Horror, horror

My last post didn’t name the student’s body. I did that on purpose because all the papers ( on the web also) had mentioned the name. I have no problem in mentioning the name.

But I reasoned that finger pointing was not my intention.

Besides, I also found out that I myself was acquiescing in the sad modus operandi of the student’s body. I still it find very alarming.

To my mind, the whole society is condoning such mob culture. It must be something to do with the hangover of a feudalistic worldview.

I totally hate anything to do with feudalism.

I’m horrified that I myself am still on a subconscious level a part of that worldview.

Why didn't I rebel ?

It must be day before yesterday.

At around 10 in the morning I found out that I had no vegetable to cook. So, I went to Khwairamband Keithel for fresh vegetable.

As I was crossing the Keisampat bridge, it came to my notice that some boys and girls were starting to stage a sit-in protest on the side of the rickshaw parking across the street. They were holding small placards which seemed to me to be hastily put together. I tried to read what were written on them but the distance made them ineligible.

When I returned with my vegetable, they had unfurled a big banner which read that they were against the roughing up their teacher by a particular students’ organization. From the banner I also came to know that they belong to a coaching school which specialized in preparing the students for the entrance exams for engineering and medicine courses.

The banner clearly spelt out the name of the particular students’ organization and I continued walking towards my home wondering what had come to that particular student’s body.

But I was suddenly awaken out of my reverie when I saw that my friend’s furniture showroom have their shutters pulled down and padlocked from outside. I instantly knew that some thing was terribly wrong. The showroom is housed in two shop floors that belong to me.

I avoided my friend and quietly entered my house. There I asked the workmen building my annex what had happened to the showroom while I was away getting my vegetable.

They replied that the volunteers of a particular student’s body came to the showroom, grabbed the padlocks, pulled down the shutters, locked them from outside using the padlocks and simple away with the keys of the padlocks!

What startled me most was that it was the same student’s body against whom the students of the coaching school were protesting in the sit-in protest in the Keisampat junction, which I had seen on the way to the Keithel.

What alarmed me most right at the moment is that I seemed to involuntarily accept the modus operandi of the volunteers of the student’s body.

If it is not the case, why should I forget to mention the incident in my blog on the same day of its happening?

This question alarms me.

All the phiges were burnt.

How many shops were gutted? Around 30. It was one of the biggest losses by a fire in Manipur.

But amidst the tragedy, not even coming into focus of the media is the plight of the women vendors of the Ema Keithel.

By its very nature, Ema Keithel is an open market. So, the wares they are dealing are needed to be stored into a safe warehouse during the night. The first thing they do in the morning is to unpack their wares and the last thing, to pack the wares.

It happened that the last place the fire managed to put its deadly lick is that particular warehouse of the women vendors of the Ema Keithel. The fire started at around 8 pm, continued its ravaged all throughout the night and on the following morning, destroyed that particular warehouse.

In the morning all the women vendors were standing near the burning warehouse, looking at the slow but steady destruction of their precious wares.

All the phiges and muga phis were destroyed.

All of them were weeping there, helpless.

The lighter and the darkness!

The transformer feeding our local grid was put to routine check up three days back. It was said that nothing unusual was detected and it was declared to be fit for further pressing into service by the concerned engineer. Everybody was happy and the usual steps of putting the transformer were initiated.

At that point something unusual just happened.

A cigarette lighter of one of the workmen slipped out of his hands and fell into the oil tank of the transformer. ( Apparently, transformers are oil-cooled).

The engineer supervising the whole operation was adamant that the transformer could not pressed into service without first fishing out the cigarette lighter out of the oil tank.

And the whole army of technicians took exactly 2 days to retrieve the lighter from the oil tank.

In the meantime, we had to live 2 full days and nights without electricity.

Let’s say it’s all the faults of one innocent cigarette lighter!!

Coldest night

I thought of going straight to bed because I have to go out early in the morning to meet a friend.

But I want to put on record here the fact that tonight seems to be the coldest night of this winter. May be, the coldest night of 2006.

It’s cold here. Biting cold.

Totally immersing!

Most of the times, I find myself totally immersed in whatever I happened to be involved with at some particular point of time. That may be a good personal trait but I find it coming in the way of distributing my attentions and time to other works which are to be normally encountered in my daily life.

Sometimes that proved to be unbearable, as I find myself at the moment.

When building a house by using bricks and cement, it is absolutely needed that the freshly laid bricks walls are given enough water all throughout day and night so that it got cured properly. So, there I am giving water to the freshly laid walls of the annex in the morning and evening. It took me one full hour to complete the watering. So, two hours have already gone—one each in the morning and evening.

Surprisingly, I found out I was totally immersed in watering the brick walls! I’ve been doing it elaborately, throwing up mug full of the water at the top of the walls until the water coming down from the top slowly spread all throughout the entire length and breadth of the wall. And, I’ve been doing it on both sides of the walls!

In no time, I also found that all my muscles are aching! I’m still a bundle of aching muscles!!

Wow! Dinner at 8!!

Wow! I had my dinner tonight at 8!

Well, I went to one of my sisters’ place and she would not let me go without having dinner with her small family. Tonight is one of those rare occasions when I was treated with eromba. Come to think of this, it is more than 2 years now that I didn’t have regular plate of eromba. Only on rare occasions like tonight.

Yes, I do like eromba a lot. But I don’t cook well enough to make a yummy eromba.

But on a societal perspective, I’m the living proof that for someone living in Imphal eromba is not that important! I’m not denigrating eromba but we can also change in altogether different direction where we won’t have eromba as a regular dish.

Unintentionally, building my annex is proving to be a major schedule killer for me. It demands a lot of my time and attention. I can’t deny that I’m also learning a lot of new developments which are still forming the undercurrent of our society. I mean, during the interactions with new generation workmen who are building my annex.

But it is still proving to be a major distraction for me. For one, I’m not still unable to manage my time mainly because this construction work is consuming major portion of my time. I mean, I didn’t foresee this when I started it.

By the way, 2 of my sisters are also building their own annexes!

Dinner at 10.30 pm!

For the last several days, I’ve been grappling with my peculiar problem of having had to have dinner well past midnight! But tonight I’ve made a vast improvement. 10.30 pm! Yes, I just had my dinner at 10.30pm.

And, here I’m in front of my computer typing this out. Yes, this is the first time I’ve managed to fire up my computer during the last 5 days.

I think I’ve just managed to return to my usual routine.

I’ll come back tomorrow.

Now, I’ll catch up on my daily reads.

Firebombed?

At around 10.10 pm I heard a series of loud thuds of explosions.

Within minutes, we could hear wail of sirens of what it seemed to me of fire services vehicles. I could still hear the sirens when the clock struck 10.30 pm.

I went out to the streets and tried to find out what was happening. All I could see was that all the pan shops around Keisampat which usually opened upto wee hours of the night quickly pulled down their shutters. Quickly, the streets here became dark and deserted.

Today being a bandh ( in protest against the foundation laying of Tipaimukh dam) there apparently were many parties going on in several of my neighbours! I could see them quietly but quickly dispersed.

To me, it seems that some important government properties must be firebombed.

Hopeless

It was already 9 pm when I finished watering the newly-laid bricks walls of my annex. It took me more 2 hours doing that.

Then, I started making my dinner.

So, when I had my dinner, it was nearing midnight.

Right now, I’m in a hopeless situation. I gotta pack the workmen home. I’m planning to do just that within the next 30 days. Only then there will be a semblance of normalcy in my schedules.

If everything goes as planned, I’ll have my annex ready within the next 30 days.

Again.

Today also when I finished with my lunch it was already 4 in the evening. And I just had dinner at 11 pm also.

What’s happening with me?

I need to overhaul my time management.

In another level, I’m trying to re-establish the rapport with my blog. I’ve been doing that on daily basis for some days now.

At the moment, my poor blog is facing too many competitors for my attention.

But I also love my blog.

I’ll prove it!

Another disaster.

Tonight, when I finished having my dinner it was already 11.15 pm. After brushing my teeth, it was well past 11.30 pm.

Something is absolutely wrong with my time management.

I’ll come tomorrow with another part of my New Development stories.

On the lighter note, I can now claim that I can cook fish really well. I just had a sumptuous fish cooked without oil.

Someday, I’ll also tell a story about how I learnt to cook fish with a taste to die for and that too without any oil. That should be impressive story!

Black Saturday.

For me yesterday was a black Saturday.

From the very early morning when I went out to meet a guy for some business purpose, I met with disasters.

In the evening, when I was at the fifth disaster, I became truly alarmed!

I returned home early and sat down and took a deep breath and consoled myself that it was not the end of the world!

Sitting there I also remember Scarlett O’hara! Who can forget her saying this:

“ After all, tomorrow is another day”.

Black Saturday.

For me yesterday was a black Saturday.

From the very early morning when I went out to meet a guy for some business purpose, I met with disasters.

In the evening, when I was at the fifth disaster, I became truly alarmed!

I returned home early and sat down and took a deep breath and consoled myself that it was not the end of the world!

Sitting there I also remember Scarlett O’hara! Who can forget her saying this:

“ After all, tomorrow is another day”.

New developments-2

Today’s is the second story of what I think a new development in our society. The first story is my post of 6th of this month. These two stories may seem to contain the same elements with only the changes in the scenes of their occurrence. There is likelihood of people thinking that I’m repeating a previously-told story. I’m doing this to show that what I had encountered in my first story is not an isolated case study. There is this possibility that we are encountering a trend in our society. I mean, a very encouraging and lively trend.

