A 'World' Cup truly

      A piece started back when we were still lodged in the Group of 16. A piece that might have been abandoned like so many others had it not been for the crazy Semi-Final score between Brazil and Germany. That acted as a propeller, not as a subject changer, because it only made me realise just how much I appreciate football, for what it is, what it does.

     Maradona is the first name I ever associated with the FIFA World Cup and somehow I still do. And no one can blame me because 1986 was the first time I ever even heard of the World Cup. My Dad had bought the family’s first TV-a small SONY that needed him or my brother to turn the antenna upstairs to get a clear picture. I don’t really remember how the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’ went down that year except that we were allowed a few late nights on account of the grown-ups watching the match. But Maradona it was, and Spain- probably because of the bright coloured pictures of the previous World Cup in my Grandpa’s magazines.

     Mizoram goes crazy every World Cup. Before the days of the Internet, there were enterprising souls who got the game fixtures well ahead of time and sold them in little booklets. Everyone was eager to have copies, mark winners and predict future fixtures for those of us who didn’t own one or were not bothered enough to keep up. Then came pioneering newspapers and magazines that’d carry such fixtures for subscribers to cut out.

      Even though I grew up among a football-crazy people, love a good match as much as anyone and have been bitten by the bug at crucial points of every World Cup, it has never been a priority. And at no other time has it made such a lasting impact on me as it did as a child in 1986. Names like Baggio, Valderama, Cafu, Gullit etc. still ring bells of familiarity but they are distant, a lot like somebody else’s memories. Stronger in my mind are the ‘Ual Kap’s our Church Youth Fellowship organises every year the World Cup happens because I am so much more a part of it. The World Cup fever has more or less been that for me, a fever.

Fast forward to 2010 and I found myself at World Cup time without the familiar Mizo fever, in a land so foreign it was still difficult to believe I was actually there. And without the familiar ‘community football fever’ to share, the game actually came home to me and I learnt the true value of a ‘World’ cup! It was an amazing experience, catching the matches between meetings, joining friends in their joy and frustrations as they proudly joined in their anthems with the players, wearing reds, oranges, yellows and whites to show our affinities. And I will always remember the finals at a Sports Bar near Princeton, New Jersey. We all did our orange bit for Femke, our Dutch lady but they were playing Spain. This was the Spain that had always been in the World Cup plate in my head. And this year, they had Fernando Torres to boot, my nephew’s namesake and a great player. Even with my orange feather, I went for red. And for the first time since I was introduced to the World cup, Spain won. In the very year I’d been dislocated from my usual fever, my team won!

      In 2010 I had harboured distant dreams of making it to Brazil in 2014, but the four years passed with no concrete plans and I found myself in Europe when Brasil 2014 finally opened!

     Opening Night in Brazil was also closing night at my Conference in Bossey, Switzerland. That meant packing, sitting down with friends, sharing lives and future plans. It was only after a much-loved message that I ran down to the lounge to catch glimpses of an Opening ceremony that was rather disappointing. The first match did not leave me in a great mood either, I thought the hosts underperformed (this was actually written before the shocking Semi-Finals).

      The rest of the Group matches, the few that I could catch, were watched at the Brussels airport, at the UN HQ and a pub in Vienna, a hostel lounge in Geneva and on an Emirates flight a thousand kilometres above ground. This truly made it another ‘World’ Cup for me, an event that brings people together for the love of the game. Back home, it is an event that we look forward to with friends and family, a mini-party with the works for every match is a late night one for India. But when one is travelling, it becomes so much more personal. One has to make an effort to catch the games in between attending meetings, being a tourist and financial management on a budget. When one does get to watch a game, it is usually with a group of strangers who cheer and animatedly chat with you only because of the beautiful game that is football.

    

       The overpowering figure of Maradona has made way for the likes of Messi, technology has overtaken the much-sold fixture booklets of old, those born yesterday won’t even know what it meant to turn antennas with companies vying to give you the best HD experiences and a live game viewing in the sky. With my favourite teams long ousted and only three games to go, this year's seen keepers shine and I am grateful for the World Cup because at the core of a changing world is the game of twenty-two men and a ball, the sharing of passions, the clash of loyalties and the test of skills only a few are blessed with.

How can you sing the Lord's Song in a strange land?

     “I was in Class III during the war. It was fought ‘bahar’ (outside of the city) but we saw the planes flying overhead all the time. All day we were made to stay indoors and the adults only talked about the war… I never went to school again. Now I cook and clean for tourists…I am happy to be in India but different people have different thinking…” says Abdul, my new-found elderly friend. We sat sipping hot Kahwa by the Bukhari in the living room, listening to the celebratory fireworks after Pakistan had won against India in the Asian Cup cricket. When I mentioned my surprise at how everyone I’d met that day admitted to cheering for Pakistan, young Shaheer sitting on the floor said he’d been cheering for India. I smiled.

     My father’s often said the measure of our affinity with India lies in the fact that we no longer cheer for Pakistan when they play against India. I've personally partied with the Tiranga in the streets of Delhi when India won the Cricket World Cup, and no one had cared that I was a Chinky that night. And here I found myself among an older generation, in a land far away from mine, cheering for Public Enemy Number One, even before the anger over Delhi's cruelty to my 'kin' had died down. I felt strangely drawn to side with them, and not with the one person among us closer to me in age and experience. I'd never felt mal-adapted in all the years of living away from home, or in my travels. Neither have I ever felt the burden of adjusting to the standards expected of a place by its people-be it dress, food or manners. I was, after all a guest in a land that had standards different from mine.

     Coming to Delhi in the wake of a 'North Eastern' activism, sitting down and talking with those who had been there, who are still there and are determined to be there throughout the process of 'I cant quite say what exactly is expected to happen', I felt strange. All these years we have been taught and have tried to teach others to adapt, to 'adjust' because we are naturally different from our countrymen and our ways appear strange to them as theirs does to us. This time it felt strange because the events and circumstancesances forced my eyes open to the situation where so many still fail to realise the value of adaptability while so many also fail to appreciate the efforts that go into the process. We were, or are, after all, living in a strange land.

     Born and brought up in a world that no longer requires one to sweat over the land to earn a living, the concept of freedom and its association with the land have never been easy to understand. Collecting stories over the years, hearing recollections and recording rememberances, a faint light has been shed on the connection between a man (of both the male and female kind) and his (as a pronoun for the humankind) land. It is this idea of freedom, of feeling the earth, breathing the air and drinking the water of one's own land that has prompted many young women and men to carry guns instead of pens, to choose dislocation over the warmth of the home, hunger over the chance to earn their daily bread. And then there are those who never did have a choice. When War comes home, one cannot just lock the door and jump into bed hoping It will go away on its own. Even if your door was locked, even if you were asleep and never heard It knocking, you cannot run away for It is already upon you. 

      At times you could be so close to where it all started, it could have been your land, your space where it took root, yet you remained unaware.  "I never even thought about politics. When the movement broke out,  we were still very chhangchhia (with small children)...they must have fixed the Zero Hour( for the simultaneous attacks and declaration of independence on February 28/March 1, 1966) long before but I did not know anything about it. He (husband) told me he had a Committee meeting and left the house...but he did not come back that night. The next we heard was there was an accidental bomb blast, Rokima died...firing... They sent a jeep to take me and my children to meet my husband at Lunglei."   

     When War comes home and invades your land, it changes the way you and your people have always lived. The collection of firewood and water for the house was so much the traditional task of a woman that a Mizo girl's chronological age was measured by how many bamboo staves of water she could carry. An alien power which forced itself upon the people in their own land found ways to turn this chore into a tool of oppression. "The army in the camp always told us to fetch water for them, it was our assigned task."  

