Heart Breaking

 

It was heart-breaking to read this simple message from ZogamThuthang;

“Kei deihtelna tel lou a, thunei tuten amau deih2 hon telsak di ziak un VOTE KHELOU in kong kik – 9h1”

I was hoping this election would mean something! 

Gosh, that damned old place called Churachandpur NEVER failed to disappoint me! 

May be I should love and care less for my own good. 

But can I?

No.

 

God Saves us all! 

This is not democracy; this is anarchy!

There is Something About Lamkate

Every child that grow-up in those obscure mountainous villages looked up to anyone that came from Lamka or anyone that live in there. Anyone from Lamka who lives in other cities wanted to pretend themselves above Lamka but without any success. My point is there is something about Lamkate that will never change no matter what or where they live!

For instance my Aunt who live in New Lamka (CYA Road –so that you know what dialect she speak, the church she went to, etc! This is very Lamka) understood most of Lamka’s numerous dialects while she speaks none. When I went grocery shopping with her, she often amused me with the way she bargained with the ‘Ima’ selling ‘ngari’ or with the ‘Ka Nu’ selling ‘bawngkerawt’ when each of them spoke only in their own dialect and still managed to strike a good deal.

But what amaze me more is the sheer numbers of ‘second languages’ they speak or understood. Most of them can speak or at least understood Meitei, Hmar, Mizo, English and most of the ‘Zo’ dialects. And of course the women folk (especially the most unlikely one) understood Hindi which of course, they learned from ‘Tulsi of Kyunki’! That’s not a small feat especially when I compared to the number of times I gaped my mouth with confusion when people talked to me after church service at ZCF Delhi.

Most Lamkate also has a penchant for Mizo songs. That’s understandable considering that there are more Mizo songs blaring out from the local channels. A cousin, like every one of her friends, has listened and has her favourite Mizo songs –a dialect she cannot speak. And of course those imaginative dances they called ‘choreography’ performed by little boys and girls in the church with colourful ribbons tied to their hand! They are typical Lamka!

Another thing about Lamkate is their passion for ‘kuva/kuhva’. Most walls and public toilets faced you red bearing testimony to that. If they don’t chew the ‘betel leaf’ version, they can be seen chewing its dry version of ‘talap’, ‘shikhar’ or ‘raj darbar’, all these wonderful names I learned from a semi-literate friend while back in home. I often assumed those packed ‘paan’ are chewed only in Bihar and/or UP alone, but I must quickly add here –no connection, especially when we got enough connections and a friend here is seriously considering researching our Manasseh Connection!

Then, of course, there is the Lamka ear. They heard a gun shot and can name the name and made of the gun! Most of us from the city are too used to the crackers/fireworks coming from the never-ending birthdays, weddings and any sort of celebration we hardly hear a bomb ‘booming away’ a metre behind us. The last time I was in Lamka I put my best effort to make a joke when every one perked-up like a mongoose on-guard and looked at each other. I gave up attempting only to be told that they were wondering about the ‘loud boom’ which I still think is a lame excuse for not wishing to hear my joke!

There are more, like the Korean films, the seasonal fashions trends coming from Silchar or Tamu, etc. which are ‘religiously’ pursued and paraded every Sunday. But, let’s talk about that some other time. In conclusion, “No doubt, there definitely is something about the Lamkate!”

My Vote: My Say?

Come May, and the world’s largest democracy and the second most populous country in the world will go to the poll for the General Parliamentary Election. It will be a chance for the billion people of India to have their say in the governance –or at least in principle.

I remember often seeing this TV commercial where it says ‘if you don’t vote on Election Day, then you are sleeping and you have no right to complain’. I want to protest that complaining is what I did best, but I definitely don’t want to be caught sleeping even though I love sleeping.

So, I got to thinking if I were given the chance to have my say be actually turned into action, what would I say? There would be many things I would want to say. As a Christian, as a Tribal, as a Minority Community, as a Student and as a Citizen, everything about me is crying out to be heard –that’s also the one reason why I blog in the first place!

But I need to be realistic and stop nursing false hope since I live in a world called reality. And that left me with very little to say. During Delhi’s Assembly election last year, a friend joked that if someone put up a donkey as a candidate, she would rather vote that donkey, and I remember saying ‘amen’ to that.

As a Christian, I am furious (what an irony) that when Hindu mobs run amok ransacking and burning churches in Karnataka; torching the houses and mercilessly killing poor dalit Christians in Orissa; not a single Christian Minister or MP said a single word! We have enough prominent political figures (I can quickly count 2 Union Minister and about 25 - 30 MPs) who chose to remains silent –how orphaned we felt! Amidst all that, all the Prime Minister can do was to come out and lambast organized religion as a whole! Misinterpreted Liberalism… what a shame!

This election too, we will not have much choice like in the past. You can chose an individual who you think might be sensible, once elected he/she will sacrifice everything for the sake of his/her party’s image or as they say. You vote for a party, and they will remain a mute spectator while your house and church are burned!