This story concerns one of my rich friends. (unlike me, some of my friends are actually rich). He is self-made, become rich and constructed a house which is one of the landmarks in his leikai.

His doors and windows (and also, his furniture) are all of teak—teak from Burma.

I’m not an expert in this field but there is problem in the joining point of the brick walls and the frames of the doors and windows. There must be some appropriate building tech for the proper and fine joining of the two. Here in Manipur, nobody is trying to find that technology. So, in most cases gaps develop in these joining areas.

My friend also faces these problems. He decided to get rid of these gaps for the windows and doors of one of the floors of his house. He made contact with the carpenters who fixed all those doors and windows. The carpenter in turn deputed two of his men for the job.

These two turned out to be two freshly minted carpenters—twenty something upwardly mobile carpenters! My friends had reservations in giving them the works because they looked so young and inexperienced. He again made contact with the head carpenter and he told him that they are quite dependable.

To shorten a long story, my friend was impressed and totally satisfied with the works of these young carpenters. Not only that I told me a very interesting story of his encounter with these two young carpenters.

In course of this repair job his stock of the teak wood was exhausted. ( Apparently, the job required fresh supplies of teak). He was in two minds whether to continue the works because the price of teak in Imphal is so high. Hearing this, the two carpenters immediately offered to go up to Moreh and bring required wood from there!

At first, my friend hesitated to accept the offer. But their enthuasiasm was disarming and he had to hand over considerable amount of cash and send them to Moreh.

The very following day they cane back from Moreh with good quality teak and completed the repairing job.

Such a thirst of work. Impressive.

That military plane at midnight.

Last night, after posting my story on my blog and after some quick read up, it was nearly midnight. When I was under the Chinese-made duvet, feeling the divine warmth of my bed, it was some minutes past midnight. But unexpectedly for the moment, I heard the sound of the military plane again.

Some parts of me wanted to jump out of the warmth bed and see where the plane was heading. But it was chilly outside. So, still under the duvet, I tried to find out a pattern of the sound of the plane at that hour. It seemed that it was circling some spots towards the North West mountain ranges.

And the plane came again tonight also. It was around 10.30 pm. I was washing my face ready to eat my dinner (oh! All my dinners are always late). With soaps all over my face I ran towards the window and tried to locate the plane. The sound of the plane was coming from North West direction. But I could not see it.

But tonight the sound of the plane was definitely louder meaning that it must flying over some mountain ranges nearer to Imphal valley. And I could hear it for almost 20 minutes.

So, what’s they are up to now carrying military sorties at midnight?

One intriguing scenario is that the militants operating there might make huge bonfire of the abundant woods to fight off the biting cold. So, it is possible that the plane has been trying to seek out those thermal signatures. But it is just a guess.

But I don’t like this. Some very unusual thing is happening around me and I’ve no clue about it.

New developments-1

In my last post, I called them new developments. What are they? They may have far wider meanings and very confusing. Now, I think that I didn’t choose my words well enough then.

What I meant to say was that I came into contacts with some perceptible but hardly noticed changes in my immediate surrounding. I came to be aware of them only some weeks back. It is because I didn’t have the opportunity to come into contact with those sectors of my society.

Right now in my house there are some constructions going on. I’m building an annex. In doing so, I came into contact with some younger generation work men.

In those young men I notice some perceptible changes in the work ethos of the coming generations.

Day one saw five of them coming to start building my annex. All of them are twenty something guys with only the leader looking in his late twenties. I gave them the layouts and they immediately went to works. There was such a smooth start because my sister had already talked to them of a rough outline of what I wanted. The workmen had just finished building another annex for my sister.

In digging up the pits and trenches for the pillars and the beams, they never had attempted any shortcuts. They painstakingly carried off the soggy soils to some distance so that their work areas were not cluttered. When they reached the level of ground water they were digging with their bare hands. What was outstanding was that not once were they supervised by their leader. They simply persisted in digging with their bare hands until they thought they had reached the right level of the soil. Only at that stage did they call their leader to have a look at their efforts.

I had all the construction materials ready except the sand. I asked them to contact a dependable supplier of sand with whom they have some previous working relationship. They gave me a cell no. I phoned the guy and ordered the sand.

But the voice over the phone told me immediately that he could not give me a delivery date for the sand but he could try after three or four days. I was a taken aback and asked him why that was so. He replied that he carried only ‘selected’ sand—if he could not find that ‘selected’ sand on a particular day he had go without any business for that day.

Well, I was seriously intrigued and replied that I should wait for 4 days. I made him promised me to deliver the sand on the 5th day. Then, I gathered all my wits to sound as casual as possible and inform the workmen that we had to wait for 4 days for the sand. But, to my surprise, they also replied casually that it was ok for them waiting for the ‘selected’ sand!

On the evening of the 4th day, I again phoned the supplier. This time he also informed me that I had to wait for 3 more days. Aghast! I quickly summoned the leader of the workmen and let them talked out between themselves. They had a fairly long talk over the phone. After he hung up the phone he told me that they were going wait for 3 more days! In the meantime, they kept on digging and in the process, losing money!

We have gotten a 2-part picture where on one side there is a supplier who is withholding delivery for 8 days because he can’t find the right stuff and on the other side, there are five odd workmen who wait for right sand for 8 days risking losing money.

For me, this is a completely new picture. A completely new development in my society.

Happy birthday to me!

As a December-born, I can’t help having my birthday on a cold day. But it must not be a cold and lonely day for a birthday. Cold and lonely. I can assure everybody that this is the last thing I want for my birthday.

Now, I will jump cut to Shakira!

I clearly remember the day on which I was duly impressed by Shakira when I read her saying that women have buttons for a thousand feelings but men have only two—on and off. With such a few words she puts men and women in such a stark contrast. I’m still impressed with Shakira baby!

When will a man have that rare chance to see those thousand feelings all neatly compressed in a single glance of a girl? If he is lucky enough to meet that girl, his business of finding the ‘one’ is nearing completion!

I should say that during the last 20 days or so ( when I could not connect with blog) luck was with me, though I must confess that I was nearly overwhelmed with the sheer immensity of her feelings.

Also during this same period, I encountered several new developments. I’ll try to put on record here on my blogs all those new developments at the rate of a new development per day starting tomorrow!

As an aside, I’ll ask everyman (worth his salt!) to try to remember most of the times that we normally have only two buttons—on and off!!

10 in the night and a plane in the nightsky.

I was sitting down to eat my dinner at around 10 pm when I heard a very unusual and jarring sound. I immediately looked out and saw a flying object over the Southern mountain range.

By the sound it emitted and the speed with which it cut through the night sky, it seemed to me a plane.

As Imphal has no night landing facility, the sound a plane flying at 10 at night is unusual.

And as it was flying over the Southern mountain ranges, it must be a military plane looking for militants operating over there.

There must be some new development over those mountain ranges.

I'm sorry.

I've been on a very personal quest which, surprisingly, left me emotionally drained.

I'm taking small but sure steps to come out of the quest emotionally-replenished to the brim and a fulfilled man.

But right now, I'm so emotionally consumed that my rapport with my blog is affected.

I'm sorry for this.

Sleepy, sleepy!

I'm feeling so sleepy right now. I'll have a quick look at my mails and go to sleep.

I won't be able to pull myself up to read anything tonight.

A little good news

It is now reported that Sharmila is a little better.

We definitely rejoice in that news.

We sincerely hope that she continue to tread that path.

You are our precious Nura Temsing-nabi

We all know that you are giving away your precious life—very slowly and very surely.

But if a miracle can bring back your health and a smile in your face, we all go looking for that miracle.

Our hearts fly out to you.

Hang on, Sharmila

Sharmila is reported to have nasal bleeding.

When it was attended to, she is reported to have developed fever.

Something tells me that all is not well with her.

But I’m hoping against hope that she would come out all right.

Dam and politics

Twenty seven Naga organizations have served an ultimatum to the Government of Manipur to suspend the public hearing planned for the construction of the Tipaimukh dam. They say the government has only the time up to the 10th of this month to suspend the hearing. If the government fails to do so by this date, there will be a 24 hours bandh on the next day.

They also have told the government to completely withdraw unilaterally from the MOU signed between it and NEEPCO mandating the latter for the construction of the dam.

They are also telling the government that bandh is only the first step. If this first step does not elicit any positive response from the government they are readying themselves to enforce economic blockades on the national highways.

These 27 organizations met in Senapati and took these decisions. I scanned through all of those 27 organizations and found them all to be Naga organizations.

As someone living in the valley and thus, a sure shot victim of any economic blockade enforced on the highways, I should not say that I would welcome this coming blockade. But I tend to love anybody who, and anything which, will do something to oppose the construction of this dam.
I firmly believe that this proposed will be one of the biggest blunders in the entire history of Manipur. I’m totally against it.

But we must not also fail to see the underlying political meaning of the emergence of the workable conglomeration of these 27 Naga organizations and its subsequent programs of agitations.

The community which will be hardest hit by this dam is Zeliangrong, who predominantly populate the Tamenglong district. Vast tracks of their lands will be inundated. They believe that such inundations will wipe out their heritages sites and so, consequently, their cultures and heritages. So, they are seeking any available help from any quarters to enable them to stand up against the dam. In this process, there already develop a working relationship structure to jointly oppose the dam. This comes in the backdrop of the fierce turf wars between the rival factions of the predominant Naga insurgent group, the NSCN. Besides this turf war, we also see the growing activities of the Meitei insurgents in this district. All these make some Naga leaders extremely nervous. See how it was announced some days back the IM faction oft the NSCN would recruit 2000 cadres from Tamenglong district. They even announced that all these 2000 cadres will be given monthly salary! This sure highlights the level of nervousness of some Naga leaders.