      When the man of the house could not sleep in his own bed because of fear, of false accusations and very real threats to his life, how was he to provide for the family he had built. Here was the alienation, here the usurpation of the protector and provider, de-manning him who had grown up on stories of warriors who always went where others feared to tread. "The village men did not dare to stay in the house. My husband went to stay the night at the bank of Tamdil lake. At night our dog pounced up and I heard only vai language. Our place was at the edge of the locality. One Sikh man was calling "Ka pu Ka pu"...came again and again...the last time he pulled me forcefully even though I was carrying the baby on my back. So I screamed out hard...he let go and ran out." 

        "My husband could not move out because they might mistake him for "volunteer". So I travelled...with a paper ream to exchange for rice." And what of him who had dreamed of coming home? Those braver souls who'd dared to explore and then answered the call of the land. "my father invested his savings from a lifetime of government employment (in a foreign country) into the opening of a shop in Aizawl. He never recovered after the shop was burnt down by the fire of the bombings on March 5...he died a poor man."   

      The land could not even be kind to its own. Therefore many bid her farewell. It was not that they were abandoning her, but how could they stay alive while she bled. The physical movement did not cut off the fondness and longing of the heart for those who knew the land. For those who never had the chance to, the distance became a given. "we only carried with us as much as we needed, clothes, money, food items, and left the rest in the house. We kept all the money we did not carry in steel boxes in our room...we saw the bombs fall on Aizawl and the city going up in flames...we were very poor when we started living in Shillong...we came back to Aizawl and started from scratch...our children continued their education there."   

    

Riding in a crowded bus on my first day in a strange land, I feel inexplicably safe among a people so different, speaking a tongue I have never heard before. Free from cat calls and racial slurs on the streets, comfortable in the knowledge that I attracted attention because I looked different, not necessarily because I have smaller eyes or a flatter nose. The differences between us were obvious, for they were one of the best looking people I’d ever seen. Its like a joke one of my friends loves to tell- you could almost literally pick one of the many touts trying to sell you a ride, a coffee, anything, dress him up in branded clothes and you’d be proud to walk into a party with him.

       But here was a people who spoke of a place called ‘Azad’ Kashmir, (not AJ& K, but the idea of a ‘free’ Kashmir). Showket, a new friend picked up on the Sumo ride between Srinagar and Tangmarg gave me a poem he’d written on Kashmir, telling me how their stirrings for freedom had been suppressed. “They only want the land, not the people. We have no jobs, its very hard. But this is our land. We have to stay here.” Now Shaheer tells me young people are moving out for employment. If not for tourism, the place has nothing to offer young educated people who want more out of life. Old bearded Manzoor chips in, "we have been blinded by the  powers. Kashmiris know the land is rich but they (the powers) dont want to explore because nobody knows to whom it will finally belong- India, Pakistan, China...?"

        Another Shoket, my friend for the day at Gulmarg says, “We produce so much electricity but it all goes to India. Its very expensive for us…when there were no tourists, I was weaving carpets for very small wages. Some people worked in orchards for rich people.” This he tells me amidst contributions from his friends over a cup of tea in a place created for tourists, a place which had no ‘locals’. So here was a people who admitted to living off their land. And I can understand how this could be, for the land is beautiful. No wonder then that Indira Gandhi's biographer took pages to describe her love for this place, while not a line was written about how she'd dropped 'supplies' to troops in Aizawl from fighter jets. Perhaps she would have said something to Laldenga had they met like they were supposed to, on the day she was killed.

      “Those who live outside come back once a year or twice a year. They send money also.” And they tell me I could learn more about politics of the 'other' Kashmir in England than in Mirpur because the diaspora there is the life force of the land. Then I am reminded of Tibet, of 'Free Tibet' but thats another story, perhaps for another day.

     And they ask me their questions. I answer honestly but consciously. I dont tell them that the Mizo diaspora doesnt actually contribute to the economy. I dont tell them that many young people living outside still either depend or rely on families back home to see them through financially. I dont tell them that online communities and social networks are more public platforms for personal lives, vendettas and veiled messages than tools for constructive identity formations. And no, I dont tell them that for many of us, being away from our land no longer necessarily means being away from home.

        But yes I do tell them we consider ourselves to be a people group, that the Mizo, the Vai and the Sap populate the earth; that we are kinder to the ‘Sap’ probably because of the assumed Christian connection. This time its Bangladesh and Pakistan playing in the Asian Cup and they say their support for both teams is “same same”. I tell them  that Greater Mizoram was a dream to erase virtual political lines that contain us. That the dream that was crushed a lifetime back may never again be resurrected...that it is no phoenix that would rise from its flames. That now we're happy cheering for India because it is our country even though it took a brutal murder and a rape to wake up a sleeping nation to realise that.  And then I say that the brightest among us dream of working for the same government that used bombs against us. Then they smile their wise old smiles and say, "you can be happy but you can dream too, it is hard if young people cannot love your land. Always living in a strange land will kill your land also.

TO BE YOUR KNIGHT

      This will be the last time I wield my pen. My eyes are weak, I can barely see. But I sit myself down at the end of my days because I know I can’t leave without ever having said what I have felt everyday for almost half a decade. And I write this in the hope that in a rare lucid moment, it might catch your eye and speak to you in a way I haven’t been able to. 

     The first time I saw you, you were but a kid- probably in High School with dreams of a brighter future. And I was a fresh young graduate all set to join the Assam Civil Services. Remember those nights we sat in your house- Young ‘educated’ men enthralled by your father’s talk of nationalism and a movement that was brewing? Those nights created dreams of a future where our children would study without discrimination, where library books wouldn’t be passed around just so a “tribal” couldn’t get his hands on them. A future where you and I could walk around without being taunted as beggars and fools just because we looked different. As the dream transformed itself into a vision, I found myself picking a green uniform over the life of a civil servant, wielding a gun instead of a pen- without a shred of regret because I believed I had been called to serve my land and my people.

    Imagine my joy when I saw you again two years later at Boys’ ME School at Aizawl, among the volunteers who had come forward to cook for us greenhorns playing at war. The songs we sang, our stolen looks of promise, all fed by the hope of a better life after the guns were silent. Your happy smile is the last thing I remember before the attack, before the chaos that turned our worlds upside down. In the days and nights that followed while we hid in angst waiting for a chance to right a wrong, I was tortured by thoughts of you and wondered if you lived through that horrible day when the sky rained death upon our happy fellowship. I beat myself up for not having taken you along but then reasoned that was not the life I wanted for you. Days and nights in wild hideouts, a fugitive in my own land, fuelled by the need to chase the usurper out, knowing I needed to be a guerilla against the man with bigger guns. The vision by then had become a cause.

       At Ruallung I said a thousand prayers when I saw you. You were still so beautiful and my cause became so much dearer because you were still a part of it. But you were unhappy; my dear, how your eyes had grown dull. And your smile couldn’t reach them, I know you tried. There was never a time for a guerilla to feed the flame of a romance but my heart had no room for doubts. Seeing you was all that mattered, I never even thought to question why you were so sad. My walk home with our supplies was lighter than my journey out with an empty rucksack, only because I had seen you and knew you were alive, waiting for me. It was only at night, in the cruelty of a watch under a moonless sky that my heart bled, that I felt it squeezed till I could breathe no more. Major Pritam Singh. The name replaced every beat of my heart while all I wished for was to hold you in my arms and blow everything else away.

