The Last Song

I still must have run about butt-naked for all that I care, but that was a long time ago. It was the time when my grandmother was still alive and told me tales of the wondrous days of her youth. I can swear she did sing me a few songs when she'd find it hard to describe but for the life of me, I didn't remember a single word of the songs or what it was all about. But that was not the last time I heard those songs.

Now almost 20 years later, I’m scouring the internet for one of those songs (don't you wanna frown at the irony here -learning/looking for our traditional song in the internet!) for reason which I should have foreseen and which people have every right to expect of me.

See my sister who studies in Norway called me about her peculiar problem. "I have the perfect dresses (traditional) but what am I suppose to do about the traditional song or dance" she moaned. For all that I care she can sing one of those Lengtong Pauno's, but it did bug me that I myself didn't know a single line of those song, which people identified with me as my traditional song.

I remember, as a kid, our yearly sojourn to either one or the other of our aunts' village during the harvest festival. my parents would hardly approve of us going for the simple reason that there were free flow of alcohol but not wanting to offend any of the aunts, they would sent us packing without them hardly ever accompanying us. As the youngest in my family, I do feel lonesome, but anticipating for the festival in itself was a treat!

I remember, seeing men and women, young and mostly old, sitting around the hearth, or dancing along in circle in the big porch or court-yard, and throwing those songs at each other in anticipation of a reply. The reply did come every time and the song and dance would continue - the beat of the drums and the shrill but melodious voices mesmerizing the quaintly dead night in to a full bright morning.

Then I remember listening to, as a kid, the Smokies and the Eagles, the McKameys, etc, and while growing up came the Back-street Boys, MLTR, the Gaither Homecoming Friends, Avril Lavigne, Leeland, Sugarland, et al. They have entertained me and mesmerized me like any songs is suppose to do... And if I needed to express myself, I got a diary and a blog to express myself! I don’t need to twist and reverse words and sing it in monotone to express anything!

See I never needed the song! Am I still who I am since I didn't know and can't sing any of those so called 'traditional' song? A man without a leg is still a man, right? But then why do I write all this stuff about a stupid song if I don’t so much as care about it? Or is it really that stupid? And don’t I care?

But the truth is, I do care and it bugs me that I don't know any of those songs and can't sing even a single line. It is like a little stain in your favourite white shirt that people hardly notice but spoiled the cloth for you!  Every time you looked at the cloth, you see the big (actually tiny-little) stain!

So for the sake of me, I downloaded those songs and practiced a few of them. I have never got the chance to sing or show-off. And when I do sing it, will it be the last song? I have this idea of force feeding my children (when I have them) with these songs. But how long will the song survives -especially when it is faced against the like of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber?

The honest truth is, those traditional songs are dying... we can accept that fact or make plans to revive them by singing them in our daily life, in our churches, and re-packaging them in a different avatar! But then, that's not case now.

Another truth is, we had more advance and stylist way to express our feelings and emotions, we no longer need to sing each other a song... we just make a simple phone call. Those songs were supposed to be expressed and came from the heart only and are very special - just like my diary.

The final truth is - the last song had been sung and we don't know when! Another song will not be sung again simply because we don't know how to!

Going Home...

[“You are coming home?” “This Christmas?” “Please do come, oh God, it has been over a decade now since we last saw you.” “They are fine, everybody is fine” “Oh, your grandparents will be very happy when they hear it” “Yes, yes, you know, they are old and failing”. “No, no, they are alright, nothing to worry about” “How is LC” “She’s also coming?” “All of you?” “Oh, I am so glad, we should kill one cow when you come…”]

A week after this phone call, I was on my way home along with my parents and sister.

It was a little over nine years ago that we left this little hamlet perched in the hill when my father got a job with a central government department and we had to move to Delhi. I remember all my aunts and relatives that consists the whole village crying with my mother as we boarded the jeep that will take us to Lamka from where we would sojourn to that unfamiliar territory. At that time, I thought such parting as very silly and I often wondered why my favourite mithun had to suffer for our leaving this otherwise sleepy little village.

In Delhi two year later, I find myself more comfortable conversing in Hindi rather than my native language. My little sister always got scolding for speaking in Hindi at home. Having a father who spent most of his time in office, a mother who hardly speak, and never hearing it outside our house, I always thought it was hardly our fault that we never realize in what tongue we are speaking.

My father forbid us to speak in any other language other than ours’ in his presence, and being forced to speak to my mother with whatever of that tongue that remained with us, we often found ourselves in the gate of Babel. But now I thank my parents for that. Our Hindi translated native tongue, thought badly structured and often funny to my mother, is the face that we proudly wear today.