I believe that these extremely nervous Naga leaders ordered the 27 Naga organizations to come together and to announce the program for the agitations. If they intensify economic blockades along the highways in Senapati district, this government will be compelled to take some decisions, however adhoc they might be.

This, in turn, will have the effect of weaning away the Zeliangrong from the Meiteis in the valley. Politics! Politics!!

Despite all these politics, I’ll appreciate everybody who does something to oppose this dam.

Welcome the handheld!

I’ve just bought a CellOne pre-paid simcard for Rs 1500/-. How the hell CellOne card command such a hefty premium! It’s one of the riddles of the life in a place called Imphal!!

I never imagine that I would be buying any other new BSNL products so soon. I’ve all along mentally prepared to migrate to any other network that provides the first competitive broadband service in Imphal.

But all of a sudden I find myself amidst a group of people who are all using CellOne service. I need to be in constant touch with these people. But intra-networks connectivity is hellish in Imphal. I don’t know if it’s also the case in other parts of India. But if you are in Imphal you have to stay satisfied in the island of the network of your service provider. Most of the time, you just cannot connect to any other people who happen to use any other networks of the competing service providers.

So, I ended up buying another product of BSNL!

And, I’m also fully prepared to buy another handset with camera and music. The camera is basically meant for this blog. And, I want to use the phone as some sort of interface between my computer and my music system. I mean, will some of the handsets be dockable to a system like an iPod dock? If I delay buying that handset for some 6 months, will there a product in the market which has the feature I want?

I’m certain that I won’t want music on the go. But I want to play my playlists on my stereo system. At the same time, it really sucks to boot up the computer everytime I want to some music in the room. I want the simplest interface between them. If the handset can store around 50 songs and if it can be docked on the stereo system to play out the palylists, it will really satisfy me.

And, I also want higher resolution for the camera. I want more 3 megapixels. And, I cannot imagine myself to carry around a camera all the time. But a camera inbuilt in the phone is altogether another matter—I’ll have no fuss in carrying it around all the time!

But I also sense that what I like is not a phone. It’s a handheld device. I can feel that the phone has already morphed into an altogether different device.

Welcome the handheld!

Beginning of new era in political development of NE Region?

Imphal is agog with whispered conversation that Manipur Government has already charged Sharmila with sedition. Manipur DGP was summoned to New Delhi and after his return, Manipur Government had taken up a suo moto case against Sharmila on the 17th of October. She was charged under section 124 (a) of the Indian Penal Code, which is related with cases of sedition and carries punishment of non-bail able jail term of 7 years.

Just now, Chief Minister and chief secretary has been summoned to Delhi.

We must remember here that during more than 50 years of insurgency in the N E Region, not a single insurgent, leader or otherwise, has not been charged with sedition. Most of the time, they are charged with Arms Act, which enables the Government to put them under National Security Act.

By not charging them with sedition, it has been argued for so long here, that Indian State has not viewed the insurgency ravaging the region as a political problem.

But all of a sudden, it’s almost certain that they have charged a frail young woman who has been using Gandhian method of non-violence path with sedition.

As I am typing this, we are witnessing a paradigm shift in the political playing field of the entire NE Region. We may as well be witnessing the moments of a major tipping point in the political history of the entire NE Region.

Is it the beginning of a new era in the political development of NE Region?

Need to be near them

A Kanhailal play has been scheduled for the evening of the 5th. Then, suddenly, Apunba Lup announced ‘sintha leppa’ (a pen down type of protest) on the 5th also.

I’m an active supporter of Sharmila. I’m ready to take in any protest program in support of her. But, I’ve also been looking forward to the going to that play of Kanhailal. I like both of them. But with the Apunba Lup protest program means the play might have already been re-scheduled. This pisses me off.

I need some change in pace in my daily routine. I also need some new songs and books. But somehow I’ve not been able to buy them. If books are not available in Imphal, songs can be either purchased or downloaded. I don’t like the idea of downloading songs from a p2p site. It’s like stealing some other’s property. But what choice do we have? Even if we go to a Imphal music store it’s more or less certain that we must be buying pirated songs. It’s also the case when we rent CDs of movies—all of them are pirated copies. I’m living in a society where piracy is pervading.

What’s particularly amazing is that it’s also true in case of local artists. I like to buy songs of Umoni and Eastern Dark. But I’m not certain if some portions of the money I would be forking out to buy them would actually reach the artists. Sometimes, I think of going directly to the artists to buy the songs but it would be a lot of hassle for me to find their places and meeting them.

All these mean that I need some new stimulation. I’m feeling suffocated by the daily doses of mediocrity. Most of the Kanhailal plays are spun with thread bare theatrical devices but they are amazingly beautiful. Let’s say most of them are simple but sublime.

Even if I can’t touch them beautiful things—simple and sublime, I need to feel to be near them. Suffused and stimulated by them.

Zinn and people empowerment

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is not only a history of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasis in this complex history will define our lives. If we can see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however, small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now, as we think human beings should live in defense of all that is good around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

That was Howard Zinn.

On so many occasions, I find so many people recommending Howard Zinn’s history of the United States. They say it is the defining book on the history of US. One of the worst disadvantages of living in a small place like Imphal is the non-availability of books. Even if we are willing to buy books, there simple is no book store. Few online stores which accepts draft payments (because online payment instruments are also not available here) typically has not stocked topical books like that of Zinn’s.

By the way, I find the Howard Zinn quotation from a small booklet of ANHAD (see my last 2 posts). ANHAD also stands for ‘ACT Now for Harmony and Democracy). At the same time, it also means ‘without limit’. Its founder being a Hashmi, the word must be Urdu, isn’t it?

If you empower small people( like tech company like Google is doing?) to live his own life without having to compromise his basic principles, then the conglomerations of such individual citizen must be an essentially good society. But what kind of agencies in a society will have the incentive to empower small people—the individuals?

Corporations are after profits. They have no incentive to empower small people. But tech companies, like Google must have a base of empowered users to get their profits. If it is true, then competitions between tech companies would mean competitions for empowering small people. That must be a paradigm shift in the history of the functioning of corporate across the globe.

The future will be really bright if technology comes around to be truly people-empowering. Can we count on the tech cos to function as the catalysts for such empowerment?

Again face to face with little simmering rebellions

Today, at Manipur University, as a part of the closing day programs of the 3 days solidarity meet for Sharmila, a book, named ‘ Sharmila: A Mission for Peace’ was released. During the short speech, the author of the book, Mr Oinam Kullabidhu, told the gathering that Sharmila started her fast in public on the 4th of Nov 2000. The shooting down of the 10 innocent men and women at Malom took place on the 2nd Nov 2000. He told the gathering this anecdote that Sharmila, shocked at the killing of the 10 people, refused foods on the day of the killing. The following day she also refused food. On the 4th, she took the consent of her mother and continued the fast on a public place.

So, there is a little confusion about the exact date on which she started her fast. Is it the 2nd of Nov, as the organizers of the meet had told us or is it 4th, as the author of the book informed us today?

Some people are also planning a rally in Trafalgar Square in London on the 4th of this month. I guess they are taking 4th as the 6th anniversary of the day on which Sharmila started her fast.

It turned out altogether 91 women from India were nominated for the 1000 peacewomen for the Nobel peace prize. They showed a film detailing the works of 6 women from among the 91 nominations. I don’t know the criteria for choosing only 6 out the 91. It included Sharmila. Most of the footages accompanying her story are from the Manorama uprising. But nobody seems to bother. The other 5 are all to do either with adivasi or religious minorities struggling for their rights. Two stories from Kerala, showing how the adivasi women there clash with the State machineries, shook me. I think it would be very educative to watch all the stories of the 91 women.

Still in the auditorium at M U, it occurred to me that all the stories point to the simmering little rebellions across the Indian Sub-continent.

I tried to form an opinion about these simmering little rebellions here.

I’m still in my learning process and I think it would serve a good start trying to find the DVD containing all the stories of the 91 woemn.

It also turned that the most active organizers at the MU auditorium are not from Human Rights Alert, which is Imphal-based. They happened to be the 3 young girls belonging to North East Network, which is based in Guwahati. All the three look really smart and capable. One is Ms Behal and another, Ms Goswami. Incidentally, I can’t remember their first names and I can remember nothing about the third!

Anyway, they have their web presence here.

But I did manage to note down all the outfits which were jointly organizing the 3 day meet. They are: HRA, NEN, ANHAD, SANGAT, HRNL, PWAG, KRITI, PEACE, INSAF, AMAN TRUST and WISCOMP. Lots of acronyms here. And I’ve no way to find out what these acronyms stand for!

Peacewomen

Several human rights activist organization are organizing a three day solidarity meet for Irom Chanu Sharmila ( aka Nura Temsing-nabi in this blog). Human Rights Alert ( of Babloo Loitongbam ) seems to be the main co-ordinator here. The venue is at the centenary hall of Manipur University. It started on 31st of October and will have the closing day on 2nd of November, which is the 6th anniversary of the day Sharmila started her fast.

Besides, showing solidarity to Sharmila, the organizers want to introduce 1000 peacewomen who were nominated for Nobel Peace prize in 2005. ( They did not get the prize).

When I reached there, a panel discussion was going on. The panel consisted of Shabnam Hashmi of ANHAD, Neidunlun of Naga Mothers’ Association ( of Nagaland), Maya Ingti and Biro Bala Rava. They are among the 1000 peacewomen.