     March 20, 1968. The dreaded man was dead, we had been planning for days and he was finally dead. Taking the spoils after an attack like we always do, I walked right up to his dead body because I wanted to frame in my head the face of the man who had tortured you and whose name had tormented me for so long. It was then that I saw the little notebook in his pocket. It had your name on it, as it had other names, but yours more often than others, and dates against each written name. Even in death, this devil was to haunt me. I traced each night you were forced to be with him, wishing I had known and that I had come to shield you. But a guerilla could not be your knight in shining armour. Forgive me, my love.

       The next I heard, you were at the Civil Hospital in Aizawl. The kindly doctor there had done his best to heal your wounds they said. But those who had inflicted them could not be more indifferent and no one could tend the hurt inside. I was told you were not yourself anymore, that the trauma of the many invasions had done you in. My love, it would have been too much for even the strongest of us. But your life had been spared and this I felt was in answer to my prayers. The day we said our vows you were happy, you were once again the girl I had loved from so many years ago. When you trembled at my every touch I never blamed you. Each day has been worth it just knowing you are now safe and I could watch you sleep in peace. And on those nights you stayed awake, when fear took over and their faces came back to haunt you, I could finally be that knight you needed and my presence calmed you. But I cannot point a gun against ghosts and memories of tragedies that were all too real. Watching you slip further away from me and from a world that had been cruel, all I could do was pray that it would all end soon.

   Yet here we are today, both invalids. Waiting for salvation and a life of love undisturbed by rememberances of horror; living in a world that shuns us exactly because we had fought for it. It’s hard to understand my love, I know. What felt so right then still feels just as right. If we could go back we would probably do just the same- for what is life worth if not for the struggle of a better one? Even if those we thought we were fighting for do not understand, I still believe in the cause that drove us; and I believe their todays are so much better for the years we spent in anguish. If we could go back, I still wouldn’t have offered to make you the wife of a servant who slogged for a Government that wanted to trample him and his people. It would not have been right to see you in a plush home tending to nothing more important than your flowers or hosting parties for ‘Babus’ who secretly looked down upon us.

      There’s only one thing I would change could we choose to go back, my love. I would take your hand on March 5, 1966 and not let go as I run, to meet whatever fate awaited us, together. Then, perhaps, I could always have been your knight.

March 2, 2013.

book in hand

Two, no, almost four years since the project started out…and nearly three since I became a part of it. And today, I hold the book in my hand. Unexpected. We had been communicating frequently enough while the publication was in process. But complete silence once the manuscript and cover literature were finally approved. When the big sack was collected from the Post Office today, I had no idea what it could be. Especially since my addiction to online shopping finally forced me to surrender my cards to Mom, I consider myself almost “unsurprisable” by periodic deliveries. But today, today, I had tears in my eyes.


When Dad first spent months and a small fortune in collecting the debates over the Mizo problem at the Assam Assembly in Guwahati, I only looked at it as I always do his projects. Ambitious, finally won over by sheer hard work, with my input limited to the final editorial touches. Little did I know that this one was going to be so very different. All geared up to make my usual “correct English” contribution, the project that I had assumed was lifeless touched me to the core-deeper than the shamelessly frequent relationships I had abandoned. Many nights I could not go on because I cried hard. So hard one night I had to cover my face with two of my pillows for fear my outrageous sobbing would alarm the family who loves me.


Politics is what it is all about- not of popularism or of power but of identity and a hope for a better tomorrow. Life catches you when you least expect it. Lucky are those who reach out and touch the ball, luckier the ones who catch what’s thrown to them and make it count. Me? I am not one of them. Not enough conviction, lazy to the point of regret, wasted talent-I do say so myself.


But what of those who died, who were maimed, who lost the chance to make a life for themselves and their families-all because they hoped, with the faith and conviction to take a step towards making it a reality. They could have stayed at home and worked at their farms. They could have stayed and started a business. They could have stayed and started families they would have grown to love. Their cause, and the reasons for it will always remain a debate. Never have I been illusion-ed into thinking that everyone would approve, or that the cause, the all-important cause, would be unanimously approved. What appeals, instead is the human content. The drive that led young men into starving in forest hide-outs, into walking long distances into the unknown, into meeting and confronting powers they could never have overpowered- the politics of ethnicity and identity, of finding a rightful place for your people.


The book is out. With all its imperfections-typological or otherwise. Many sleepless nights, days on end when I did not want to socialise, nights when I would rather stay with my thoughts than with my best friend- all that in a single book with a bright orange cover that the Indian Postal service faithfully shepherded all the way from UK. When I opened the modest sack and by the time I removed the tape, I was shivering. With the book in my hand and the heartfelt congratulations from Mom and Sis, I locked myself up in my room. The book in hand, I prayed- there is no shame in it- I cried!


For in the pages of this book is a history of my people. Herein are the stories that tell of a dark age, probably the most difficult time we had to face as a people. And like every scar that won’t go away, it is a reminder of how the wound was inflicted and how it has actually healed. And like the occasional itch that calls for a scratch, writing this down and putting it up for the world to see has been a healing process. It will forever be my modest tribute to those who chose to believe, to those who rose to heal the pain and those for whom the scars will forever bring pain.

September 21, 2012

live to regret

I am so done trying to be creative! My moments of inspiration, that spark that switches on people's lights is just a spark for me-it switches on no lights and I'm left sitting in the dark. Every new year, no every darn day i resolve to make it better. On nights when I sleep before tomorrow, my dreams are laced with hopes of a productive day. But the morning does not see me change for the better. And most of my nights are after dawn when I've already trespassed on the novelty of the day and trampled on the promises it holds. So i have lived to regret-

-that I have had a handful of failed relationships just because i got too bored to make the effort.

-that most of my personal projects end up being neglected/unfinished/forgotten..and that includes this blog, my two never-picked-up PhD registrations and the many diaries with enough blank pages to make a new one.

-that I have failed to keep in touch with people who meant so much to me one time, that even in this day of emails, facebook and twitter, i can still look at the profile of a person i used to love and let it go without a thumbs up, a friend request or a line on their Wall.

-that i have wasted most of my two-year study leave on anything but studies.

-that I am still unable to finish a project that originally had a December 2011 deadline.

-that unless Im pushed and pulled and made responsible for something, I find it easier to let go than to hold on.

-that I find it hard to go to bed every night and would rather while away my time on the least productive of activities even though I love to sleep.

-that I am so lazy

-that I am in such a mood as to put out stuff that are slightly personal in the virtual world

..and I will probably live to regret this very post but im clicking the 'Publish Post' button anyway...spot on at 5:55 am.

Essentials on a Trip

Partying till 2am the night before you take an international trip isnt the best idea. And packing with your over-active 3-year old nephew the following morning doesn’t help either. That’s how you end up not taking essentials like chargers, shorts you know you’d need or a lightweight for the Air Cons. But that’s how I started out for Malaysia. But for once, I was travelling in a group- with friends, and that helped!

The Charger Thing- It wasn’t that I absolutely coud not charge any of my many gadgets, I had a galaxy of USB cables I could conveniently plug into any running computer. The problem was-I didn’t have a computer!! Thought I’d be lazy this time cos two of the six among us were carrying laptops and I could always plug into their ports, right? Wrong- we could hardly ever be together once we got to Malaysia and I had to consciously and religiously submit one of my cables with the corresponding gadget to charge them as and when they switched on their laptops whether I could or could not stand guard physically. It was a chore at times but we managed. Thing was, we were in Malaysia for a conference and once that started, we were pretty busy and hardly ever saw each other. That’s why my sim cards constantly shifted phones and my music player had to be ‘preserved’ for absolute necessities.


