Tag: People and Places

By Bobo Meitei

We were not stopped nor the notion of frisking us hadn’t crossed their minds, instead the armed commandos directed the way till the door of the legislature. The influential man with me didn’t consider it necessary; he gave an understood holler and from behind the door the legislator’s soft voice came. He shook my hand and said the influential figure with me was a well-respected person. I did have a fair idea, but had never attached that importance, since to me he was just an old friend. In his soft-spoken voice he talked about the recent security arrangements, and then he went on to talk about ministerial portfolios and some upcoming foreign trips. The men whom he had been courting before we had arrived stood up and the eldest-looking among them asked with a brimming smile, ‘So, can it be considered done?” He said they should start with the walls, and then the cheque would be signed. The men lingered and pressed on,” what about the chief engineer?” They didn’t have to worry, he himself would go and slam his head his against the man’s desk. A peal of laughter filled the place.

My friend lamented about the manner in which the Public Work Department was delaying his nephew’s cheque, said the nephew wasn’t rich and he could be blamed for not having done anything to get the minister signed the cheque. The legislator said the minister had been busy with the Chief Minister, but he had the number of the minister in question. When he called the minister was with his convoys on his way to his constituency to distribute free blankets, then the phone changed hands. My friend rebuked the man in their understood friendly tone; he said he would sign it right away and he could have it the following day. Tea came, and the bellboy bowed and asked if anything more could be done. Yes, his escorts had to take us to the Telecommunication Department Office so that the security posts there wouldn’t bother us with nonsensical queries.

Before we left the legislator told me about his son in Europe and the daughter pursuing medical studies in the States. I said, “ it must be expensve!” He said it was, but he wanted his children to get the best. How many individuals in this rotting state could afford that? In front of the telecommunication building we parked our car in the area reserved for VIPs. The security personnel manning the gate stood up to attention and behind us they exchanged warm words with the personnel escorting us. We didn’t take the cracked-steps set against the spat-on walls, we were in a lift, which took us up straight to the Director’s office. Since the commandos were left downstairs, the clean-shaven secretary chewing kwa (betel nut) stood up and demanded our identities, but my friend could be quite arrogant when he was confronted by a little man like him: he gave the man a shove and pushed opened the door and there, inside, was the bearded, burly man in tweed jacket and corduroy pants belted below the imminent belly, which kept on rubbing against the edge of the fine desk.

Set against one side of the beautifully-painted wall was a sofa and a clean tea-table bearing some china cups. Three men in large, thick jackets sat there with their legs crossed and their hands placed on the laps; they had been paying attention to the bearded, burly man. They were his men and had come to ask for his favour, but my friend was a much important person; his friends were the ministers and the legislator and any unwanted incident could jeopardize his position in the department. So the men stood up spoke fast and the bearded- bulry man waved his hands and at the same time smiled suggesting they were in fovourable term with him.

The director appeared much humbled and he asked the secretary to get some drinks; we were given options. And the man who had stood up to stop us now began smiling and was exceedingly polite: he began calling me tamo( big brother) and my friend khura( uncle). My friends had come here to ask the director to help activate the 3G connection for his minister and legislator friends. Having associated with those men, the man stood up, as though he was tickled by the request, and came and stood by the sofa.

The Director, with the secretary, accompanied us till the main gate, stirring up the security personnel. The commander in-charge of the gate was ordered to escort us till the Chief Minister’s official resident. Above the few-metre-high walls towers stood, and in the towers the security personnel’s faces were scarcely visible behind the sandbags and the long-barreled rifles. Since it was the biggest man’s resident we were not directly allowed to enter: the commander from the previous place did the talking with the commander at the gate, and then the commander at the gate smiled at us and greeted us as he would do to his superiors. Having accomplished his duty the commander from the previous excused himself and said he was pleased to have accompanied us.