ANHAD comes out with a top quality flyer exclusively for Sharmila. It’s entitled 2000-2006: Six Years of Struggle. There are extensive quotes from Sharmila. For the moment I can’t pull myself up to read any of her quotes in the flyer. Seeing the picture of Sharmila in the flyer leads me to think that there is something terribly wrong in this place. I can’t go beyond her photograph there and start reading the quotes inside.

ANHAD is trust mainly doing its activities to confront the flagrant fascism by the Sangh Parivar. Among the six trustees is Harsh Mandar. I like a lot of Mandar’s writings.

They have their web presence here.

Peacewomen across the globe did not get the Nobel in 2005. But their struggle continues with a central secretariat in Bern, Switzerland with small regional secretariats in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and the Pacific.

They have their web presence here.

Please do not forget that Sharmila is among that 1000 peacewomen.

Please sign the petition

I want everybody to go to this link and spend some minutes there. The link shows a petition and I want everybody to sign it.

The petition is addressed to the President of India imploring him to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958.

This Act is out and out law of the jungle. It empowers a non-commission officer in India’s military to order to shoot to kill any people, if he decides that the person is anything to do with insurgencies in India’s North East Region ( which includes my place, Manipur) and Kashmir. His decision is final. No court of the democratic India can question his decision. At present, this Act is enforced only in NE Region and Kashmir. It’s not applicable in any other parts of democratic India.

This Act propels a simple non-commissioned officer in India’s military above the rule of law and courts of the world’s largest democracy.

This Act should not have a place in any organized society.

I myself signed it last night.

Fireworks in the darkness

When we were under the blanket darkness due to the breakdown of the transformer ( see my post dated 29th of this month) in our local grid, there had been constant bursting of crackers and fireworks. In fact, only tonight I’ve not been able to hear any sound of fireworks or crackers. Even, last night I heard several rounds of fireworks late in the night. This has been intermittently continuing since the Durga Puja.

During the week of darkness, I was there trying to cook my dinner by candlelight and there went the eerie sounds of crackers crackling and fireworks going up the night sky. I could not help asking myself—‘ Eh, are we celebrating darkness?’

Normally fireworks are meant for celebrations.

By social acceptance, there are a lot of fireworks during the Durga puja. In my childhood, crackers and fireworks were exclusively for the puja. And lighting of candles for the diwali. But this Diwali there was such a barrage of crackers and fireworks that there were deafening noises late in to the night for several days before and after it.

Whether one likes it or not, Puja and Diwali are celebration times and everybody can understand crackers and fireworks during the periods.

But this season, crackers and fireworks began several days before the Pujah and continued well into the Ningol chakouba! What’s happening here?

I distinctly remembered the evening when Dingkoo got that gold in the Asiad boxing events. Imphal erupted in celebrations with massive bursting of crackers and fireworks. That was totally normal. I mean we can have bursting of crackers and fireworks not during the socially accepted occasions like Pujah and Diwali.

But there must be some celebrations.

Now a days we were thrown into a sea of darkness for a complete week and some people were heard ‘celebrating’ with crackers and fireworks.

Either they were celebrating darkness or we are actually living in an abnormal society.

Or, is it that they wanted to celebrate the Dark Side?

Actually, I flinched whenever I heard one of those crackers and fireworks.

I and M

It is not a coincidence that one faction of the NSCN is known both by its president and secretary general. When we talk of NSCN (IM), we are pinpointing a faction led by Isaac Swu and Muivah—so, the I and M.

When we are talking about the other faction, we denote it by a K which represents Khaplang, who is the president of this faction. NSCN(K) is the proper name.

My point is NSCN(K) has also a secretary general in the person of Mulotoni. But we never say NSCN(KM).

When the NSCN(IM) was born and given this name, there has always been this tantalizing opportunity to play off the I against the M. This gaping hole has always been there in the NSCN(IM). Significantly, we must also not discount the fact that Delhi people have always the opportunity to play off Isaac’s community ie, Sema against that of Muivah’s ie, Tangkhul.

Now, Isaac Swu has come out against the talk (with Govt of India) handled by Muivah, albeit couched in diplomatic niceties. He was speaking in a UNPO meeting in Taiwan. He told the gathering that the present talk with the NSCN(IM) and Govt of India needs a third party involvement, which in turn would have to be nominated by UN. In effect, he was telling that the present talk is going nowhere and Muivah is to be blamed for that.

We must not forget to mention here that UNPO has nothing to do with the United Nations. Most of the time UNPO meetings are the gatherings of crackpots from all over the globe. In another sense, UNPO meetings are typically occasions of crackpots unlimited!

But that does not the dilute what Mr Isaac Swu has intended to put across by using the speech there.

As the talk drags on, the Delhi operatives will begin to wear down Muivah by playing Mr Isaac Swu against him.

I think that moment has arrived. Needless to say, I feel that it’s a sad moment.

How many days now!

How many days now!

For 6 days, we had to live without electricity!!

The transformer servicing at least 3 leikais (including mine) and some portions of Paona Bazar broke down on Ningol Chakouba day itself. They took 6 days to repair the transformer and we got electricity this afternoon only.

Well, for 6 consecutive nights, I learnt to cook my dinners in candlelight. That was a kind of endurance test!

And, for 6 nights I also learnt to go to sleep at around 10 at night and woke at around 6 in the morning. I’ve found out that that was a better routine for me.

But I also love to read late into the night. So, I’m going straight there!

Cheers!

HAPPY CHAKOOUBA!

I’m making this brief appearance only for wishing everybody a happy ‘Ni-ngol Chakouba’.

I’m also going to bed as soon as I post this. I’ve to rise early in the morning. There are so many errands to run and so many little things to ‘accomplish’ to make myself a perfect host!

So, again:

HAPPY CHAKOUBA!

Empty handed!

I thought I could do it after some straightforward meetings with some people. Unconsciously, I might have even thougth that it could be easy.

But, getting some still shots of the film ‘Nangsu Mouni’ is proving to be really a tough job.

I’m really in a mood for doing a review of the movie together with a detailed story of the ambient moods in BOAT during a typical ‘Special Show’ of a Manipuri movie.

I tried in the morning yesterday. Came back empty handed. Again, I tried in the evening. Again, returned empty handed.

So, I thought it’s entirely appropriate not to make a post on 21st October 2006. It symbolizes empty handedness!

Today also, I returned empty handed.

But, I’m thinking that my blog deserves a little story, even if it’s about returning empty handed!

I’m trying tomorrow again.

Body Mass Index

I found this in one those old newspapers scattered on my desk.

Body Mass Index (BMI) equals your WEIGHT IN KILOGRAMS divided by the SQUARE OF YOUR HEIGHT IN METRES.

If the index is between 18.5 and 23, your weight is ok.

If it is below 18.5, you are underweight.

And, if it is over 23, you are overweight.

I’ve just found out that mine is 19.5.

May be, I should try to gain some weight so that my index is around 20.5.

It was so cold in the open air theatre!

I’ve just returned from BOAT, an open air theatre.

They call it a ‘Special Show’. But it is more like a premier show. But the unusual thing is that they have to wait for several months for the regular screening of the movie to theatres because all the theatres are fully booked for several months at a stretch.

Last heard, it’s more than 70 new films waiting for screening at the theatres.

The name of the film I’ve just watched at BOAT is ‘Nangsu Mouni’. It has all the usual stuffs, mostly formulaic.

The only thing that attracts me is that it is produced by Kamala.

Right now, Kamala Saikhom is the reigning leading lady in Manipuri cinema. Most of the leading actors are said to be working at more 20-25 films at any point of time!

Especially for Kamala, audiences here have good rapport with her. There is a lot of demand for her films. She must be also working at 20-30 films right now.

Why should she want to produce a film at this moment? At any rate, a production by a reigning star is news.

I’ll do a proper review of the film.
But at the theatre it was cold and I was starving.
I’m rushing to the dinner table right now!

How time flies!

Once in a while, putting Imphal as it is, is absolutely repetitive and tiresome.

Just as I’m feeling right now, because last night I got such a low voltage of electricity that I could not turn up my computer. I didn’t phone or otherwise made any contact with, the utility people because I thought it might be a major breakdown.

This morning, I also found that there was no change in the status. At around 11 I went there and meet those people. I was taken buy surprise when they accusingly informed me that substantial number of consumers might be using electric heaters for cooking purpose. I never do that. May be, one of my neighbours, who has several college going students in his rented rooms, might have several heaters in use as well.

But I took the fullest advantages of the situation. I jumped into bed early and rose quite early also. Early in the morning I went out to meet several people whom I would have no chance of meeting them after 8 in the morning. They seem to be always on the move. Energetic types.

I also went to meet two of my sisters and formally invited them for the ‘Ni-ngol Chakouba’, which is on the 24th of this month. There is bereavement in the family of the third sister and so, it is not proper for her to come for the festival. Another of my sister is in Delhi, settling there permanently.

Last ‘Ni-ngol chakouba’, I promised myself that I should not to fail to send some gifts for this sister in Delhi. Now, it’s only some days to go for the festival and I already know that I would not be able to keep my promise.

Remembering that promise, last ‘Ni-ngol Chakouba’ is still very fresh in my mind.

It’s a wonder how time flies!

A peep into the bandh mela!

It was pretty late in the morning when I woke up. But I was greeted with that sense of serenity where you feel like you just have a brush with palpable tranquility, peace and heightened well-being.