The Shorts- I never forget to pack a pair of shorts unless im going to a place in the minus degree zone. They are so handy and take up minimal space in my sometimes overflowing but faithful and sturdy strolley. And this time, it wasn’t just that, I absolutely needed them. You see, there was this thing we were gonna do as part of a Community Service programme- plant mangroves in knee-high mud. And it was this time I forgot the shorts. So I ended up buying these really ‘short shorts’ at the night market in Penang and I felt so uncomfortable wearing them. So the morning saw me in my compulsory Orange shirt for the planting, with the shorts underneath and a large red cloth I’d bought to stitch for a blouse worn like a sarong wrapped around my waist. But it wasn’t all bad- got a lotta attention and even managed the South Indian ‘Munda’ with my sarong-y red printed cloth thing-y!

The Lightweight- The second thing I hate about flying is the intense chill of the AirCon after the initial refreshing cool flash so I make sure I have a light sweater/jacket or a stole or something for just such times. It was no different this time, and yes, I’d forgotten the lightweight. I knew Kolkata would be merciless in its heat and Malaysia was supposed to be on the scorching side too. But the flights were brrrrazenly cold and so were our meetings when we had to sit down in a shamelessly Airconned room for hours. The longest plane ride this time was the 5 hour flight from Kolkatta to Kuala Lumpur. This saw me snatch the blanket from Joe’s ‘comfort kit’, wrapping myself up in Air Asia’s unmistakable red. And every meeting saw me wanting to get out for some real air towards the end. The best part, though, were the ferry rides where I snuggled in a towel. With every intention of buying the impressively commercial Air Asia’s jacket on the flight to Penang, I ended up not doing it. By the final stage of travel, I had managed a light shawl courtesy of a friend’s gift bought for her Grandma.

What Value- Our Peace?

Today is the 22nd day of June, 2011. Its 8 days before the June 30, 2011 when Mizoram will have seen the fruit of an accord for peace signed 25 years ago. And today I read in the papers that the Government-appointed committee on this regard, with representatives from the main NGOs of the state as members met yesterday to deliberate on celebrations to mark the occasion. Yesterday- June 21, 2011, that’s 9 days before the event. NINE DAYS!!!! What value- our peace?


In Aizawl, the Committee of Church leaders (MKHC) has for sometime announced its decision to mark the day with an event at Vanapa Hall. This is a mass movement no doubt because the majority of the population belongs to one or the other Church denomination. But the ‘common man’, among whom I count myself, still does not have an idea of how the Vanapa Hall event is going to be. Are we supposed to come together for prayers- of thanksgiving and guidance? Are we to gather and hear rhetoric of peace, what it has meant for us and its prospects? Will we be celebrating the twenty five years of God- given peace? What?

And for this event, the Government- appointed Committee decided to abstain from organizing a parallel programme that might clash. In other districts however, a budget of one lakh each has been allocated and celebrations will be conducted under the chairmanship of the respective District Commissioners. Now, if I were the DC of a district in Mizoram, what inspiring idea will I have to celebrate twenty five years of peace with a one lakh budget to be coordinated and implemented within a week…hmm…tough, really!

And yes, the Hon’ble Chief Minister, who by the way, had given up his ‘throne’ in 1986 to usher in the peace process, will be delivering an address to the people to be telecast on the eve of Remna Ni (Peace Day). And on the day itself, he will be the Chief Guest at the Closing Session of a one day National Seminar which H.E. the Governor will be inaugurating. The ‘National Seminar on Peace & Development in Mizoram; Challenges and Prospect’ is being organized by the Zoram Research Foundation in collaboration with ICSSR-North East and Mizoram University and is based, obviously, ‘On the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Mizoram Peace Accord’. By the way, invitees will be registering for a hundred bucks to be part of the event and to mark the cost of a valuable certificate no doubt.

PAMRA (Peace Accord MNF Returnees Association) has been working for about a year now to mark the event. They are a bunch of people with memories, of lost comrades, of years lost for a cause they believed in. They are a group that has been trying for twenty five years to resettle in a world that they had fought to create. And it’s only fair that an Association with ‘Peace Accord’ in their name should be working on marking the event. Kudos to PAMRA. But what they are actually doing, besides bringing out a Souvenir, I’m not sure. It’s hard for every Mizo to feel as though they are a part of what PAMRA is doing because not everyone is a creation of a twenty-year insurgency movement. Especially for the post-1986 generation, it really is difficult to identify oneself with people with memories one is so unfamiliar with. Now if some other institution or organisation had lent support, it might have been different…

What about celebrations I cry.

The Mission Veng YMA ‘N’ (MYMAN) is doing something to celebrate. Thank you! Really, thank you! A Peace Concert featuring some well-loved artistes from the yesteryears and some new and popular names lining up for the set show. And to top that, a House Band made up of locals, all well known in the state for their skills in handling their particular instruments…umm musical instruments, I mean! This is a free-for-all event, the only one that seems to understand that peace isn’t something we have at will, it is cause for celebration, a cause I deem greater than many our wonderful governments keep shelling out money they don’t really have for. And that’s not the end of it. There’s a most wonderful attachment to the concert- an attempt to make the Mizoram record the biggest Guitar Ensemble. Everyone is invited through a free registration, to play an old favourite together on their beloved Acoustic Guitars. And the last time I counted, there had been about 400 names submitted, with the post Peace Accord generation a majority.

The International Peace Day is commemorated on September 21 every year, having been initiated by the UN in 1982. And then there’s the Universal Peace Day of August 6, based on the ‘Little Boy’ bombing of Hiroshima. These ‘days’ often have week-long celebrations that not only observe the gifts of peace but let the world know how valuable it is. And here, we have been having peace for twenty five years and what have we done with it? In Korea, there are four National Celebration Days when a display of the national flag in every household is encouraged. In Japan, February 11 is marked a national holiday “to reflect on the establishment of nation and nourish love for the country”. We Indians have our Republic and Independence days. Official functions overshadow an almost non-existent private/ community celebration of the events. In the United States, the fourth of July season finds many households donning their ‘red, white and blue’ to mark celebrations.

There has been a recent movement to commemorate the bombing of Aizawl as ‘Zoram Ni’ on March 5. Many people have chosen to ‘politicise’ this and paint it in colours that prevent the population from understanding that it was the one day the Mizo people were more united than any other, by the common suffering and sabotage of their land. But yes, I can see where some hearts tense up choosing to see it as a platform that only opens up old wounds failing to see the scar that will never go as a sign the Mizo should now proudly wear. But hey, Remna Ni? Come on, we’ve had it as a state holiday for almost as long as I can remember. So why the hesitation to mark 25 years? The signatures on that accord, or rather, the signatories, are not what have made it happen. The Accord is the foundation ushering an entire generation of the peace our neighbours are still struggling to achieve. And the Punjab Accord a year older than the Mizo Accord never took off and the Sikh signatory later assassinated. Can we not understand the depth and value of this gift? Have we been trusted with a gift we do not deserve?

Had the biggest stakeholder in the state initiated celebrations for a week or longer, we could probably have had the Seminar, the prayer, the addresses, the concert etc, all in the name of peace. But sadly, we only have the day, we only have scattered attempts to mark this momentous event, a day we are never going to see again. So sue me, but I will offer a prayer of thanksgiving and make it a party at a concert only a land of peace can offer.