It was so unlike the places we had been to and I never thought no individual could dream of living in such a grand and opulent place. The cemented path running between the green hedges was as clean as a family’s kitchen floor, the huge garden was populated with flowers of all kinds and the gardeners in uniform wore gloves and wellington boots, on the mowed-lawn a canopied structure sat; its roof was painted olive green and the pillars white ,and the floor was tiled. At the porch was the bullet-proofed BMW sedan of the biggest man guarded by his eye-rolling elite commandos wielding Israeli sub-machine guns. Since we were accompanied by the commander from the gate the eye-rolling elite commandos didn’t bother us while taking the marble steps. The foyer was furnished with settees and lion leg tea-tables bearing expensive magazines. The biggest man’s personal secretary ran out, confirming our importance to the commander from the gate, and led us in to a private room.

He sat in a straight-backed chair and the whole body was wrapped in a white sheet except the head: the beautician was applying make-up on his ageing face and every now and then was trying to fix his thin hair over the bald patch. So without any eye contact he sounded out his acknowledgement. He said he was going to give a television interview and we were welcome to watch him. He whined about the fact that the state was deteriorating in all aspects, and then only to contradict himself, he talked about the recent achievements. The hair was fixed over the bald patch and the face was meticulously made up, then the wrapping was removed; he was in his North Indian kurta, just like any other stereotypical statesmen without any conviction and to appear just like one among them was to consider himself a man of the people.

From the make-up room we moved to the mowed-lawn. The camera man and the interviewer, from a well-known television channel in mainland, were waiting for him; they came with a local journalist in case. I recognized the journalist; never thought I would see him as one though. We stood about when he took his seat facing the interviewer. Before they could start the local journalist butted in and whispered in the biggest man’s ear: he was asked if he would be comfortable to do the interview in English. He was offended and he made a gesture showing disapproval of the local journalist.

The first few simple questions were asked; he answered them in a calm tone in his best English. More came, but this time longer and hypothetical ones; his eyes blinked and the face was tensed, but he managed to give the answers; the answers came in fragmented bits and ,sometimes, he didn’t have the words to describe, at this point his eyeballs were on the corners seeking the sight of a reliable language proficient individual. Lucky that the interviewer had some sympathy for the biggest man in the state: his eyes were full of pity for the man and involuntarily he clicked his tongue and said they could wrap up the session. But the biggest man, a while ago talking about big aspects and huge recent developments couldn’t sense any of that. He was good only among his kind, though he appeared to be aware of the successes of big people, he must have been completely unaware of the labours those people had to employ to arrive at what people termed ‘success.” His success would be to horde wealth in a gross fashion and then to corrupt the minds of a naïve people; contrary to a personality and manifesto election. To him his an increase in his wealth was the enhancement of his personality; he might have been driven on the smooth six-lane roads in some country, but he would be happy cruising in his pullet-proofed BMW on the pot-holed seven-foot wide road of the state which was reliable as far as Imphal went. The only difference between the naïve people of the land and him was that, he was a filthy rich parrot and the others were a miserable, wretched parrots who would like to be just like him: to become rich overnight without hard labour and then to live out a meaningless life.

We were back in the same room, only three of us and his secretary. The face which looked so puzzled and lost a little while ago now full of confidence and he began talking: believe me, the place will soon be transformed and you all should put your shoulders to the moving wheel. In five years unemployment will be a thing of the past; all the districts will be electrified, schools, hospitals and colleges will be as abundant as kwa kiosks; Imphal will be the meeting point of India and ASEAN nations. You all should put your shoulders to the moving wheel.

As simple as that! Did he mean a single word he said or was he paraphrasing some archaic academic? It became much clearer when I put to him how he would obtain the capital for all the developmental works: his answer was New Delhi and ASEAN Bank. I never heard of ASEAN Bank, and wondered why New Delhi would inject billions to such a corrupt and rotting place? His childish trick of pulling words from thin air discouraged me from asking further; but it was good that the secretary went out and returned with some beer. He put down the beer tins on the table, no one touched but me. While I was enjoying the chilled beer my friend started serious talks with the biggest man in the state: my friend wanted the big man to give him few big contracts and in return the big man would have the support of some his legislators and plus he would get a slice from each big contract. What I didn’t know about my friend was the influence he enjoyed as a kingmaker, though he wasn’t a public moron. His left elbow pressed on the sofa arm revealing his Swiss watch, the right hand on his lap, with eyes half-closed, he listened to my friend and released a “hmm” to every sentence, and when my friend was done briefing the arrangement he smiled and in an avuncular tone, “we need people like you”.