But if you are a Dalit-Christian, it’s worse. You have to choose between your religion and your identity. Once you become a Christian, you lost your dalit identity but that doesn’t mean you will enjoy social acceptance. Apart from that, no matter how poor or backward you are, you will have to fight with the general people for every field of opportunity.

If you happened to belong to any of the poor minority communities, be very threatened. Whenever those political parties or the newly launched one needed some media attention, they will come to attack you, massacre you and no one will speak-up for you. If you dared even as to raise a protest, they will throw you in jail while those mobs will go scot-free. That’s what it means to be a minority in India and I don’t think this election will change anything.

If you are a tribal, all that you can do is to look-up to the sky where the non-tribals’ built their castles –waiting for those few scraps of government’s welfare schemes to fall-off off their table. We don’t want those scraps of welfare schemes, but a share in the overall development of the much proclaimed India’s booming economy.

As a marginalize tribal, I want inclusion in the progress of the country. When India go overboard claiming itself to be the world largest democracy, the armed forces continue to have unlimited powers in the North-eastern states of India subduing its tribals inhabitants into military rules and making them a perpetual refugees in the land of their forefathers.

As a student, I want better educational infrastructure and support –at par with those private institutions’. I also want an inclusive education where we are not forced to study the history of only certain section or part of the country or some socialist propaganda. I want quality education upon which one can build a life and not an education that put emphasis on pass-fail ratio or obtaining degree/certificate alone.

As a citizen, I want a government that’s not afraid to speak up the truth and stand up for the right things without fear of losing their vote-banks. I want a government that don’t emphasize on gender alone, or class, caste or race. I want a safer country where each one of us can roam free without the fear of being attacked because of your facial feature, religion, gender, caste, class or race.

There are many more that I want or don’t want, and looking at the leading political parties and their prospective candidates, it seems that I’m only wasting my time listing my wants or don’t wants. So I come to the question ‘should I still cast my vote this coming election’.

No, I don’t believe that the single vote I hold can make a difference among a billion people, and yes, I’m a pessimist because I have enough reasons to be disappointed, so this coming election, I’m going to stay at home and enjoy the holiday. It’s just not worth voting for someone who dared not to stand-up for his/her own people/religion or for that matter, speak out against injustice.

tags: zo, zomi, zogam, lamka

Life In A City

Talking in phone with my little niece back home, she reminds me of how much I fancied living in a big city when I was her age. I saw the lights, the glitters and the glamour in those films and convince myself to believe living in a city would guarantee them all. What a disappointment!

In those days, if I were told that there are frequent power-cuts in big cities like Delhi or Bombay or that the roads are filled with pot-holes, I would shake my head in dispassionate unbelief. And, how would I believe that I would spent a large chunk of my hard-earned money on renting a single room that's more like a dark cave with a single door and a window (if you're lucky)!

Many of us living outside left behind their wives/husbands; children and or parents back at home. I don't want to imagine what those separated couples must be undergoing, but I can speak for myself and assert that it's not easy either –being single, working and living in a city.

If you are lucky enough to get Sunday off from your work, it's the only day when you can meet people of your kind -that too, only if the church is within a reasonable distance. That Sunday church service could be your only 'social life' for the week unless you are one of those crows who are comfortable enough in their fake peacock's feather.

On the occasional time you went to church, you might even saw someone who fasten you heart beat and you may stole many quick glances, but that's as far as you would go, because for the next six days, you would be pre-occupied with your work and you would even hardly have the time to think about her/him.

You woke up in the morning, clean yourself, have breakfast, pack you lunch and off you went to spent the next hour commuting to your work place. You returned home in the evening buying grocery on your way, tidy yourself up, prepare and have dinner, watch a little bit of TV and you dozed off. You repeated the same pattern the next day, six days a week, and will continue to do so in the future. That’s life in the city.

If you are lucky enough to have someone within the neighborhood, you'll at least have someone to chat with, or if your family or friends have telephone, you can chat away for something about your monotonous/redundant life bearing in mind your fast running phone bill. Maintaining a relationship is expensive, it not only consumes time, but also your money.

Life in a city provides many 'pros' and as much 'cons', just like in the rural areas. Big cities offer mostly materialistic things, and to enjoy them one needs to have a deep pocket, and most of us can afford that. While at home, what we are being offered are mostly aesthetic like clean air, water & environment, love, friendships and so on; the absence of which can make life pretty scary...

May be that's the reason why the word 'home' sounds so heart-warming. The mere thought of 'home' can heal you of the day's fatigue, it can relax you from the tension boiling inside you on over-hearing someone calling you names or making an unnecessary comments about you. The word 'home' can transport you across the seas and the plains and take you to those ranges of hills and mountains where you spent the happy days of your childhood. The word 'home' is transcendental; it’s therapeutic and transforming...