GROUPING OF VILLAGES IN MIZORAM

GROUPING OF VILLAGES IN MIZORAM
Lest we forget
For Zoram Ni

Background:
Mizoram was hard hit by a famine soon after the region was admitted into the Indian Union. The unsatisfactory remedial measures from Assam government resulted in a political disturbance that tormented the hills for about two decades spearheaded by the Mizo Famine Front, later transformed into a political unit called Mizo National Front (MNF). In February 1966 the MNF intensified its activities and the party decided to start an armed revolt.
The attack on the Aizawl Treasury began at midnight on 28th February, 1966 and the Lungleh Treasury was also attacked on the same day. Simultaneously the outposts of Lungleh, Tlabung, Champhai and Kolasib were attacked and captured whereas Aizawl was held out by the Ist Battalion Assam Rifles.
When the Government of India learnt of the outbreak, troops were sent to the area. By an Extra-ordinary Gazette Notification Published on 6th March, 1966, the Government of India declared the Mizo National Front an Unlawful Organization. Being satisfied that the MNF had been indulging in activities prejudicial to the security of Mizo District in the State of Assam and the adjoining part of the territory of India, the Central Government by effecting the necessary amendment of the rules ordered that Rule 32 of the Defence of India Rules, 1962 shall be applicable to the Mizo National Front.

The Defence Of India (Amended) Rule 32 of 1962
Rule 32 of the Defence of India Rules, 1962 as amended provides that no person shall-

a) manage or assist in managing any organization to which this rule applies.
b) promote or assist in promoting a meeting of any member of such an organization or attend any such meeting in capacity.
c) publish any notice or advertisement relating to any such meeting.
d) invite persons to support such an organization or otherwise assist the operation of such an organization.

If any person contravenes any of the provisions of this rule, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 7 years or with fine or with both.

The Mizo District was subsequently declared ‘a disturbed area’ under the Assam Disturbed Area Act, 1955. The Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Power Act, 1958 was also applied to the area by which the Government of India, under Article 352 of the Constitution, entrusted the responsibility of law and order in Mizoram to the Army and issued a strict instruction that the Army was to function as in war time but strictly in aid of the civil power. The matter was also discussed in the Parliament. Home Minister G.L Nanda made a statement in Parliament on March 3, 1966 saying, “the total number who took part in all those places- Lungleh, Aijal, Eayrengte (Vairengte), Chawngte and Chimluang (Chhimluang) who resorted to acts of lawlessness and violence were 800 to 1300 tribals… As a result of this, the army has been asked to deal with situation in Mizo Hills District. Transport of troops to Aijal by helicopters has been going on this morning and troops are also moving by road to Aijal and expected to reach by noon today.”

Grouping of Villages

Lt. General (later Field Marshal) Sam Manekshaw, GOC-In-C, Eastern Command, Calcutta, recommended grouping of villages to facilitate effective military operations. The Governor of Assam, B.K.Nehru, opposed the idea and the Central Cabinet rejected the army proposal of grouping on October 20, 1966. The army lobbied for its case during the next few weeks and the scheme was finally cleared by the Government of India on December 5, 1966. In its 6 P.M news broadcast on January 3, 1967, the All India Radio announced the decision of the Government to group villages in Mizo Hills for security reasons. Lt. General Manekshaw and A.N.Kidwai, Chief Secretary, Assam announced the decision in a Press Conference held in Calcutta and Shillong respectively on the same day. Formal orders were issued by B.C. Carriapa, Commissioner of Cachar and Mizo Hills Division and Ex-officio Central Government Liaison Officer for Mizo Hills, under Rule 57 of the Defence of India Rules, 1962.

In forty-nine days between 4th January and 23rd February, 45,107 inhabitants of 109 villages were forcibly grouped into 18 group centres on the main road of Vairengte- Aizawl-Lunglei.
The villagers were ordered to move bag and baggage with whatever property they could carry to the centre. All the grains, fowls and pigs that could not be carried were burnt along with their houses so as to keep food and shelter out of the reach of the insurgents. There was absolute confusion everywhere. Women were wailing and shouting and cursing. Children were frightened. Young boys and girls held hands and looked at their burning villages with a stupefied expression on their faces. Pigs were running about, mithuns were bellowing, dogs were barking and fowls setting up a racket with their fluttering and cackling.

The Village Council Presidents and Elders were ordered at gun point to sign the document that said that they were being harassed by the insurgents, and because their own village did not have communications, educational, medical and other facilities, they had voluntarily asked to be settled in the Grouping Centres under the protection of the Security Forces. Another document stated that they had burnt down their own villages, and that no force or coercion was used by the Security.

V.F.Jafa, an IAS officer of 1965 Batch who served as SDO (Civil) at Lunglei in 1967 and Additional District Magistrate, Aizawl in 1968, who was involved in the task of grouping honestly confessed, “We had to protect ourselves with false certificates”


Second and Third Phase of Grouping

In course of time, public resentment against grouping mounted and it was found that the legal base for the forceful grouping namely, the Defence of India Rules was weak. In Nagaland, it was used and withdrawn again in 1956-57. The Governor of Assam consequently promulgated early in 1968, an Ordinance known as ‘ The Assam Maintenance of Public Order (AMPO), 1968’ which was to be used as the legal base for the continued grouping of villages by force, in preference to the application of the Defence of India Rules.

The Second grouping order for grouping of another 185 villages, with a population of 95,917 to 41 centres was issued by the District Magistrate of Mizo Hills under the Assam Maintenance of Public Order Acts (AMPO), 1968. This was followed by a third forced grouping of 63 villages by the Army with a population of 47,056 in 26 centres in 1969 without any order from the Government. The Government regularized this grouping by an ex-post facto order issued in 1970 under AMRO. By 1972, there were 102 grouping centres accommodating 240,000 persons, or more than 80 percent of the Mizo Hill population of 285,000. The remaining 45,000 people lived in Aizawl, Lunglei, Saiha and a few ungrouped villages in the Pawi-Lakher region in the South.

Purpose of Grouping

The immediate aim of the grouping was to facilitate effective military operation against the underground elements who had taken control of the interior villages by cutting off the sources of food supply and shelter to the MNF as was conceived by the Army authorities. In every grouping centre there was a military unit to control them.

High Court stopped the Grouping of Villages

While the last two phases of grouping of villages were being carried out, the general resentment against grouping mounted to such an extent that one Mizo namely Sub. K. Zahlira (Rtd) of Saikhamakawn Village challenged the orders in the Gauhati High Court as violation of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed in the Constitution. The High Court directed the suspension of all further grouping and asked the Government of Assam to show cause as to why this order should not be made obsolete. The matter was dropped by the High Court on 6.1.1971 after the Government’s assurance that no further grouping of Villages was planned. Thus, the order issued for the third phase of grouping was cancelled. By this time, however, 80 percent of the population had already been relocated although the southern part of Mizoram was spared.

In spite of the grouping of villages in most parts, the intensity of the insurgency continued until about 1970. As a matter of fact, disturbances continued in a virulent form until 1980s.

The Pain
To mention the atrocities committed upon the Mizos, during the first four months alone, the MNF Secretary, Publicity Department, S.Lianzuala said, “So far as my knowledge goes, in North Mizoram district alone, the Indian Army burnt down 21 Villages and gutted 2,133 houses, they raped 54 women, out of whom 2 adult women and a minor girl died due to excessive copulation by a number of soldiers. They burnt 17 churches, and looted many others, cooking, sleeping inside the churches while the villagers were not allowed to worship there. They cursed those homeless bewildered women and children, saying that, ‘we do not care even if you all die, and we don’t need you. What we want is your land’. They treated the innocent Mizo people with fearsome manners and as cruel as possible.”