Before he was whizzed out from the official resident in his BMW swarmed by eye-rolling commandos to hop into a copter he gestured to one IPS officer, who ran up with his upturned right hand placed on the forehead, and instructed him to see us off. He escorted us till the main gate where the commander who had escorted us till the porch was found; he jumped on his feet to salute to the IPS man and then to us. Outside the gate, few metres away there were hordes of people standing with hastily-done placards “ stop killings!” “ justice should be done!” “ What was Tomcha’s fault?” To confront the horde demanding many things some of the bold commandos were on the move with truncheons, soon they delivered their usual nasty warnings, then with the nasty words the truncheons came down on the horde. They were the same commandos who had stood to attention and indicated their readiness to lick the path before us. Now they were nasty, brutal and hence effective.

The IPS came along and the gate commander walked with us till the car park; two big cars were on both sides rendering it difficult for my friend to pull out his. It was gate commander who jumped into the car and with great precision got the car out and parked the sedan right in the middle of the road, holding up the traffic, no one dared to honk.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/C_WkXlaE2HY/

“Don’t come to university campus in shorts again!” the bamboo can- wielding security guard standing next to a bunch of stern IRB personnel shouted. I couldn’t help laughing, but at the same time I also wanted to know the reason and to my inquisition, swinging his bamboo cane, while his peers whistling without any reason, he shot back, “ If I say ‘ don’t come again” means “ don’t come.” There was no way that I could reason with that man and his peers whistling at every vehicle. This was at the main gate of Manipur University. Years ago, we ,as children ,could enter to get some fresh air, and for many the indoor stadium and the field were important. The following day I was again in shorts, but I entered the campus in a friend’s car; the IRB personnel stood up and stopped us, they saw me wearing shorts, there was no word, then they asked for pass and who we were. My friend happened to be a police sub-inspector, when they realized who he was; they stood to attention and saluted.
At ten in the morning the SBI bank was still shut but the policemen were already there. The lady in the kiosk beside the bank said, “Son, they come late, but you can have a Kwa( betel nut ) or a cigarette” exposing her kwa-stained teeth. Both the ATM machines hadn’t been repaired; people from places as far as Samoorou and Mayang Imphal had come to withdraw money. Finally the staff arrived, those who had been sitting on the steps and sitting on their haunches now stood up, but the staff took their time. I took the liberty to inquire about the ATM machines, a jumpy, young man said they were working. The screens still didn’t work. At last, a young man, not the jumpy, young man, came out and fixed the machines, and the satisfied people queued up. Two people before me could withdraw money. I tried, but there was no cash. I thought the problem with the machine had re-started, but after a few attempts I realized there was indeed no cash. I had come to this place by foot thinking after the withdrawal I would plan something. Of course I was angry, and those men at the back, standing on the tips of their toes, kept on staring at the screen while I was making the hopeless attempts. I could have shouted, instead I told them to stand outside to allow the person inside some privacy; they wouldn’t have any of it.

Outside the queue was longer since the other ATM machine had stopped working. When I told them there was no money in the machine no one believed; they all thought there was problem with my ATM card. I said I was serious, but despite my first hand information the people lingered to try their luck. It was already lunch time, no one responded to my suggestion to put cash. Each staff was a monarch in his or her capacity. If I tried to remind them of their duties they would be miffed and the police personnel could possibly manhandle me, and if I appeared too subservient then they would treat as someone whom they could ignore; the only way through which I could get things done would be to have some tamo or some eeneh working there.
It had been pouring down in recent days, every place was soggy or muddy and the asphalted areas roads glistened. While walking on the pot-holed village road of ours my feet in Teva sandals had got some mud and after a little while in dry area they appeared whitish but not quite distinct. There was no place where I could give my feet a wash, perhaps the water from the runnels. Had I withdrawn the money, I could have sat in an auto rickshaw to go as far as Singjamei to check my e-mails. Cashless I wandered for a while inside, and when I got close to the university library I realized that I could use the university Internet; perhaps I could take permission from the staff.