It is not easy to live among people who will always call you a stranger no matter how hard you try. As for me, I don’t have to try, to have their way of life, the environment I live in ensure I have the same habits, the same pronunciation, the same likes and dislikes, and the same way of life. But once I became more sensible to the situation around me, each habit, each word, likes and dislikes pushed me farther and farther away from my assumed identity that one day I broke down on the floor, weeping –wondering who I am and why I am here.

Once I questioned my identity, it is not difficult to realize the thin veil that masked my real identity, the pursuit of which, bring smiles to my parents’ tired and dejected face. In this instance, however, environment or circumstances do no favour me and I have to REALLY try hard to regain that perfect pronunciation I had lost, and pick up nuggets, facts and stories that my mother told me when I was young, so that my parents were not ashamed to take me HOME and say that I am their son, and that I am not left out when people talk of our tradition, culture and history. The hope that I am not lost is the only one thing that weight on my mind when I boarded that train that will take me home to meet my grandparents, relatives and above all, to put an approval stamp on myself for the hard work that I have undertaken.

Breaking the sleepy silence of that little hamlet one evening with our arrival, it doesn’t take me much time to realize that I belong here and that I am no stranger in this place. That night, when I retired to that hard cotton mattress to rest my tired body, I have the pleasure of my heart dancing joyously on the knowledge that I have recovered that something, which is as important to me as my existence, and which I thought was gone forever, and become so out of reach in the clouds which swiftly pass overhead.

I was ready to be rejected, to be humiliated like the black crow, instead I was very much accepted as a peacock –each and every word that I said, each and every sound that comes out of my mouth stamped that I am a true blue peacock, and I revel in dancing with my beautiful tail.

But my revelry did not last long. A day later, I feel like a drawn cub board, forgotten to be pushed back –totally dislocated. I wondered what this people are talking about, I heard no one telling the stories of Penglam, Galngam or Neino, I heard no one talking about bawng and sial, no one thought of zuha or zupi.

Well, I never heard of people personally telling me that such things are STILL done, but I distinctly remember such things being DONE when I was young, and also, I often read it in the books and magazines that I painstaking collected from all corners where the good postmen rendered their missionary work. But now instead of hearing Cing Khup and Ngam Bawm, I heard of Jack and Rose of Titanic, instead of hearing the Japan gal & zo gal I heard of Iraq and Afghanistan, instead of a zozu I heard of whiskey and beer.

There is no denying that any society must move on (on which way, I am no longer so sure of). It will be wrong on my part if I am weaving a dream of ‘them’ in a rather romantic or primitive set-up. But the last thing that I expected was to see a bevy of giggling girls clad in Jeans pant singing an English song in the church, or to see the young boys wearing big branded apparels hanging low –sweeping the dusty narrow lane. Indeed, everybody has as much right as me to move on, move on we must, but on which direction and at what cost?

Till now, I thought I was the only lost one and I often thought of myself as an excusable case on the ground that I am breed in a city that is too far off to maintain any sort of link with this place. But I never excused myself. The word ‘lost’ is always with me. It spins in my head, it tugs at my feelings, and it destroys anything that might be remotely pleasant. I took this journey in search of a home; I cannot say I found one.

A month later while sitting in the little jeep that will take us to the airport in Imphal to catch the flight that will finally take us to Delhi, I am no longer sure which way I am headed for -am I going home, or am I leaving home? While pondering over these unpleasant questions, the man sitting next to me asked where I lived. I promptly answered him without thinking; and I don’t want to think about it either.

I have been away for over a month now, I miss Delhi.

Category: Write-up

The Waiting Room

Ironic as it may sounds, American Hospital of Paris is one of the best hospital in Paris. Apart from that it is the only one where ‘most’ of the staffs speak English –or to put it more aptly –‘don’t hesitate to use English’! It seems the butch of Americans who started the hospital a century ago were much more desperate than me when it comes to the language barrier!

It is not the average hospital where every sick man/woman who are conscious enough to think of ‘bills and payments’ wants the ambulance to take them to. But I suppose at least a few of them are there to make maximum use of their insurance –like I do!

It was in the waiting room of the MRI Section where I met the two well-dressed ‘Frenchmen’. They were engaged in an animated talk when one of the turned toward me and asked me in English, ‘Filipinos?’ ‘Cambodian?’