Tlangchhuaka also emphatically highlighted, “Like the World War II stories of rapes indulged in by Marshal Thukov and his soldiers in Berlin, they (Indian soldiers) did the same in Mizoram. They spoiled many virgin girls… even married ones… some girls were forced to their camps for their own pleasures. There is no limit to their atrocities. The men were driven away towards the jails with no chance to mention their rights. Many were beaten to death, hanged upside down and they suffered all kinds of tortures and as a consequence many were deformed physically. They called the general public meeting in the Churches, and used them for torturing and killing the inmates. They even raped some girls in the churches, and in some churches they did not allow them to come out of their meetings.”

When the disturbance broke out in Mizoram, the Indian Security Forces often disrupted and even dispersed church meetings in many villages. Lalthangliana Philips blamed them (the Security Forces) for defiling the churches and sacred properties wherever they went and of robbing and camping in the churches. The soldiers cut and tore the Holy Bibles and Hymn books into pieces and did not allow regular church meetings in most of their occupied villages. He further alleged that some of the Indian Commanding Officers even said, “You bloody Mizos, call upon your God Jesus, and bring him here that we may defeat him along with you.” These vile challenges flared up the religious sentiments of the people and alienated them into becoming strangers” .

Hundreds of Mizo families therefore sought refuge in Shillong and other places in Assam and Manipur and also in Burma to escape the chaos at home, and a further and much larger Mizo population were caught between two fighting armies. There was scarcity of food and other essential commodities in the district. The convoys which were run to bring in foods and other goods under security force protection were few and far in between because of the frequency of ambushes and heavy security force casualties. The Border Roads Organisation, which had been building strategic roads in the district since 1964, was also finding it difficult to build and maintain roads under such insecure conditions. To add to the Government’s discomfiture, there were reports of serious human and civil rights violations and maltreatment of civilians in the hands of the Security Forces.

Opposition

The MNF also understood the idea behind the grouping of villages and therefore, they opposed the grouping in their limited capacity. About 2,000 villagers of Keifang and Tualbung villages were successfully prevented by the Mizo National Army (MNF forces) from being grouped at Thingsulthliah Centre in January, 1967.

Life in the Grouping Centres

The manner by which the Indian troops carried this plan was cruel and treacherous. The Indian troops in battle dress marched in the night and surrounded villages before dawn to make sure that no villager escaped. The people were forced out of their ancestral homes with what they could carry in their hands. They were then driven like cattle to where nothing but torture awaited them. The Indian troops then searched vacated houses and took away any valuables they could find and then burnt the houses while the owners were still watching. As the Government of India thought that starvation of the MNF people will be one of the effective measures to crush their movement, they decided to burn the stores of grain of the people thereby inflicting suffering on the innocents too.

Many people compared the Grouping Centres with ‘Concentration Camps’. At the beginning, these centres were in the open air without any housing facility or even shade. The people had to sleep in open fields for days and nights. Children, even small babies, suffered under the scorching heat of the day and the chilly cold of the night while their parents were building thatched huts. Over and above, the people were given meager subsistence ration even while the troops forced them in fencing the grouping centres.

As they were not provided with housing facility all construction was to be borne by the villagers. Every movement of the people was under the strict vigilance of the troops and suspicion (of supporting MNF) had to be paid for with life. As such, at Thingsulthliah Camp, three boys who had gone to the jungles to cut bamboos for their house were shot dead on the mere suspicion of supporting MNF. Their bodies were covered with leafs and left at the spot. Their relatives, conscious of their unusual absence, went to the place and found their bodies.”

The Grouping centres were also used as forced labour camps. All the able persons were requisitioned to work in the military road construction, carrying water, fire woods, supplies of food items and ammunitions, clearing of jungles along roads, digging bunkers apart from fencing work with strict regimentation. They were forced to work as and according to the labour supervisors’ dictation. If a man raises any complaint he was paid with slashes of the armed supervisor’s whip.

The economic life of the Mizo people was greatly hampered. Jhuming cultivation was the main stay of the people but the people could not pursue their normal duty as they were not allowed to go out of the centre. Sometimes, the civilians were taken as a protection from surprise attacks of the MNF and used as human bunkers in the Army’s patrolling. With no means to earn a livelihood, there was starvation and dependence on the meager supplies.

Whenever there was an encounter between the security forces and the MNF, the aftermath was that the security forces either burnt down the village nearest to the place where the encounter took place or beat up the male members of the village or the first group of civilians they met. Such incidences generated bitterness and hatred in the public. In many of the encounters or ambushes, the security forces hardly ever caused casualty to the MNF but great harm did come to the innocent civilians.

The security forces also grossly abused the special power given to them, namely, arresting a person on suspicion. In many cases, they wrongly detained such persons for long periods and tortured them. Sometimes they used this method as a weapon of intimidation. For instance, if a villager reports to higher civil authorities against the wrong doing of the security forces in his village, the latter will arrest him charging him as a MNF sympathizer and threatened him with dire consequences.

Another instance of bitterness against the security forces is occasioned by their utter disrespect to the Church congregation. In some cases the security forces suspected some MNF or their agents as being present in the church congregation on Sundays. They came and drove the congregation of the Church in a most vulgar manner and herded them together in the open ground outside for long periods whether in rain or sunshine. There was a feeling that they were treated as aliens, worse than enemies.

Failure of Grouping

In spite of the grouping of villages, the intensity of the insurgency continued until 1970. As a matter of fact, disturbances continued in a virulent form until mid 1976. The main idea behind the grouping concept, that is to deny sources of food supply to the MNF, was thus belied. The desired results were never achieved.

The overwhelmingly harmful effect of Village Grouping on agricultural activities resulted in near famine conditions. The Government had no choice but to allow the villagers to go back to their old villages to enable them to work on their jhum. Thus, the grouping operations only caused untold sufferings and miseries to the general public resulting in the total ruin of the village economy and, more importantly, in the alienation of the minds of the villagers. The strange thing here was that the Government of India repeated the same measure in Mizoram in 1967 after it had failed miserably in Nagaland in 1967.

tunlaia ka hla atchilh bur

	Tom Jones - I Who Have Nothing .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

tears in heaven

It was cold that evening in December but if there had been a thermometer, it would not have been the cold in degrees as we know today. Rather, it was a chill that was thick in the air, a sadness that had enveloped everything. The angels walked about with no cheer, so out of character, their beautiful faces crestfallen and wings drooping. And there was a group of the wisest looking men that sat together, speaking in words solemn that came out of mouths that knew not exactly what to say. The golden streets seemed to have lost their sheen for they lay dull and the bubbling brooks could not flow merrily for everyone was sad. In the big throne sat the saddest of them all, with a countenance that seemed to wish there was some other way things could have been done.

The scene became animated with the appearance of the gentlest of creatures who walked with steps that knew he was leaving soon. His face held a glory unsurpassed by anything a human head could imagine and that glory in an instant drew all about him towards the warm heart he bore inside. Walking straight to the big throne, he appeared to console the greatest of the great. The love between them was impossible to miss. And to the men who were sitting, he gave a smile that seemed to take away the guilt they obviously bore.