The foyer where they had the computers against the walls looked deserted; one bespectacled man in his fifties was at the counter with his eyes cast at some dog-eared file. Without looking at me he said the computers could be used. I was half done with my works, and now more people had flocked in: some attempting to create their social networking accounts and some chatting. I suddenly heard a contemptuous voice, “This is no place for labourer!” It was aimed at me. I said I had to walk some pot-holed village road but hadn’t done anything to the floor. The man remained silent for a while, and then a dreadful and thundering voice came, “didn’t you hear what the old man said? You!!” It was loud, too loud. I said what was wrong in my wearing shorts. They said it was a university place and people should come in formal attires. I asked if that was considered sacrosanct then they all should be wearing polished formal shoes instead of those Bata sandals and perhaps some perfume as well. This time the voices became one and the eyes were on me.

I was forced out from the place humiliated, and when I got to the gate those bamboo-canes- security guards gave me a hard look. These little things which recur inside the campus and at the gate of a university campus are an indication that the pervasive decay is also imminent in this establishment. If a person wearing shorts cannot be tolerated in its campus, then, one may wonder what new ideas or constructive criticisms it would tolerate.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/diGMDuxBJNw/

From the bicycle rickshaw I could see the Victorian building of the country’s best college. They said it had been rated as the best in several discipline for several years. I didn’t go to a good college, nor did I take great interest in required reading; the actual learning came to be much later when I was exposed to a very harsh environment. I wasn’t awed, but I was curious to find out what was inside the best college of the nation: a sprawling clean campus with serious students working till midnight in their comfortable hostels, active students playing some sports taking the view of practical education and, perhaps, a place where a debating environment was vibrant. Those were certainly some of the stereotypes that had crept in the mind of a man who had been battling the rising mercury in this capital city of India.
One evening about the area, where I had rented an eyrie-like room, I ran into an undergraduate student. She was busy slurping her ice-cream beside a store, and I was busy elbowing my way to get a bottle of chilled water. I managed to ram my hand in the trouser pocket but the chilled bottle was almost hurled at me and I, realizing the unused circumstances, also hurled the money, a five-rupee coin wrapped in ten rupee note, at him. It hit the storekeeper’s hairy chest exposed by the unbuttoned shirt. He chuckled exposing his betel juice-stained teeth.

She said she had heard so much about me on certain networking website; people around her were familiar with my photography. I said it was just a hobby. Just to return the gratitude I thought I should have a small conversation with her and beside I was in no mood to return to my oven-like room where I had been enduring with a wet towel over my torso. While telling me more about herself she was very mindful of the ice-cream in right hand and the large smart-phone in another, and she lifted her legs every now and then to shake off the flies which were as thick as the dust. She said she was at the “prestigious college” in her final year specializing in English literature. I expressed my interest, encouraging her talk more. ” Nostromo” and “Midnight’s children” confused her and there were “talks” that some of textbooks were hard to get in their library. Each time I talked the hand holding the dripping ice-cream came up quick and the mouth was occupied, and then her phone beeped, the eyes were cast sideway. With the dripping ice-cream in her mouth and her both hands holding the smart-phone her fingers began fiddling the phone. I gestured I was leaving, her right hand grabbed the stick and the free mouth moved, “I’m so sorry. Could you…” With a smile I turned on my heels and left her to her ice-cream and Chinese smart-phone.

The following day the temperature shot up to 45 degree Celsius; my wet towel dried up within half-and-hour. The thought that I could spend few hours in a swimming pool nearby came to me, and through Google I managed to get one which happened to be in the campus of the “prestigious college.” I was rather convinced that the place was certainly different. I put on a wide-brimmed hat, packed my waterproof bag and ran out from the unbearable room. The rickshawallah downstairs was rolling on his passenger seat, legs dangling over the edge of the seat, head resting against the bar supporting the roof and the lean hands on his chest. When I woke him up, he brought his knees against the chest and put down the legs on the platform and with the hands pressed against the edge of the seat he asked where I wanted to go. When I mentioned the name he instantly wagged his head, indicating he knew the place, but when I asked if he knew whether the college had a swimming pool his eyes squinted and in the ears pricked a bit as though he was trying to fetch some remote memory. He wagged his head again.

