also quite traditional since they have been around for quite a long time now though I wonder to which tribe I may ascribe them.
Well, when the second session started I have to stretch my neck quite a few times but I don’t want to hold it out for long since it will only ached before the dance performance started. But I stopped stretching after I realize that special item performance only means some sugary bubble-gum song. I wonder why don’t we ever have a specially dedicated dance recital programme as the mainland Indian often did. Well, that may be another thing but it is quite a bore when you heard of so much twaddle and Britney Spears-cum-Lata Mangeshkar sound-alike. I would very much prefer the original but then there is nothing very original about anything.
Then, in a moment of deep meditation my ear pricked as it heard the announcer, or the emcee as they called them, announce something like ‘the moment that we are eagerly waiting for’. I readily applauded to this finality coming as I have been undeservingly tormented for far too long. But I wonder why I allowed myself to be thus tormented and sit here like a putrid mushroom just to see some people pounding their legs and singing some utterly funny song when I can just watch it from the comfort of home in Discovery channel or National Geographic Channel.
But the moment they switched off the light and light the stage, my mind takes an abrupt somersault, my neck stretched, my ears bloomed and my jaw slumped down my chest, all on their own, and my eyes would have popped out if not for my fake Rayban goggle and I could see it. But my ears wilted back quickly as the 100 decibels sound of the emcee’s voice in the sound box jumped 25 rows to bite it off. Then the keyboardist, by mistake, started playing his keyboard instead of some leather bounded drums. I laughed, but nobody laughed, so I stopped, may be it is not a mistake. My mind stopped to marvel at how far this people have come with in such a short time; from the traditional leather bounded drums I often heard my grandpa say they used, to a hi-tech keyboard to accompanied them in their dance. You know, not even the Japanese do that and to think of it, they make the best keyboard!
The somersault restarted the moment the two traditionally clothed hunks pulled the red curtains to make a small opening which I suppose is where the dancer will come out from. Then, poof, pops out the itsy-bitsy tiny-little-dress girl from the morning session in an itsy-bitsy tiny little shining dress. She gauntly walked across the stage stopping for a moment or two to hold her hips and throw her heads around. Just as she was to leave another girl popped out and she would have looked like Jesus had she only had a beard and her robe was not a bit too tight and had her hair were not pulled back and had she had not shown so much cleavage and had she looked a little more like Jesus. She walked across the stage like the girl in an itsy-bitsy tiny little shining dress and the forced fang baring makes them look similar. In fact, the other 8 girls who followed them also looked similar except that they wear some different cloths, even though they hardly clothed them.
The other fact is that, none of them danced like the tribal danced in TV. To me it looks like a fashion show rather than a traditional dance. I wonder how they did it in the old day. Did they really have such thing as the itsy-bitsy tiny little shining dress, or the flowing robe or the polka-dot dress, and did they wear them every time they dance? If so, then it must be very exciting even though I wonder if my sister would really loved to wear that itsy-bitsy tiny little shining dress. As she said it will expose all her fats, I can imagine that.
I was lost in thought so much so that when they switched the light back on, I thought I was time travelling like in some movies. I quickly grabbed the brochure to cover my eyes and try to open my eyes under it. On my third attempt I managed to squint open it a tiny bit and saw something in the programmes list and I realize that I still don’t take a good look at it.
When the girls started walking back to the stage, this time in their traditional dress, I was no longer excited because I know they are not going to dance. I know that because the programme said so and also, it is called beauty contest. It is not funny. They keep walking around and answer some stupid question in such a pious way that would shame even the saints! And worst, they take up a whole lot of time, and they even called this ‘the eagerly awaited moment’!
Don’t these people have something of their identity to showcase? Don’t they have something like love and fraternity to be the main attraction at such once in a year gathering in such a far off place, instead of showcasing some skinny airy headed girls who don’t even stands to the normal height? Don’t they know how to show their traditional dance to waste the more than one hour time that they used to showcase some skinny flesh? Can’t they sing their own song instead of borrowing others’? Don’t they have any self respect? What is so great about a beauty contest? In what criteria are they going to judge beauty, if it can be judged at all? Should beauty be judged by some brownie points gathered from some moralistically pious answers or from showcasing their body?
I know much better. I know my sister is beautiful because she is loving, caring and forgiving even though she is fat. I know my mother is much more beautiful than those girls because she is more patient and with much more practical wisdom even if she is wrinkled.
These people did not fool me. They are fooling themselves. And I’m not happy either, I am going to keep cursing because I was disappointed and because I have to learn my tradition from some television episode that was narrated by some firangs with no knowledge of it at all. And above everything, I have to return home like a fool laughed at by my friends for mistaking a beauty contest for a traditional dance recital. Next time when they have another contest, I’m going to call it an airy head contest done for the pleasure of some leering old men and young men who organised it and I’m not going to attend.
Tags: mizo, zo, zomi, zogam
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