For this was Christmas Eve in heaven. And it had come to pass that the light that brings the place alive was bidding them all goodbye. Not because he wanted to go but because he knew he had to. The world below did not yet know that it was soon to play host to the prince of glory, did not know it needed him and would have cared little even if they had known. This was known to him on the throne although the wise-looking men felt they had not done enough during their time on the earth. All they could say to each other, repeatedly, was that they had tried, but each of them felt they might have tried harder. But the Glory on the throne and the brightest star in heaven knew this was not so. That this was to come to pass although everyone wished it were not so.

As he walked about, all eyes followed him. It was a scene that would bring a tear to one’s eye with no words spoken, for every eye was misty and tears flowed freely. The eyes that followed this prince were eyes that said they would gladly change places with him had there been a way to do so. They could not think of tomorrow when he would no longer be there with them; or of the years when he would live like every other mortal soul on earth. And everyone knew there would be pain, suffering and rejection where he was going and they knew he would not deserve any of that.
Yet the glorious man walked, his face showing none of what was seen all about him. The chill had given way to a sad warmth, lighting a fire that would soon go out, the last embers fighting to live for fear of not doing enough for those who needed it so. And when he had passed, he went and wept alone. No man, however glorious, would choose to do what he was about to, even with the knowledge that he needed to. Yet it was love that gave him strength, it was love that could not see a world dying without knowing there was a way.

It was love that brought tears in heaven that first Christmas Eve.

Many Moons

The digital clock on the display screen of my rather boring mobile phone showed 4:22 am when I sat up in bed unable to sleep for reasons I have never learned- the third time this week, less frequent than what they used to be. There was a beautiful light in the room and I saw it was the moon, bright and round showing through a slice of my window the curtains did not cover. It reminded me of the two other moon-shines that have so touched me and thought it fit subject for a Christmas blog, this being my third best moon-shine-

First Moon: In a time that seems so long ago it almost feels like a dream. At Shimla through the window of my prefect cubicle, on a cold October night with soft Hindi film music playing through my earphones. There was this beautiful orb of the brightest white light over the Medical College right across the hill from ours and I could see it clearly with my head comfortably on the pillow. To the young teenager with the most romantic dreams and hopes of the brightest future, there could not have been a more beautiful expression of everything the heart feels that the human tongue has not learnt to express. That was the age when one stands at the fork of a road that only showed a better thing after a good one. Unreal were many of the dreams one chose to have and the knowledge of their illusory nature never made one strive too hard to realize them. If someone had then told me I was good at something I did and if I so choose, I could have had some of these dreams come to life in the lifetime to come, I might have believed them. But believing does not necessarily translate into motivation and the hard work it takes for every hope to become substance. But dream we did and the freedom to do that has remained captive to the First Moon phase.

Second Moon: Many Christmases after the first, when life had taught you lessons, some of which you wish you had not learnt came the second moon. It is no wonder I take pains to make my bed comfortable because my ‘moons’ have always been best viewed with my head on the pillow and this one was no different. In a small town a few hours out of Delhi, with the sound of passing trucks and the slow rhythm of the fan keeping me up, the white beauty looking in on my window seemed to want me for company- and she looked so happy that I was awake. It’s clear now that I had only been projecting what I felt to this star that has spoken to generations of lovers, for that night I was truly happy! There had been friends for company, one closer than the others, who was able to make me feel we could rule the world had we chosen to do so. The teenager of the first moon had given way to a woman who liked to think so hard for herself that admitting she was wrong had become the hardest thing she had ever had to do. Education in institutions had taught her what the world thought was right and life seemed to have said she walked the line rather well; mistakes were allowed and had definitely been made. The best thing though was that the head had learnt to point the all-important finger, never realizing three others usually pointed back. By then, one knew what ABBA meant when they sang “slipping through my fingers” and was grounded enough in reality to know she will always be one among a million, never shining bright enough to fill the moon’s shoes any day soon. But still, the heart was content to shine for one.

Third Moon: was last night of course. With many Christmases having been celebrated, there just aren’t many new ways to welcome the season. Every breath a blessing, every mistake my own, every undeserved praise a warm spot in the heart and all the love received, a gesture one never learns to reciprocate quite adequately. One has now learnt it’s not the novel that makes Christmas special. Like the moon that has never tired of making a tired soul happy, that has been the face of a happy heart and the companion for every lonely heart, it’s the miracle of Christmas that makes it special- old but not aged, beautiful because it shines with the hopes, dreams and the actuality of every life it has ever spoken to.

“You travel alone? Do you know Martial Arts?”

A very valid question, now that I think about it. It was Sam, a guy from Bangladesh whom I met at Howrah railway station who asked me this. I laughed out loud and the laughter was spontaneous, genuine. And now I think- “Gosh! Sam was right! There’s so much that could have happened. I should actually learn some form of Martial Arts!”

It’s almost always been a solo show- my many trips. As a student in Shimla and Delhi, there were times when I had moved with girlfriends and the occasional male companion other than my brother. Most of those trips, however, were born of necessity-the long trip to and from home, the budgeting that had to go into every student’s calculations year- round. My ‘grown-up’ (Ahem!) trips have been on my own and there hasn’t been a time when I have missed the company of a travelling companion except the times when a luggage-watcher would have been welcome. I love friends and company but I recharge on my own, with my thoughts, and these trips have proved to be times when I do that. Of late, I have felt the numbers in my age (I keep saying that, much to the chagrin of my ‘older’ friends-) and the thoughts that are my company on trips have been getting more intense and louder.

Why Travel?

Getting to see new places and experiencing something different is the very obvious answer. But these travels are not just to places new and experiences novel. People, friends and places grow into you over time. They become special and you look forward to seeing them and doing stuff with them. Some things work just right only with certain people. But yes, meeting new people is a big high too. There are people I’ve shared living space with, even shared beds with, whom I’ll never ever see again in this life. Some people whose Facebook profiles are the only things that remind me they were real. Others who don’t even have virtual existences on the Net but whose hearts have reached out to me and proved that we are indeed of a single human race.

People

An old Sardarji in Delhi comes to mind. He drove an auto-rickshaw, the number of which I don’t remember, and whose name I can’t recall. His face is a blur but he was wearing a grey shirt and an orange turban the night God sent him to help us. My brother and I, crazy, naïve teenagers lost in the streets of Delhi with no idea how to get back to where we were supposed to be. As it turned out, we were way across the city; a distance he felt was too far for him to cover that late. He took us as far and as convenient as he felt he could, found us an auto, gave the driver very specific instructions on how to get us home and refused to take a penny from our thinly-lined wallets. We had nothing to offer, there must have been a lot he needed and such disparity in demand and supply just don’t work in our commercial world. But he gave; all I can do is remember him with a fond heart. God Bless!
Then there are those whose resilience humbles me. It was in 2004 when farmers in Tamil Nadu were committing suicide and scouring for rats in the face of the famine that struck them unawares that I was taken to one of the most remote and poorest of villages. It was a chance meeting on the bus with a girl studying in Trichy that took me there. I was actually on my way to Rameswaram, doing my tourist bit when we started talking and she told me of how she was going home for a puja. With all the warmth of a giving heart, she invited me along and I was adventurous enough to follow. I’d taken some snacks with me, not knowing how inadequate this would seem once we got there. But the handful of rice that was my portion at lunch that day with a family of 7, and the potato chips (broken into smaller pieces so there would be enough) I shared with them remains one of the best meals I’ve ever had – I cried that day! And I almost did again when a group of migrant workers shared a piece of their home-cooked dinner with me at the railway station in Howrah.

