A week after this phone call, I was on my way home along with my parents and sister.[“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…”]
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