I shook my head and said, ‘Indian’. They looked surprised but not as surprised as the British couple sitting across me who were visibly surprised. Then as if some sort of realization dawned on him, the younger of the Frenchmen raised his index finger and said, ‘Nepali?’

God! I wanted to cry out. With due respect to our Himalayan brethrens, I don’t usually respond to that ‘name’ very well.

I shook my head and told him that I was a tribal from the north-east of India. He barely let me finish my sentence when he started spilling-out ‘the amazing time’ he had in India when his Nepali guide ‘duped’ him and left him ‘bare’ in his hotel room.

He was speaking so furiously and rather loudly –of everything he saw or heard, from the people, the place, the food, the film –he seemed to have one thing or the other for everyone as I noticed everyone from the old American couple to the heavily accented Scandinavian to the nurses in the counter were totally mesmerized while I tried to recall if I had ever heard of anyone dying from frothing but had to conclude that whatever was his problem, his mouth definitely was not the one!

And, of course, he finished with saying that his experience was one of a kind and he wished to visit the northeast when he came round the next time. I nodded my head rapidly to look agreeable and managed a wry ghastly grimace when I actually intended it to be a beatific saintly smile!

Just then a nurse called-out for a certain ‘Monsieur el-Bashir.’ I looked around the room looking for any Arab but I saw none. The plump British couple were as surprised as me to see the young Frenchman stood-up and follow the nurse to one of the rooms.

Shortly after, another nurse called-out my name, or rather, something that vaguely sounded like my name. I noticed all eyes turned on me, as it was pretty obvious I could be the only one with a name that sounded like that. I stood-up and followed the nurse to one of the room. Just as I entered the room, I heard the Scandinavian said, ‘seems like these Chinese are everywhere!’

Tags: identity, relationship

LOST IN TRANSLATION

It is always great to be home. To meet your parents, relatives and friends whom you don’t see for the last 3-4 years and to re-live the ‘moments’ that struck you with a sense of déjà vu after seeing a particular thing or faced with some particular situation. But it is not that great when the trains of memories chugged down along the dark and windy cavern of reality that is presently waiting for you. You cannot help comparing between the one scene that was etched in your head like a fairyland and the one that is presently spread before your eyes.

But the worst thing is it will not stop until it ran havoc the flimsy imagination that you used to cream the harsh reality. Then the train will stop, falling down the gorge head first down and you are woken up by the ugliness of the present which will enslaved you till you got some legitimate reason to get out of there.

You might think that I will be dying to go home after staying away from it for nearly a decade now. And you might probably assume that I would take no notice of the long and dangerous way that we have to pass through to reach home. That is like saying Antarctica is in my neighbourhood –it is far from true. And to tell the truth I am not eager at all to go home -to meet the old ghosts which are made much wilder by the newer and younger ghosts.

To me that little hamlets perched out in the jungle of the north-east India is like a God forsaken country –one can only say it is unfortunate. It is as difficult to get in there as it is in getting out of it. Meeting your parents for the love value and meeting relatives and old friends is heart warming. But it is the aftermath that is depressing. And stay for another day and everything will remind you that you are lost in translation.

Even though I never really feel at home when I am in Delhi, I miss and long for it when I am away. I cannot say the same is true of my home. I don’t know if I misread my minds. But I am sure that it shows the sense of tie and attachment are missing. That is why I said I am lost in translation –I belong neither here nor there.

The truth is I miss my parents, my family, relatives and friends and not the place. I like the place but not for living there permanently –only as a place to spent some times. Where else could I get the fresh air, the clean and clear flowing water, the lush green environment, the sunsets and sunrises? What I don’t like is the environment, the new culture and attitudes of people.

I hate those who accepted corruption as a natural things, I hate those government doctors who charged the poor and helpless for the free surgery, I hate those government welfare schemes distributor who pocket them all, I hate those who did not work but draw their salaries anyway, I hate those church elders who don’t practice what they preach, and above all, I hate those gun trotting animals strutting around looking for some helpless victim.

How can I possibly live among those I hate? But on the other hand, if I ever forsake the place, the missing ties will never be restored, and I’ll be lost forever. I hate being lost; the concept of itself makes me guilty. I have lost my cultural identity already, I have no place to be identified with, I lost my tradition, I lost my religion, and by deserting the place, I’ll be severing that last single ties that I have with my identity.

I want to be here, I want to be there, and I don’t belong neither here nor there. There is so much contradiction, too much complication; it makes me confused, dizzy and guilty. It seems globalization is catching up far too fast with us. It seems there will never be a Zogam or Zoland and I’ll never have an identity that will burn my spirit to trot forward confidently into this world.