On the flip side, I also sensed like missing something.

So, I asked myself—‘Why, it’s so quite!’.

I even went out to what was previously my gated driveway and peered out through the keyhole towards the streets if something was actually wrong. I was still in my sleeping ‘outfit’ and even a little bleary eyed.

One of my friends have just finished constructing his furniture showroom ‘incorporating’ my driveway. Thus he got his ‘fair-sized’ showroom and he reasoned that the arrangement ok as I’m still living alone. Now, there is such demand for space.

By the way, he got teak furniture from Burma. They come in completely knocked down packages and they assemble them in a small workshop, also in my place. They say Burmese finishing is not so fine and so, they are going to redo the finishing all over again before they are ready for sale. Burmese teak is really gorgeous.

That’s a little digression.

Coming to the point, I didn’t forget that it was a bandh today also. Actually, today is the second day of the two consecutive days of bandh ‘feast’. May be, it’s a bandh ‘mela’!

To be a little precise, yesterday’s bandh is a bandh of ‘first among equals’ because the call was given by the umbrella body of what we call the valley-based insurgent groups. They were protesting what they termed ‘the forcible merger’ of Manipur to the Indian Union on the 15th of October 1949.

Today’s was by Apunba Lup in protest against the Govt of India’s handling of the continuing fast unto death by our ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’.

Judging by the ‘quite’ factor in the morning, today’s bandh beats the bandh called by the insurgents hands down.

Is this the case of people losing respects for the insurgents?

Or, is it the case of our society’s resounding support to the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’?

About that SPARK

As I planned some days back, I sat down through the most of the evening and produced the following write up trying to understand the likelihood of ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ providing the spark for emancipation of the oppressed people throughout India.

Whatever its weaknesses, Indian National Congress is the embodiment of the very basic national characteristics of India, like secularism, unity in diversity, non-violence etc. Now, this party is becoming irrelevant in what we call the heartland of Indian nation, namely, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar , Madhya pradesh etc. It is not the case of it being suffering a periodical setback in this area. It is widely reported, and generally accepted as a present day fact, that it is already becoming irrelevant in these parts of India.

But the most revealing part is that the party itself has no clue as to what went wrong with itself in this part of the country. They have not been able to find a theoretical underpinning to explain away the reason why it’s being irrelevant there. The best it could do is to field a young MP of Gandhi-Nehru lineage in the political arena down there, in the hope that he would come up with a magic wand by himself.

To my mind, it indicates the continuing revolt against those who are steering the caste system. I also believe that it has been simmering under the surface since many centuries back and so, it would try to rise to the surface. What it lacks is a robust leadership who can channelize those simmering energies to strike at the weakest link in the system and break though it.

But a pertinent question arises here. If it has been simmering for several centuries now, would it have any plausible reason to be able to find that leadership any time now?

How is that the political situation there fails to throw up a robust leadership for so many centuries now?

Now, let’s look at our own National Highway no 39. The army troopers posted along it do not prevent Naga insurgents from collecting taxes from the vehicles plying on it. In mast cases, the insurgents have been openly collecting their taxes from their own checkpoints, which are just near the army’s outpost. Some even are operating from the very outpost of the armymen.

I’m not pointing an accusing finger to Naga insurgents. It is the same in the case of Meitei insurgents ‘extorting’ money in Imphal valley. Security forces are aware that the ‘extortion’ is there but they let it continue.

There may be a hidden agenda behind such policy of the security forces but we can proceed without even trying to explain that. The important issue here is that they are letting some agencies break the law without impunity under their respective jurisdictions. As an organized security agency of the Indian state they are doing not anything to uphold the rule of law.

In ordinary situations, it should be construed as a pure dereliction of duty. And, in the absence of disciplinary actions for this dereliction of duty, there must be some ‘side effects’ on the troopers themselves. I’ll repeat—in ordinary situation, there is absolute possibility of the troopers themselves infected with the virus of corruption and insubordination. If this situation is let to continue for some times, there may even be possibility of the troopers challenging the civilian authority and of attempting to take control by coup.

But this is not happening in India. That’s why I called it not ‘ordinary’.

The Indian army has a doctrine of accepting insurgency upto a certain level, which is being pre-calibrated by it so that the insurgents would not attempt to break through the established civil administration. We can well imagine what would become of Naga insurgency (for that matter, any insurgency, be it Meitei,Assamese or Tripuri) if they are let to simmer ( meaning, letting them collect their taxes freely or letting them move around in full military fatigues with assault rifles etc) but forcefully kept just beneath the breaking out point, using occasional peace talks and, if necessary, occasional military operations, for another 50 year. In India’s heartland this policy has been continuing for centuries now and we all can see what its effects are.

Looking from this perspective, two questions arise:

>> Would this doctrine of acceptance of limited rebellion effectively curb the emergence of a capable leadership?

>> Even in the case the leadership actually does come up, would it able to present an alternative social order to the caste system?

These are really difficult question to answer. But for our purpose, we can proceed even without attempting to answer them.

It’s because the doctrine of acceptance of limited rebellion have already done enough damages to the Indian polity, even if it, so far, manages to withstand the stark corrupting effects on the security personnel. With the security personnel looking the other way, enough laws of the land has been broken on the daily basis that the confidence of the citizens in the strength of such laws is severely put under test.

But, more importantly, mini rebellions across the breadth of the country has been kept simmering for such a long time now that basic founding principles of the Indian nation is severely undermined. See how Indian National Congress, which, by the way, happens to be the depository of those principles, has already become irrelevant there. This has been not only happening in the periphery like Manipur but in the very heartland of Indian nation, where the majority of the people populate and from where the majority of the seats to the parliament are elected.

If such basic principles are undermined by the majority people living in the heartland of the Indian nation, which, by definition, should serve as the centripetal force of the Indian nation, then any number of scenarios can evolve out of it.

For example, vast majority of these mass of people in the heartland have not yet afford the proverbial two square meals a day, have no proper roofs over their heads, no medical facilities, no electricity, no roads—the list is simple endless. In the situation where the basic founding principles of the Indian nation are being undermined on the daily basis, they, under some forceful leadership, may demand that the pouring in of money to NE States and other backward stats as current account subsidy be stopped so that they may utilize them for their foods, roofs, medicines, electricity, roads etc.

Then, the proverbial spark may well come from one of the states which suck in such current account subsidies, like Manipur, where there is open revolt against the injustice by a young lady, known as ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’.

Fourth World blogging.

For my last post, I spent more than one hour finding that Burma link. During the search I found out some Burmese blogs. I could read one blog only but I would read more of them. From that blog I could also find out a list of Burmese bloggers.

I went all down to her Technorati profile. Reaching there I wanted to see her fave blogs and as I clicked the link, I also found out that she wanted me to add her as my fave first. I’m not blaming her for wanting that but that set me off to a thinking jaunt.

Is any opportunity to garner up enough links to blogs published from these parts of the world of ours?

Is it practical for our blogs to expect enough page views to make it feasible to monetize them?

I don’t particularly like to sound divisive but they are metrics of the First World blogs. I really feel good that many bloggers over there can live off by blogging alone. It’s a very welcome news. But here in this part of the world, we should be always on guard not to be bogged down by these metrics.

When I first came to know of blogs, what stuck me most was the possibility of it becoming a tool to bypass the barriers put up by editors, directors, politicians and, above all, by political boundaries and meet an ordinary citizen anywhere in the world. Through blogs we can feel the nuances of the ordinary lifestyles of any citizen of any country provided there is no language barrier. Personally, I find there are language barriers in cases of Iranian and French blogs. If we overlook such minor drawbacks, blogging is a revolutionary tool for ordinary citizens of the whole world to reach out to each other. Never before in the history of mankind have an ordinary citizen in his disposal a working to tool to meet face to face with his/her counterparts anywhere in the world, unhindered by the barriers put up by the power that be.

Today, I’m reminding myself that I should be more focused on this characteristic of blogging. At least for some to come, we should not be unduly worried about links and page views.

That said, I want everyone of my new post to ping on Technorati and Weblogs. That’s still to come because it entails messing around with hypertext and I’ve so little time. Another feature I want to add is the enabling of bookmarking of my post. Still to come!

Now, I’ve several months of blogging experience. On most days, I start writing stories in my head by around 7 pm. By that time, I started asking myself—‘What interesting things happened to me today?’ or ‘Is there anything I can share in my blog?’. In other words, it is personal auditing on a daily basis. It may sound a little too harsh on myself but it is proving to be good for me.

Last but not the least, as I grew up an activist, some parts of me will always have that activist streak. I simply can’t help it. So, on a personal scale, I’m terribly enthused at the idea of , at least, a simple story of a simple citizen living in this place Imphal going up as a digital etch for the whole world to see, that too updated on a day to day basis. It fulfils some parts of my personal yearning. But I’ve also pinched myself to remain as truthful to myself as possible on a daily basis and not to off to a tangent to start promoting an agenda for my place by making up stories. I will never do that. I’ll keep Imphal as it is. With warts and all. With it bandhs (now both 15th and 16th bandhs!). With its erratic internet and power supply. Like last night when it went out at around 7 in the evening. On my fourth telephone call at around 9 at night, I was informed that I had to go without electricity that night because they had just found out that there was a major repair at hand, which they could mend only when their offices open the next day.

Well, that’s re-stating my blogging ethics. I should do this on regular basis from time to time.

Not satisfied

I’m not satisfied with myself when I’ve tried to reason that ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ might well be the spark that will ignite the revolts of the suppressed people across the Indian subcontinent.