The traffics had been driven off the road by the heat, but for some unknown reason few vehicles behind rickshaw and few before honked and honked as though without honking they couldn’t drive. The double swing gate was half opened, behind it was a few tall trees casting thick shade and in that shade sat a man in a chair. Seeing me enter the place in cargo shorts he stopped rubbing the tobacco in his left palm and gestured to ask where I was going. I said I wanted to use to the swimming pool and asked if the college would require me to fill out a form. His left hand threw in the ready tobacco to his mouth; his tongue ran inside the mouth, placing the tobacco in the corner of his mouth, then he took his hands sideway and clapped to get rid of the lime and tobacco dust. He spoke, “winter ended only yesterday, there is no water, but soon we will fill it up.” His tongue was busy inside: it had been gathering spit while he was talking and he spat out sideway and it landed on the tree trunk right behind his chair. Now I only wanted to know when it would open. I got my answer, ” 25th of this month, certainly and you make sure you decide which payment you should make, the 1,700 rupee, 2,000 rupee or 3,000 rupee.”

I believed he wanted to talk more, but I hastily thanked him and left him to enjoy his tobacco. I didn’t leave, I wanted to see the campus for myself. The long corridor of the college building was airy and the structure looked as imposing as it must have been during the colonial time. My further walk about the office area gave me a different picture: the red pillars and the walls were covered in handbills and ground was littered with pigeon droppings. The office must have been an often-frequented area and because of that importance they had fixed a Plasma television set on the wall. Some students were watching IPL cricket match with their backs leaning against the pillars and some against a wall.

At the back of the building was a large football field with old trees casting shades on the edge of the field and it gave the impression of a wonderful area where one could play some sports and do some exercises. In that heat and in that moment I couldn’t think of any exercise, but it held me back from walking further. I picked a spot: below a peepal tree with its leaves rustling; the place seemed to be completely insulated from everything unpleasant outside. I was induced to linger. I wasn’t the only person ,there were young couples taking advantage of the insulated place.

An ant bite woke me up; the poor creature was unnecessarily punished. The red disc hung low in the distant right above the tree tops and now there were people who had come to play football; it was a big wonder to see the absence of cricket, and few individuals were already jogging around the field. I was fresh after the afternoon nap and the sight of active people stimulated me instantly. I walked about the field and slightly warmed up I jogged couple of rounds in my cargo shorts, lucky that I had come out wearing trainers. I sat down again to watch the people in the field. The air was cool and fresh and the noise was natural, it was now just a perfect oasis to me.

Then from one corner, over the fence, plumes of smoke rose high and it started spreading over the field as though someone wasn’t happy at all and the individual wanted to contaminate the whole insulated area. Soon the spreading was over and now it began to pervade the gaps between the trees. People lingered in, may be they were used to that and they hadn’t done any discussion on environmental pollutions.

The road was clogged with vehicles and they appeared to have come out only to honk and honk. I didn’t go up to my eyrie I hurried toward the store to get some water. The undergraduate lady was there again in short skirt and a tight-fitting T-shirt. A lady in those clothes at night in Delhi was only inviting trouble, but she had been in the city for some years and must have read or come across so many rape cases. All the men, old and young, were ogling at her and she was oblivious.
I went back to the college; the man wasn’t at the gate. But there were few men sleeping in the shade on the grassy lawn beside the gate; a few metre-long pits had been dug up; their pickaxes scattered about. A man wearing a well-trimmed mustache was in the office sipping some steaming milky tea from a stainless steel glass, his eyes were fixed on the Plasma television, which he could see through the office windows, others seemed to have gone out. I asked him about the swimming pool, no word came. I asked one more time; the man was irritated, but he spoke without disengaging his eyes, ” on the left! A white building, you ask!” He made me feel like a senseless child who had annoyed the sensible, busy adults.