After many centuries of losing their country the Jews have returned back to their homes, after a centuries of migration, the Chinese have returned back to their motherland, after half a century of brain-drain in mainland India, they are flocking back home now, but when will the Zomi return home? When will they have a home that they can call theirs and recognized by the world? When can they have an identity of their own?

Right now, all I can say is –God only knows. We Zomi, including me, are one good case of a tribe lost in translation. I wanted to be back home, and I don’t want to be back home. I don’t want to be here nor there and I don’t belong neither here nor there. But to be sure I’m not a crow pretending to be a peacock, only a simple case of mistranslation. A simple case of mistranslation which can be corrected, I sincerely do hope so. ©lyan

Tags: mizo, zomi, zogam

I’M LOST! (SOMEBODY HELP ME)

Last night, my niece approached me to help her with her assignment of listing the names of 100 endangered species of animals. She is a bright little child and she had already managed 99 names and was needing my help for the last one final species that will give her 100% marks. I have to admit that I don’t know much about those thing and even the few that I knew were already listed. I offered to look it up in the net, that is when my friend, always the joker, chipped in to suggest my name to complete the list.

We had a good laugh at that time, but late at night when I think again about it, there is nothing funny about it. Rather, the irony of the joke sickened me. I try to ignore it as a simple joke, but the more I think about it, the more it makes me uneasy.

It hurts to think that I, a proud Zomi should be in the list of the endangered species. I’m simply not ready to accept that that I, who would painstakingly explain to everyone where the fictitious Zogam is –instead of just saying Manipur when I’m asked of my native place, should now be in the verge of extinction. The simple thought of it totally unsettled me. I don’t know why. May be, because it is the truth. I wonder why reality is always harsh and truth always hurt.

Zomi -on the verge of extinction? It may sounds exaggerated or you may questions the connection between that little joke and the Zomi, as a whole. Well, I do admit that I sweat out at the first sight of danger and get panicky at the false alarm. And I must admit that I don’t represent the Zomi as a whole – but let me also admit that as a human, the only claim that I’ve got is being a Zomi and I’m pretty proud of that fact.

How serious I was? Well, like all my peers, my favourite song is Thawn Kham’s Zogam song. I got a high every time such a genre of songs are played and apart from that I make sure that I never missed any of the Zo festival and tried hard, even though sleepily, and learned the roots and beginning of such festivals.

Everything seems so ironic and pretentious now. I see no more point is singing “Zogam aw, ken hong taisan kei ning” from Delhi, or for that matter, from Yangon, Tokyo, Florida or any of the “tuipi gal pan”. After all I spent half of my life here in Delhi and feel more comfortable conversing and thinking in my broken English. And if I were back home right now, I’d be itching to abandon it, especially after knowing the easy way of life that a city affords.

But, let face it. Who can deny that we are not lost but firmly grounded in our tradition? I don’t need to remind you how many Davids, Josheps and Marys we have had among us? And, how many of them can speak; forget about the writing part, our language? As for our brethrens in Chinhills, forget it, the youngsters can hardly write or read their names in our own Romanized script.

When we talk about the concept of lost, we often thought only about the ‘tuipi gal ate’. Yes, I can’t deny that these people, including me, are not dying to go back home, but to spent a few day there, and that too, sadly only as a holidayer since we cannot afford other tourist hotspot. But let me tell you, those people who stayed back home did not fare much better either.

The other Sunday, I sat down to read some magazines sent from home in Manipur. I cannot help getting a goose bump when I found an editorial page of a reputed newspaper written by someone by the name of ‘Nowluck’ followed by a Sunday magazine whose editor goes with the name of ‘Heartjoe’! My friend cannot help wondering if these people moved a little down south, will they be called ‘Nowlucka’ or ‘Heartjoei’!

There is no denying that we all, either willingly or unwillingly, abandoned our home in search of a better life. Even all those who still live back home will not miss to grab the fist opportunity to leave after all having one or more family members in a foreign country is a social symbol that everyone looked up on. It would have been another fairy tale had we all returned back home with the money and degree that we earned but alas, we all dreaded returning back home by that time.

But the saddest part of the story is that even if we wanted to, we simply cannot return home. The simple fact is that there is no opportunity of employment and earning our livelihood. The other sad irony is that instead of our ‘tuipi gal a te’ returning home, all those students studying back home will have to leave once they are eligible for graduate school since there is not a single good college back home. And it is doubtable that they would return because of the lack of opportunity as said before.