I’m still convinced that I’ve some very important points to make.

I've found it a little tricky to cogently put it down in a crisp prose. But my only consolation is that it’s a tough topic to begin with and still tougher to put it into a presentable form so as to convince others.

We will have a bandh on the 15th and I’m thinking of sitting through that day to make my point.
Now, let me try to tell you that those ‘intangibles’ which I find them so difficult to put into words have actually a lot of remarkable consequenses around us.

Let’s try this news. Indian military have already supplied tanks to the Burmese army. They are in the process of giving them warships (small ones?). Inida’s navy chief made a secret visit to Burma recently. That news was dated 4th Oct and carried by Indo-Asian News service. I cannot give you the link because subcsription is required.

Mind you, all these were done in hush hush manner. Don’t you think they are all something to do with the ‘inatangibles’ we are trying to define?

Update: Here is a link.

The play of the elements

My last post was essentially what had come to my mind on that day. But today it made me think more about the subject.

Well, I’ll admit that it would sound megalomaniac to most people! Manipur is such a small landmass with such a small people populating it that it should not shoulder any burden whatsoever of ‘giving light’ to anybody. It has enough problems of its own and it will need to pool all its available resources to focus on solving those problems.

That said, we must not also forget that now is the time for the global attention on what is to be done to finding ways for the free expression of the aspirations and the wishes of the Fourth World people.

To go swiftly to a non-controversial selection of a Fourth World people, let’s focus on Kurds.
Kurds are dispersed in Iraq, Iran and Turkey. All the three countries want their respective Kurd populations to be just they are right now—loyal minorities.

But the whole world, including the three nations of Iraq, Iran and Turkey knows most emphatically that the Kurds don’t like to be dispersed widely in three separate political entities, thereby robbing them of their rights to collectively decide their own destiny.

Now, all of the world’s attention is sharply focused on Iraq. And, so much has been written about how the imperialist British divided the Kurds by artificial lines and throwing them into the boundaries of so lenient three separate countries. At the moment, Iraq is in the process of constituting all over again from scratches. What the international community is going to do to undo the wrong done by the Brits 5 decades ago?

More pertinently, what’s the Kurds themselves going to do at this crucial juncture? The central power binding the Iraq as a nation has been smashed by the US military and the Kurds themselves have a reasonably strong armed forces ( as do the Shias and Sunnis, which are called the sectarian militias). Now is the historically most appropriate timing for expressing their aspirations and rights.

At this juncture, one astounding thing crops up. The Kurds cannot point to a ‘ Kurd way’ to put it in contrast to ‘Shia way’ or ‘Sunni way’ or, for that matter the ‘Iraqi way’. To say that staying in Iraq is preventing them from freely expressing their aspirations and wishes, they need to put the ‘Kurd way’ and the ‘Iraqi way’ in sharp contrast, convincing everybody about the incompatibility of the two living inside a single country.

But, where is the ‘Kurd way’? They try to find it in their pre-Islamic heritages. But the fiery swords of the foot soldiers of Mohammad cleanly swept them off the face of the earth. They cannot pick up a single thread, besides the name of their pre-Islamic faith.

Now, you replace the word ‘Kurd’ with any other name of a Fourth World community and you can well understand the dilemma they are in. I’m not saying that what you collective call the ‘Dalits’ or ‘Adivasis’ qualify as a nation or nationality (as in the case of Kurd) but their dilemma is the same as that of the Kurds. I also think that it is for the ‘dalits’ or the ‘adivasis’ to say it for themselves—it’s not our right to opine that they qualify for it or not.

Unlike the fate of the Kurds, Manipur’s society has those intangibles that make it possible to point out that there is the ‘Manipur way’. But the most profound and defining situation is that Manipur’s society have those intangibles side by side with the continuing revolt against the system (see my last post). You need to have these two elements in parallel so as to make any forceful historical statements.

Isn’t the intersection of the lines of these elements that produce such unpredictable situations, like the emergence of our ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’?

I mean to say that the play and interaction of such elements with the developments continually presented by the dynamics of history will likely to produce many situations which may serve as the SPARKS for the other Fourth World communities.


PS: This evening I saw Film Forum, Manipur (kind of Apunba Lup of the film fraternity of Manipur) putting posters in theatres proclaiming—‘ We support you, Nura Temsing-nabi’.

Nura Temsing-nabi, be that SPARK.

If we are deep into a deadend ( my last post), what’s there for us in the future?

I’ll speak out my mind.

Everybody knows that the building blocks of the basic village units of the Indian heartland are injustice and injustice and more injustice. And the command strucute of this injustice unlimited is the caste system. This centuries old structure is surprisingly resilient.

Because of its resilience many well meaning people are lulled into believing that this system might well have serve a perpose. If not, why its staying power for many centuries?

To my mind, it’s not serving a purpose which is compassionate. It’s a cruel system.

The longevity of the system may well be due to the ingenuity of the power that be of those steering it. They are so ingenious that they have been able to shield off the crushing world wide criticism of their system, as was in the case of the Apartheid in the then South Africa. Essentially, the caste system is out and out apartheid in its functionality.

The reigning cliché is that one of the magic weapons used so dexterously over the centuries by the power that be is corrupting any leader who emerges to lead occasional revolt against the system. They quietly let in the leader into their surreal worlds of the ‘power that be’ land and charm the rebellious edges off him.

But it must be just that—a cliché. It cannot be the satisfactory reason why all the revolts have failed. To my mind, the crucial factor behind such failures must be the inability of the leaders to provide a tangible social system to replace the caste system.

For example, what is Mayawati’s model social system to replace the hated ‘manu vaadic’ one? Look to BR Ambedkar or to the Dravidian upsurge in Tamil land, you cannot find the vision of the alternative social system.

Now, look to Manipur. It occupies a unique position. Beyond its eastern boundary, they did not try to supplant the caste system. Look to Burma, Thailand etc. In a sense, it’s the last frontier. But in this last frontier there had been systematic resistance, and then revolt, against the caste system. The crucial factor is that they have the alternative social system to firmly oppose the caste system.

And, it has been very systematic and relentless. Look at the ‘Maichou Taret’. We will find that nearly 300 years ago they initiated the resistance against the coming caste system. Besides this initiation, they left behind enough treaties and books to outline the contours of the opposing social system.

In this sense, Manipur provides the only society in this subcontinent which has the living revolt against the caste system. For any other society trying to revolt against it, they can get a ready model from Manipur.

Looking from this perspective, it will be no wonder if our ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ comes to provide the crucial spark for other revolts across the Indian subcontinent, all of which have been waiting to happen for several centuries now.

You never know. ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ may well be that SPARK.

Dead end

So, the prime minister visited dengue patients in AIIMS and he had no time for our ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’. It brings into focus the dead-end we are confronted with right at this moment.

We are in very unusual situation. We are not alone; in fact, most of the NE States are in such situations. We have no tax revenue. We are living on the current account subsidy pumped in from New Delhi.

This unusual situation has given birth to an equal unusual class of people here. They are born attuned for pocketing the subsidies from Delhi. They are now even leveraging insurgency to get more money from New Delhi. Unfortunately for the ordinary people here, this unusual class is also the political class here. Their main business is raking up their brains for innovative ways for pocketing this subsidy.

The irony here is that the political class in New Delhi is counting on such people for the feedback of the ground realities in the state. Naturally, the Delhi people have already lost contact with the aspirations and wishes of the ordinary people here. There is absolutely no hope if they continue to depend on such people. Personally, I have some opportunities to watch some of these people who are the emerging leaders of such class from a very quarters and I can assure you that they are worse than the present crop of leadership.

So, we have to continue living with the dead end for considerable time into the future.

Interestingly, I read the weekly column of Mr Sanjoy Hazarika in the Statesman today. He wrote that doctors actually gave only 3 days to the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ if she refused to eat after the discontinuation of the nose feeding. Only 3 days! That tenuous!! It’s extremely worrisome. Mr Hazarika wondered how they managed to put her in an air plane for nearly 10 hours of flying into Delhi.

I don’t know how he got the data here. I can’t tell you about the authenticity of the data either. I came to know of it from Mr Hazarika’s column.

Mr Hazarika concluded that any doctor in New Delhi would not recommend to any government agency for transporting the ‘Nura temsing-nabi’ to Imphal. Alternatively, any government agency would shy away from the job in the absence of a clear and official recommendation from a reputed doctor.

It seems that New Delhi is also sitting on a pretty tricky situation.

PS: Don’t you notice that I’ve been using name ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ all over the place now? I can again tell you that I don’t like putting Sharmila on a pedestal. Still, I like these two words—they are so elegent.

Apunba Lup in New Delhi

Like you all, I had also read about the camping of the 4 coordinators of the Apunba Lup in New Delhi. (Apunba Lup is the apex body of 32 civil societies’ organization and it’s spearheading the agitation for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers’ Act 1958, which gives the power to shoot to kill any man or woman to a simple non-commissioned officer in the Indian Army. This Act is the direct descendent of the Act of the same name which was promulgated by the colonial British regime in Delhi with the aim to crush the movement by MK Gandhi, who asked the Britishers to leave India in a special sitting of the Congress party in 1938 in Bombay. The movement was known as the Quit India Movement, which ultimately brought independence to the Indian nation).

Today, they sent out a press statement. Surprisingly, most papers either ignored it totally or failed to cover the most significant portion of it.

To my mind, the most significant portion is when they made their intention known to all that they are trying to agitate for the cause of the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ together with the international community. Note the key words are ‘ the international community’. I’ve fond out that only paper reported this significant portion.