There were people working on the front of the building: two men on ladders painting with tiny paint brushes. Since they looked busy I didn’t bother to ask them. A man was sitting at a table reading a Hindi newspaper and smoking a cheap cigarette in a “smoking free zone”, and over his head the old, furry ceiling fan moved fast, subduing almost every noise. And through the window behind his back I could see the drained swimming pool. I told the man about what I was told by the watchman at the gate, he chuckled and said, “That man! He doesn’t know anything. I’m the person in-charge.” Angry though I was, I couldn’t take out my anger on the man, so I told myself to get some more reliable information from this “in-charge man.” The pool would open on the 1st of next month, people were still at work. He said he was certain.

I spotted a kiosk which was swarmed with students, they all looked rich with their expensive shoes and American clothes. Some of them were drinking the ubiquitous milky tea and some milky coffee. I got a cup of nice, cold lemon tea and stood near the kiosk. Before I could finish my tea they randomly dropped the paper cups right in front of the kiosk and walked off giggling aloud. Where would they keep? There was no sign of waste bins around and the man manning the kiosk was a messy figure: unshaven face, the shirt colourless, his hands greasy and the long nails trapped with black dirt, and every now and then picking his nose and wiping the fingers on his grey trousers.

At night the lane in my area was packed with people dancing in Punjabi style and the band members, in bright red uniforms playing all kinds of musical instruments, were among the people. Children from the neighbourhoods rushed out and mingled with the crowd. No one could pass through the crowd, on both sides the vehicles were honking, but the people seemed to be having the time of their lives. Though they had been honking, expressing their wish to pass through, no one came out or came down from their vehicles to tell the joyous crowd; the crowd jumped to the cacophonous music and the stranded vehicles kept on honking. Suddenly the music ceased and the dancing crowd sloshed toward one gate, where a few middle-aged men, their heads bound in bright red sashes bearing the nagiri prints, started handing out deep-fried cutlets in paper plates. There were no lines, the dancers just scrambled; the stronger ones got first and returned for second plate. At last, only children and veiled ladies were left. Some asked for two but were rebuked. The dancers now stood by the lane enjoying the rewards of their vigorous dance in ear-shattering music, and then the paper plates were all over the lane. The band members walked and started the music and few joyous dancers followed, but many stayed behind, as though they were contended with the cutlets. Finally, the unspoken motorists honked their way through.

The neighbours began installing cooling machines, there was indication that the temperature would drop. My wet towel-wrapping was still useful but it was rather uncomfortable. I began to think whether I should buy one as well, then I wasn’t sure how long I would be in this place. I had come to write. Just like that. I was living in the city possessed by that ambition. Ambition could be another name for addiction, but man without it would be nothing; he would be only living out a life millions had lived out before.

If man could be trusted every word he used and he was worth as much as his word, then the world would be a meaningful place. Sometimes, people just say things because they know words and in return for the words they get words. What are words to them when theirs are the same which were no different from the ones used by the people before; using words for the sake of using.

I returned this time with all my swimming gears after a long day of reading. I couldn’t concentrate long on what was before. It was Monday, but the gate was closed. On both sides of the road along the college India’s wealth was displayed: all kinds of imported cars in long lines, stretching for kilometres, with a driver for each and the bosses in clean clothes and their eyes behind shades and sunglasses. Only a corner gate of the college was opened, it was manned by a man uniform. I asked if I could enter the campus through the gate. He wagged his head and tried to ask the “parpose.” I had no patience for that; I rushed in playing in my mind the nice pool filled up with clean chlorinated water just ready for a dive. The gate was opened and over the steps and over the ground a tiny black pipe ran. No one was inside; not even the desk, but the fan was at work. The pool was filled up half ,and surface was below yellowish tree leaves. Observing the quantity of water going down from the tiny black pipe I felt it would take another day to fill up the pool. Few more days or another few weeks could be spent on chlorinating the water, depending on the flexibility of their overwhelming lethargy.