Every day my students come to class, most of them having been fed and clothed and even given ‘pocket money’ for the heart’s desire for the day. In my mind, I see them growing up and learning to feed and clothe themselves and I know it won’t always be pretty. Some will survive, some may not, others might never even know that his parents have aged and that its payback time. It’s when I see old and obviously care-worn people still struggling to pay for their daily bread that frustration and anger play in my head. A man with no legs carves wooden images and sells them, a man wears a coffee machine and serves people at a railway station, a young boy fetches restaurant waste to feed his pigs, another picks old signboards and rags to build his family a shelter. If we all could see, we might be different. For this, one needs no great physical travel, it’s the mind that does the journey.

And its inspiring to see how an entire people can attune themselves to the ‘spirit’ of a place- the people maketh the place, surely! In Rangoon after Nargis, business went on as usual for the star-rated hotels and night life as it existed was still strong. Opulence was clearly there for all to see, if you looked at the right places, that is. Well-dressed waiters served you, even better-dressed hotel staff welcomed you and the glamorously-dressed performers made sure you had a good time. But the ‘spirit’ was that of oppression. When one cared to look closer, there was the unmistakable run in the stockings, the frayed edges of the collar and the almost invisible hole in the sole of well-polished heels. The United States post-recession still appeared laid-back and carefree despite the well-behaved beggar who didn’t push you for money. The streets of New York had beggars sitting down with hats and carton boxes, waiting for your charity, unlike the organized and highly trained ones in India. They did not seem bothered by the obvious affluence of the crowd that shops in Soho because the ‘spirit’ was that of freedom. Those who live under the same sky find their own spaces below. It’s still hard to believe how a man in Washington DC whose phone I’d used came running after me when the number called back, or how a big black woman carried the larger of my bags from the metro station all the way to the hostel because she said I looked so ‘helpless’. Their own worlds are theirs to give, and give is what they did. Not so in Colombo, where I was with great friends and met some really nice people. There it was really all about knowing what you have and selling it. Not oppression, not so much freedom, rather a new peace and the spoils that come with it. “How much can I get off this gullible tourist?” is what I got. But even then, there is the driver who’ll pay for your red banana and the local who’ll take you to a temple opened only two days a year and pay for your entry.

A girl traveling alone survives, because God wills that she be protected and come across people who make a place good, even if she doesn’t know Martial Arts.

October 2009- Vizag 4

To Aizawl- The boating trip had been made under the warmth of the midday sun after which I barely had time to bathe and ride to the airport for my return flight. The 90-minute plane ride was spent in sweet slumber, taking care of the slight nauseating sensation of the boat ride. It was after 8pm when i reached Mizoram House, taking off again immediately for dinner at ‘Dash’, at the City Centre Mall, in a floor I didn’t even know existed. I was assured that my flight the following day was to be at 11am even though the ticket said 8:15 am. So imagine my shock to be told that I had missed my flight- were it not for my connections with men in uniform, I might have been stranded mercilessly. But like an incognito VIP, there were Sky Marshalls who made sure I boarded, was comfortable and arrived safely at Lengpui. Another man in uniform ushered me into the VIP lounge and dealt with my luggage- gave me one intereseting story to tell my folks!!! But another thought- I don’t think I can stand being a VIP, on protection 24/7- the knowledge that you’re being watched all the time kills the joy of just being

October 2009 Vizag 3

The YMCA Orientation- The purpose of my Vizag trip was the Orientation Programme for Chairpersons and Conveners of the YMCA Women’s For a with the theme ‘Visionary Leadership with a Mission’. Unlike the previous meetings I had attended, there was no chance whatsoever, to absent myself from the meetings, either to sleep or catch the sights. Right from the Inaugural function where we heard women of substance deliver the keynote address and the Devotional message, right down to the Planning and Brainstorming sessions, every meeting was worth the while. It was an inspiration to hear women from different parts of India tell of what they were doing in their own spheres to spread Christ’s message of love and brotherhood. Some were running projects for Street children, others were working in the field of health- all social actions highlighted were deeply rooted at the very base of the social strata, addressing basic needs to those who are so often denied access.




Thoughts of social activism in Mizoram made me realise how fortunate my society is in having a strong Christian base that has been addressing such issues for as long as it has existed. It also made me think of the very culture of the Mizo people that does not permit anyone to lock themselves up in their iron castles, isolated from society. True, our curiosity can get annoying at times but I would not trade this for the indifference of other societies.

The YMCA, as also other Christian NGO’s and the Church, is striving to adopt and tackle the very things that come so naturally to a Mizo. The question now, though, is are these still natural tendencies? Or have we become so civilised that we are going to need NGO’s to tell us that you and I are to look out for our neighbours? Out of all that was said and heard, the one thing I have brought home with me is the need to participate – to hold as my own the things that affect me and my fellow human folk. To be a part of the change that I desire, to see the marginalised make way into the mainstream, to have the burden of translating Vision into reality and making it my life’s mission. The morning Devotions were a time to reflect on that very matter- on the Purpose driven life of a Christian, one whose Faith will not allow the sight of a fellow man denied his right to a global citizenship.

Our hosts, the Vishakapatnam YMCA excelled themselves- their hospitality, their extra efforts to make sure we were all comfortable, the care they put into the smallest details- their love turned Vizag into the loveliest of places.

October 2009- Vizag 2

Vishakhapatnam: the place

It was a quiet, clean airport we landed in at Vizag- the charm was all there, just like it had been in Cochin and at Trichy- blame it on small town Southern India magic! And while I hesitated at the exit door, I saw YMCA in capitals being carried by two men near the gate and we smilingly left together. It was hot, but the man with me insisted winter had started and that this was one of the best times there, weather wise- at least, there’s money saved on winter wear. Vizag isn’t a big place, not big enough for rough traffic or the so often annoying beggars that swarm you at traffic lights in bigger cities. I did see the odd silver-paint coated Gandhis though - the first, a boy of about 7 at the beach; and the other, a young man on my way to the airport.

The people looked busy and despite the long stretch of beaches, the air wasn’t that of a lazy or lethargic town. The YMCA, where we stayed and had our meetings, was right next to the long stretch of what is popularly called RK Beach. And I have to say the Government has definitely done its part in making the most of what Nature has given. A beautifully maintained road runs along on an elevation to the beach and the powerful waters- tempting enough for every room in the YMCA to carry a warning against swimming in the sea. And the beach wasn’t the only beautiful thing. Kailashgiri Hills was a pleasure and it was one of my greatest regrets not to have spent more time there. Going up on the ropeway, we could see the entire city-with its hills and the sea, and at the distance was the sight of boats with their white sails up, straight out of a postcard! On the hill is a small train track where a toy train with glass windows makes its way round the picturesque sight.

Then there was the Bay of Bengal where we went boating. The clear waters appeared black and full of mystery as we cruised around trying to find our bearings in the midst of God’s beautiful handiwork. A curious thing of interest was the sight of fish drying on the very roads we were travelling in- so naturally, with such familiarity. No one thought otherwise and I guess no one but the owners ever ventured to pick them once they had dried to satisfaction. It was in the intriguing mixture of sun, sand, hills, the green trees and the dark blue sea that Vizag fixed itself upon my heart.

A privilege accorded only by Vizag was the journey inside INS KURSURA, the submarine that served her country well in the 1971 War with Pakistan and decommissioned after 31 glorious years of service to her country. I have always saluted naval forces, but going inside the 91.3m long submarine made me realise just how special these men really are. Forget the movies, this is real life, and if you can survive that, life would surely offer a lot less challenges. The torpedoes and missiles, the bunkers and kitchen, the cabins and washrooms, the engines- if only I were I better writer!!