So, Apunba Lup is looking for a completely new vista for their future agitation.

Another interesting corollary is that all these developments clearly show that the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ is already becoming the Symbol, as I told you in yesterday’s post. Read this with news item that Hurriyet Conference ( of the Kashmiri’s movement for independence from India) leadership took all the trouble of coming to Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and meeting the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’. What do you see? The Symbol in the making, isn’t it?

On other side, the political class of New Delhi is treading quite cautiously. They are trying to quietly to put the lid on the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ episode, without further attracting attention, international or otherwise.

Today’s papers carried the news of 3 nurses and 3 lady homeguards literally airlifted to Delhi. Apparently, these 5 ladies were the constant acquaintances of the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ when she had been kept arrested in a hospital room and inflicted forced nose feeding for the last 6 years.

Outwardly, they were flown in for further assisting the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ in another Delhi hospital. But quietly Delhi’s rulers are executing superb move to create a condition for airlifting the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ to Imphal, together with the 3 nurses and 2 lady homeguards when the time is ok. Because, the 5 ladies are State government employees and when they report back to duty in Imphal, they will force the ‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ to accompany them.

It will be interesting to see how the Apunba Lup make their counter-move.

The switchover

I’ve switched over to Blogger beta. That’s why there is flurry of changes in my blog template.

You can make a lot changes without having to come face to face with html! It’s a great idea. They even have a drag and drop tool.

But apparently, they have forgotten to incorporate the global timestamp tool. Now, I’ve to manually fix my timestamp.

What about my picture? For some time now, I’ve this uneasy feeling that I’ve been spewing out really strong opinions without disclosing fully about myself. Whatever one wants to say something he/she should do it openly. The possibility of remaining anonymous in a blog is not a license to say any irresponsible thing. Posting a picture of mine is my way of saying that I’m taking responsibility for whatever I’ll be talking ( as well as I’ve already written ) here.

BTW, I’ve not that long hair now. I cut it off.

Nura Temsing-nabi

‘Nura Temsing-nabi’ is the honorary name, being touted for Irom Chanu Sharmila.

Are the Asians more prone of inventing such names? Like, “Mahatma’ for MK Gandhi and ‘The Great Helmsman’ for China’s Mao.

The emergence of this name is not even a week old. It is a matter of some days down the line when the name came to appear in the media. I even saw many people nodding approvingly after the reading the name in the papers.

I, all along, fancy myself to be a keen watcher of this society. But the emergence of this name escaped my notice when it first came into being. It was after some buzzes created by it that I came to notice it.

Are there some groups who are intentionally trying to create the name? Or, is it just the spontaneous appearance?

I don’t know.

And I want to keep this way. Because I want to continue to marvel at how some very significant things continue to happen under my own nose—me, not having an inkling of what’s brewing up. It totally humbles me.

That said, it may also be an attempt to put Sharmila on a pedestal. And, I don’t like such attempts.

In related matter, I told you in my last post that Sharmila was a quite a regular girl in that reading room crowd. Did she manage to notice the book, ‘Gandhi’s Truth’, by Erik Erikson, which was in that room? Erikson neatly brings the Mahatma down the pedestal and lucidly present to us the famous, MK Gandhi as he is. I mean, the real MK Gandhi as the consummate politician.

If I don’t like this exercise, then why should I keep talking about it at all? Because, I like the words forming the name. They are so elegant. Anyone knowing Manipuri will agree with me that they are elegant. If some one coined the words on purpose, even with an agenda, he/she has done a good job.

Roughly translated, it means ‘The Maiden who dares to challenge the Injustice’.

Besides, there is this important reason why I’m talking about this. To prove that I’m quite a keen watcher of this society, I’ll try to be the one who first put this down in black and white!

Here we go:

THIS ‘NURA TEMSING-NABI’ IS, SLOWLY BUT SURELY, BECOMING THE SYMBOL OF THE STRUGGLE OF THE MANIPURIS TO DEFINE THEIR OWN SELFHOODS.

Irom Chanu Sharmila

The image is still fresh in my mind. In a freshly put up makeshift tent a girl was seen sitting, starting the day one of her fast.

It was very early in the morning. When I opened the day’s paper, I was greeted with the above photograph right there in the headline.

Seeing the photograph that morning, I actually had a wry smile on my face because I was murmuring to myself—‘What is she doing there?’.

Because, the girl in the picture was that girl who occasionally sat across the table opposite me in the reading room of the already burnt down Central library.

To me that morning, she looked definitely out of place in that makeshift tent.

Although she was fairly regular in that reading room crowd, I never got to know her name. Only when I started reading the news story then did I come to know she was Sharmila.

That was the morning six years back when a newspaper first reported about the fast by Irom Chanu Sharmila.

Now, these days, I cannot stand to look at any photograph of fasting Sharmila. Whenever I see one my mind just galloped back to the reading room days where whom I saw was an energetic girl in jeans, with luxuriant but wild hairs, totally absorbed in her books.

In front of my own eyes, she is crumbling.

It is cruel.

One private sector joke to another public sector disservice!

Last night, I was late at my computer. I even skipped my daily routine of brushing my teeth after dinner to type out the following piece so that I could post it before midnight.
__________________________________

This evening I was in a friend’s office. In another room, where one of his assistants was working, there was this small tv showing Manipuri film songs. I went in the room and switched to the CNN-IBN. Just on cue, it showed the highlights of the coming interview of Sana Yaima. It was touted as the first TV interview by any channel.

That was in around 7.30 pm. My friend’s office closes at 8 pm and the interview was on 9.30 pm slot.

So, I quickly went home and made all the preparations for the dinner and then, went to another friend’s place.

As we were chatting, the programme came. It showed montages of Sana Yaima, saying different lines of what he had to say about his agenda. Then, it switched to the present political condition of Manipur showing collages of still pictures, mostly of the agitation of the rape and killing of Manorama.

Then, the break came.

We were chatting in front of the TV, thinking that all those montages and collages were the run up to the main interview.

But it never came.

They had captions and scrolls saying that it was the first TV interview of Sana Yaima. But the subject of the interview, Mr Sana Yaima was never in the frame for more than 30 seconds. They were all montages.

How do they term it as an interview?

It was a joke. A complete joke.

_______________________________________

On most days I typed out my post on Words before I log into the net. When I go online I quickly paste the piece onto the Blogger’s create post interface and click publish button. Then, I go ahead with my daily reads, also mostly offline.

Last I pasted the above piece and even clicked published button. Just then, the connection to the net failed. And, I never could log on to the network for the whole night.

So, last night’s case was the instance of descending into another public sector disservice from the one private sector joke!

Now, I’m trying again.

Snippets

>> Even if it looks like a log book of a utility company, it may serve a purpose! So, I got such a low voltage power last night that it barely could light up my room. I dutifully phoned the ‘complaint room’ of the electricity deptt ( yes, it is a govt-run utility service ) and got the news that there was some problem in the transformer. That meant it would be a major maintenance job which could only be taken up under the supervision of senior officers. These officers would be available during the office hours meaning we had to wait for the following day.

That’s the story of place called Imphal. A quaint place.

>> Damodar Swami of the Imphal ISKCON died in Kolkatta. We all along have got the impression from the media that he sustained only a minor injury in his arms. Now, it is clear that he never could recover from the shock of the hand grenade explosion.

Whatever his religious affiliation, Damodar was always a hero of Manipur. Son of a widow and from a small village, his rise to be an icon of this society is the stuff the fables are made of. How his extremely poor mother supports his education by selling vegetables has become folklore here.

Our hero has been slain by a mysterious grenade.

To my mind, how our hero has been slain by this mysterious grenade will have far-reaching impacts in our society, even though we may not detect it in this maddening immediacy of our life.

>> CNN has started a documentary starting this day and running up to the 14th of this month. It is named ‘The Hidden Wars of India’. It is about the insurgencies in NE India and it is reported to feature several interviews of insurgent leaders, including Sana Yaima from Manipur.

Well, you should remember that I have not a cable connection and I’m still running after a broadband account. So, I’m in a twilight zone! And, I can definitely tell you that it’s absolutely awful to be in such a twilight zone!!

>> I’m in a striking distance of acquiring a brand new scar right in my forehead! Right now, the image in the mirror is a bit out of place with the brand new scar. Will it go away after some time? Please do—PLEASE DO GO AWAY!

>> On a brighter note, the wound on my thumb is healing so fast that I’m beginning to think my relentless chase of all those anti-oxidants, trace minerals etc etc is starting to have its impact on my health. I may well be healthier nowadays. I feel good about this.

Jihad means striving for any cause.

That’s how Mr SM Murshed wrote in the Statesman ( dated 27th of September). He also told us that the word ‘jihad’ occurs 41 times in the Koran and ‘not once can’t it be construed as a warlike exhortation’. He said that 'the stringest sentiment that I can find in the Koran about Jihad is in the verse 9 of Sura 66 which states : " O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey's end".'

Mr SM Murshed is a retired IAS officer.

He was writing about the implications of what the Pope had told in a lecture in German university and his subsequent apologies. Apparently, Mr Murshed also could not find the response of the ‘learned Persian’ to the Byzantine emperor’s question, which was quoted by the Pope as—

“ Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as the command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”.

But after reading Mr Murshed’s piece, I came to know that we missed the central thrust of the Pope’s lecture. It is the Sura 2.256 of the Koran. I’ll quote from the piece—

>> The Pope quoted the Sura 2.256 which states that ‘there is no compulsion in religion’ but is quick to add in a second breath that, according to experts, this sura must have been recorded in the early part of the Prophet’s career, when he was powerless and threatened, and the emperor ‘also knew the instruction developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war’.
.. . ..