Infuriated and knowing no channel which could be pursued I came out with a contemptuous smile on my face: mocking the people. On the walls and the pillars near the office there were handbills bearing big modern words, ‘IT India”, “let’s look forward”, ” We can do it again!”, ” India, a superpower?” People do love words, big words, and they must have them to feel big and different from others. The guard in uniform began firing words as I neared his place, ” it’ll take few days” rubbing lime on the tobacco in his left hand, ” you should come when the office is opened to fill out a “faerm” , then you can swim.” He must have done that kind of talking to others several times before. I hailed a bicycle rickshaw and the man compelled me to bargain. I said he was driving away his passenger, his face blushed and turned his head to offer me a lower fare, still the double of the normal fare. I thought to myself: maybe I should walk off the fury.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/fgxQXUQ3C4E/

By Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei

What hope does a state give to its people? The hope that their state is altogether a different establishment in which every individual can claim his or her rights, and if this state turns out to be quite the contrary, and its conducts barely reflecting the wishes of its people, instead of giving hope it has begun to terrorise its very own people, then should people come forward to court a establishment which is willing to treat its people as subjects rather than respectable citizens? When a state has reached a point where no one feels the need to approach it to seek justice and all that it can bestow to those who have empowered them is tyranny should people live on under it?

One academic laid down several questions regarding the conducts of the Indian government in the state of Manipur on removal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act(AFSPA), one among them was “How many people in India know about AFSPA and the existing problem of insurgency in the reason and why people are gung-ho in asking the Act be repealed when they themselves have no solution to the existing insurgency problem?”

Only a clause in the Act is what people need to know, the clause that gives complete immunity to guilty security personnel. While attempting to solve a complex prolonged-matter the state has to be consistent and any fruitful result is for the betterment of the people. But what if their attempts have proved futile while enough damage has been to a people who are caught up in the conflict? What difference can one see between those proscribed groups, the state is fighting supposedly on behalf of the people, and its soldiers, which have been given the task to handle and have turned against those who they have sworn to protect? Should we expect that state agents behave just like those proscribed group or worse than them because they happened to be caught up in a conflict zone?

Here one doesn’t overlook the existing insurgency, while one is asking the Act be repealed from the affected region. One understands that existing problem should be solved, perhaps with a different approach altogether since the old approach of “combat and destroy” doesn’t prove productive, and can expect to be more human; start conducting in a fashion that reflects the wishes of the people, human rights not being violated and if violated they should have faith that justice will be done.Some say why the elected representatives in power don’t say much against it and how they have come back with a majority to power? But why did the government give in the army’s opposition to the removal despite strong recommendation by several committees set up under the behest of prime minister? Even if the state government wished how much of its wish could be carried out when it finds itself in a situation in which New Delhi can easily override state power? If one is to talk about the voting back Ibobi government in Manipur, which didn’t say a word against during election campaigns, one could also question the overall maturity of Indian democracy. Despite the clear knowledge that BJP leaders were responsible for the demolition of Babri Mosque why they have voted back repeatedly in a secular India?

Perhaps India has become a virtual military state in which civilian concerns are no more valued in the regions suffering from insurgency. If India claims that it has the power to destroy external forces at wars then it should also be convinced of its ability to eliminate those elements which have only been considered detrimental, and if it cannot, then perhaps it should reconsider its strategy and try to address the decade-old problem through political means. Unfortunately no serious initiative has come forward from New Delhi except some leaders dropping at election times and scattering few lines asking to “join the mainstream” when those who have been living in the very heart of Delhi from this region don’t feel that they are treated as a part owing to the cast attitudes of the people. One just have to look at the ongoing decade-old peace dialogue between NSCN(I-M) and Delhi, what milestone both the parties have brought forward before a person who was boy when the peace talks started and now the author of this piece?

If New Delhi wants people from this region to join the so-called “mainstream” perhaps it should value the dignity of those who live in the so-called disturbed zones under the sly shade of Armed Forces Special Power Act. How could a humiliated people come forward to join a “mainstream” which it sees as the violator of their basic fundamental rights and making a mockery of their dignity?

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/iucKyRGQbYg/

A poem by Bobo Meitei on the unchanging nature of people, and how degraded we all have become, though we all say we living in a modern world.

The beasts

Trenches have been dug,
Deeper trenches have been dug.
More are to come,
More men are at work.
Now they have sandbags,
Sandbags to conceal human heads.
Behind them men have ducked down.