The simple fact is that we certainly are lost if not in the endangered list. You cannot blame me and my tribe alone. The sense and sign of lost are everywhere.

Even if I’m not lost yet, at least thinking of all these makes me lost my mind totally. May be I should seek for help. Seeking for help may be the boldest step that I can afford right now. Or may be I’ll just call myself ‘a citizen of the world’ and blame it all on globalization. Oh! That would indeed be a good way to let go -Damn you, Globalization!

Tags: mizo, zo, zomi, zogam

The Zo Fest

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

Stranger at my Home

(This piece is an extract from my Diary dated 23rd December, 2005

when I returned back to my native place to the jungle tribal village of Manipur.)

People used to tell me home is where the heart is. But some times, like this very moment, one can feel like a total stranger at one’s home.

The feeling of homelessness is no stranger to me. I have traveled to most part of India which I called home but wherever I go, I remained a stranger. I reluctantly accepted the tag, forgiving them for their ignorance or at other time consoling myself as being a lesser Indian. But among my own people, I am not ready to be treated as a lesser one, at least not in my own village where I grew up.

As a child, I was given the notion that anyone from the mainland, especially the army, should not be trusted. I remember my mother going berserk when I, once, went to the army camp with my friends. Their fear is understandable as I myself had often seen and heard incidents to justify it. But this time round, my only crime is that I dared to say that I am an Indian and that India is my home.

It is true that I am an Indian (I want it or not) and India is my home (at least my home lies in India). But the sad irony is that my Indianess ends the moment I passed my region into the mainland. Wherever I go, people would ask me which country I came from. I would tell them that I was from Manipur. When people don’t know that I would substitute Manipur for Mizoram or Nagaland, it doesn’t help either. Most of the states in the North-east, according to their guesses, are in Nepal or China. At the end, I was so feed up of the question; I simply nodded to whatever country they guessed for me.

Then I would went to visit monuments and there they would charge me 500-600 percent more unless I am ready to spent some amount of time explaining the geography and demography of India. And in the sphere of education, every subject that includes Indian subject matter exclude me, and in the few occasions when the media picked up news from the north-east, they would be half-baked with most of the name being misspelled as if they were aliens’ names.

I traveled aboard to see people raising their eyebrows when they know my nationality. They thought I must be a Red-Indian. They wanted to ask me about Indian food, Indian music and Indian culture. But the Indian food, music and culture they wanted to know were alien to me.

During my stay in Delhi, I tried hard to learn and appreciate the ‘Indian’ language, food and culture. I forced myself to sit through an hour of ‘Indian’ dance recital, endured many three-hour long ‘Indian’ films and spent sleepless nights after stuffing myself with the spice infested foods which my ancestral would probably say ‘killed the taste buds’.

No matter how hard I try, the freaky question keeps popping out, and would irritate me as ever. I tried to take them as an innocent question but still, it fuels one’s feeling of alienation. People often tell me to take them easy but the prejudice, abuses and discrimination one’s faced cannot be easily taken by the stride. And it doesn’t help very much even thought they sincerely apologized after abusing you especially if your abuser happened to be someone as educated as your very own teacher.

Such situation, though infrequent, aggravate one sense of alienation. It is under many such situation that I started to believe myself as an alien in this country, and take that little jungle village in the tribal areas of Manipur to be my only home.

But now standing here in the middle of the road, surrounded by the chief and elders of the tribe, I certainly feel like a stranger. I was absolutely enthusiastic to return home after more than two years of absence, but the moment I landed up, the first reaction was of general disappointment. Everybody takes a look at me and the first comment was that I was a lost child. My language was adultered and my pronunciation stained. ‘Lost, absolutely lost’, the elders lamented whilst the youngster called me pretentious. And with that big crimes I was standing here with the elders who sermons me on our value, how we were free and independent, with our own land and laws.

I don’t know if it would be wise to remind them that the government doesn’t even want to recognize our existence. To me that is as good as being lost. The elders may think that we are free with our own lands and laws, many anthropologists may come to study our primitive ways and our wild photos may found home in galleries and museums around the world, but that may not be enough if a seven degree minority community living under the mercy of others wanted to survive. But I choose to remain silent.

I don’t know, as of now all I need is some one to talk to me and make me feel at home without pretension. Then I started to wonder, if I can call this place as home even after what I have been through, why cannot I do the same anywhere else? After all, the whole world is my home.