The Pope has said that while Sura 2.256 mentions that there is no compulsion in religion, in the later verses of the Koran there is incitement to Holy War.<<

Mr Murshed reproduced two other to disprove what the Pope had implied. Please note these 2 Suras came into being in the later parts of the Prophet’s career, when He was neither ‘powerless nor threatened’.

Sura 109—"And I shall not worship that which ye worship. Nor will ye worship that which I worship. Unto you your religion and unto me my religion".

This Sura is quite clear and Mr Murshed has made his point as well. But see the second Sura.

Sura 10, verse 99—“ And if thy Lord willed, all who are in the earth would have believed together. Wouldst thou (Momemmad) compel other until they are believers?”

The second Sura can be interpreted in both ways—Bin Laden way and the moderate ( like Mr Murshed) way.

Don’t you think so? Still, I like Mr Murshed’s piece. I like to read more of such pieces.

Sooner than later!

Last night, my kitchen knife made a fairly deep cut at the very tip of my right thumb. That happened while I was cleaning and cutting a fish for the dinner.

I immediately doused spirit over the cut and bandaged it.

I struggled through the cleaning of the fish and then, making my dinner.

After dinner, while I was brushing my teeth, I slipped on the floor. To avoid falling flat on my ass I grabbed the nearest object, well, with my right hand. I avoided the fall but my right thumb was bleeding again while grabbing for my balance.

I had to re-bandage it.

I was furious with myself for such sloppiness and went straight to my bed.

This morning I went to the nearest clinic and asked them if a tetanus shot was called for. They simply replied that I could still go for it. I was confused. Would it still serve any purpose? Anyway, I got the shot and bought fresh first aid kits.

While I was putting the kits in the cabinet I eyed them, with some parts of me asking myself when I would first open the kits again. Because I was determined to be careful and such accidents were really rare.

But this afternoon, I crouched under my desk to pick up a pencil. I was so intent on looking at the pencil that I was not aware of the edge of the table just at the level of my forehead. As I lunged for the pencil my forehead directly hit the edge of the table. I was stunned, forcing me on all my fours on the floor.

As I was rubbing my forehead, I noticed that I was rubbing over some sticky substance.

I dragged my self to the mirror and found out that my forehead was bleeding.

So, I opened the just bought kits and made a bandage for my forehead.

I opened them so soon!

Gentle flower--go bust the 'inharmony'!

The humble flower is poised to bust the ‘inharmony’ in Chinese society!

You know, china has abundance of ‘inharmony’ in its society. Economy is booming in the coastal regions and all other regions ( and their inhabitants) feel left out. So much so that 100 millions people are abandoning their home and hearth to gamble their chances in the cities, in the coastal regions. This phenomenon is shaking up the Chinese society in its core.

So, they are seriously into floriculture in the hinterlands so that considerable people there can remain employed near homes and hence, there would be no incentive to move to the cities.

How serious? I’m quoting a few lines from a report of Times of India ( 27th Sept issue—do your search for the report!) to drive home the point.

>> The cut flower industry is so important a national priority that President Hu Jintao came to Yunnan province two years ago to call for growth in shipments. Prime Minister Wen Jiabou and his predecessor, Zhu Rongji, have taken a personal interest in improving the province’s greenhouses, and the government is offering interest-free loan for greenhouse constructions.

.. . ..

( There) is the thinking behind an elaborate Chinese government’s effort to export cut flowers, aimed not just at developing a new business to take on the world but at redeveloping the social and economic landscape here in South Western china.<<

They are building 12-lane roads and bridges to support the industry. This is over and above the up gradations airports to the standards of ‘international airports in this strategically critical area’.

Don’t you notice Yunnan being a ‘strategically critical area’? I have no idea how Yunnan is perceived to be strategically critical vis a vis china’s security. But it is very close to our place and I’ve learnt every single reason why our place is so strategically placed vis a vis India’s security. May be, something happening here will have ripple effects on the Yunnan province and this close connectedness transfers the strategic values to that province also! I related matters, you would miss the news of All Assam Student’s Union’s agitation for opening the Stilwel Road, that connects the Upper Assam to Kummim, that is the capital city of Yunnan Province. They say it would serve as a modern day silk route for Assam and NE states.

In Manipur’s case, DONER ( Deptt for North Eastern Region) have already sanctioned the establishment of cold storage facilities in Tulihal Airport in Imphal. That would be the first step for anybody wanting to start a floriculture farm in the State. Don’t you also notice that some Bangalore-based floriculture companies have already started investing in our Northern neighbour—Nagaland?

Anxiety-led discovery!

My ‘anxieties’ led me to shopping trips as far as Dewlaland. ( please see my last three posts! Please!!). I told you about how I had seen the starting up of a broadband provider. That is in the premises of Manipur Baptist Convention.

A little further down the road, just opposite the offices of the Manipur Public Service Commission, I had also encountered a remarkable Manipur Govt initiative.

Some years back—I still vividly remember it—it was during a govt where Mr Paonam Achou was in charge of Urban Development—a stretch of tree-lined footpath just opposite the MPSC and Hotel Imphal was dug up and steel pillars were laid and ,in no time, nearly 30-35 shops sprung up. Ostensibly fearing public outcry, they did not cut down all the trees in that stretch of footpath, with the result that we witnessed the birth of the 30 -35 shops amidst the trees!

Can you tell me what these shops sell?

USED CLOTHS!

Those were the biggest eyesore in the tree lined, quite and almost majestic stretch of the National Highway 39 along the breadth of the D M College.

Now, without any fuss and media fanfare, this Ibobi Govt quietly dismantled the shops and re-laid the footpath. Personally, I’ll count this as one of the biggest achievements of this Government! I can give you the reason why. Ask any avid walker and he will tell you, without any shred of doubt, that the said footpath along the breadth of the DM College is the best place for a quite evening walk.

At the time of the digging up of the footpath and the starting of the laying of the concrete pillars, I felt like crying. I was ready to do anything to do to block that construction. But I could do nothing. I can still feel the helplessness of a private citizen against the might of an organized government, even though you are standing up against a patent misdeed of that government. At that time, the combined students of the two DM Colleges tried extremely hard to block the construction of the shops. But the then govt used force to bulldoze its way through.

Now, they have dismantled the shops so quietly that not a newspaper carried a report of that. And, what happened to the shopkeepers? I think it was their own money that was used to construct the RCC shops. They must be compensated for their investments. Most of the time in such situation whereby you see negotiation between a Govt and a group of citizens, it is the norm seeing disagreement and consequent sit in protests and invariably media circus covering the dramas.

This time around, not a single fuss. For once, this government is extremely efficient in handling a potentially explosive situation.

Anxieties to excitements

In the morning, I had an argument with myself.

If what I actually want is to dress up for someone special, I better check out what I have already in the wardrobe. So, in front of the mirror, I actually dressed up!

In all the combinations, I’m mostly presentable. I had also found out that I had several t-shirts which I had yet to put on in any occasion. And, I have also found out that my Lee Cooper boot seems to be very similar to the one worn by Dean Kamen!

So, my anxieties actually morph into excitements. Well, I know exactly whom I’m planning to meet ( but for the moment I’ll keep it as a little secret). My anxieties are everything about how to dress exactly right for the occasion. I don’t want to look dressy and too rehearsed.

I’ll go in a khaki and a t-shirt.

Anxieties

I’m so anxious about something.

Something, which I cannot put my fingers on.

This may be one reason why I want to go on shopping trips. Something in me revolts against the routine I’ve been following. It tells me to do something different, something beside the routine stuffs.

It is also possible that on an unconscious level I badly need to dress up for some special occasion or a special girl. Something is happening to me—something is definitely brewing up.

May be, slow rolling in of a new season (though, it’s winter!) makes me romantic!

3rd day

Today is the 3rd day of shopping trip and I’ve not yet bought anything!

This evening I went looking for some t-shirts. I went as far as Dewlaland. On my way back, I notice a sign board for ‘Convergent Technology—broadband provider’. It’s coming up in the premises of Manipur Baptist Church. From the road, I saw hectic activities, including an installation of a tower, which looks like some kind of satellite receiver.

It’s a very welcome development. But, will they be able to get the critical mass of subscribers to stand in its own feet against the offerings of big phone companies? For one, for a phone company, broadband is what they call the value added product, a specialized product among the mundane bread and butter offerings. When I last went to BSNL office, there were about 200 applicants for broadband, forming the roll of what you call the ‘waiting list’. It was some months back. Now, let’s assume that the number doubles to 400 during those months. Again, let’s assume that the new broadband provider gets the double that figure ie, 800 as their customers. Can there be a full scale provider for just 800-1000 subscribers?

Another downside is that it is coming up in the space vacated by Big Byte Infosys, which served as the franchisee for NE Line, a privately run ISP. Their service was so bad that it was a joke. Naturally, they, at least their Manipur franchisee, closed shop.

But I think we must wish them luck.

And, somebody should wish me luck in the shopping trips!

I tried several white t-shirts at numerous stores. But somehow I did not like any one of them. I don’t know why. Is it the cut of the shirts or is it the feel of the fabrics?

I’m seriously thinking of carrying the measurement of my favourite t-shirt in my future shopping trips! And, now, I’m going to look for white and yellow t-shirts.

I’m not in a hurry. I’ll try to find the ones I like during the next few days.