Their rifles glimmer,
Their shone rifles rest.
Then the orders cry,
The resting rifles crack.
Lives fall.

Soon makeshifts coffins arrive,
They arrive in helicopters,
They arrive with clean flags.
Fallen lives are no more visible.
But the sandbags are visible.
The rifles change hands.
Everybody knows the lives,
are in the makeshift coffins.
Everybody knows the coffins,
will be wrapped in flags.

The bullets didn’t know names,
They didn’t know flags either.
But they did what they were supposed to do.

They want more and more,
They need reasons,
The reason is land,
And they have to kill for that land.
The reason is dignity.
They deny other ,their dignity. .

Have they changed in centuries?
Nothing!
Have they changed in centuries?
Oh, yes! In appearance!
Have they changed in centuries?
Oh, yes! Their brutality!

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/kOS0Y2L63O0/

The working men in the opposite buildings return home honking ,though it is almost midnight, and soon they have gone up to their places the burglar alarms break out shattering the just-arrived silence of night. The roaming cattle have rubbed against the mini-cars. At this time of the night some kids can be heard playing cricket in their courtyard; the bouncing of plastic ball and the banging of bat against the cemented floor, and the noise travelling through the joined-floors. It is Sunday night one wonders why the kids are still allowed to play cricket: the syndrome of IPL tournament and the world cup hangover. My eyelids become heavier, but my heated restless body turns from one side to another on the inch-thick mattress below the newly bought sheet, which the retailer said it would never fade.

I have barely slept four hours; the loud bangs on my door as well on others’ make me wonder what’s going on: the creation of rolled up newspapers bound in rubber bands and thrown up from the dust-covered lane. Good that my landlord doesn’t have a glass door. Thinking I should get a glance the paper I open the door, but the sight of littered waste from the bin by the dog makes me forget my desire to read. After the adventurous feat at night the dogs also left their marks behind; excrements.
I’m done sweeping and my floor is good for another hour. Before I have laid my eyes on the front page of the paper the green grocers in push carts have declared their arrival in well modulated voices, and soon baskets and buckets hanging from ropes from the hands of housewives are suspended and those on the highest floor shout their orders and haggle.
The green grocers linger emitting, travelling well through the neighbourhood. Their absence is now filled up by waste collectors who show up with folded sacks strapped on their bicycle carriers and their distinct noise coming out from one corner of the mouth. Tens of them paddle along from morning till evening, but none has a substantial. As dusk creeps in their voices are drowned out by high-decibel lorry horns on 125ccbikes, exhibiting greatness. And competing vigorously with the 125ccbikers are the people in mini-cars honking incessantly like those buses driving through the thick elephant jungles.
No conscious individual comes out to say anything as though everybody is in good term with the cacophony and this is some sort of an eternal festivity. One could ask how one can stay at home and concentrate while living in houses without noise proof? To a new comer, who was accustomed to overheard-IT skills and the jogging economy, this could be his wrong place where nothing has inched and what has been is what had been.
Each time India wins a cricket match against any nation the collective enthusiasm is spontaneously flamboyant: ladies cheering from balconies, men dancing and beating the drums till early morning under a sky spangled with fireworks. How that oneness is spectacular to me. But this oneness in celebration leaves behind the dust-covered lanes and roads strewn with papers and plastic bags, and in the morning more plastic and paper waste are pushed out from their domains thickening the litters, but for this there is no oneness or a collective spontaneous enthusiasm to clean up the mess. Civil responsibility here is virtually absent.
This attitude can be seen everywhere; a lower middle class family with an income of twenty thousand rupees with a sole breadwinner living in a crammed flat in a dilapidated block can employ maids to sweep and launder clothes. Often time those people are seen just sitting with litters at their feet waiting for their underpaid maids to come and clean up the mess.
Though I’m new in Delhi I have a feeling that I should knock on the doors and ask them to send one able person from each family with some money to sweep the neighbourhood, at least, once a week and buy some bins for the waste. Would my call be considered as an insult to their status?

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/HG7nXLG6SjQ/