An act of terrorism by Indian military.

Here is the synopsis of what had happened in India-Burmna border during the last 4/5 days.

>> In Namphalong, a man for no reason fired shots and exploded a bomb in front of a tea stall. Five men were hurt. One of them died in a nearby hospital.

Namphalong is a small trading post just inside Burma in India Burma border at Moreh.

The perpetrator after his ghastly acts fled towards Moreh.

It happened on Friday morning.

>> The Burmese authority retaliated by closing down the border trade.

>> A high-level Burmese team arrived in Moreh, on route to Gangtok for some official engagement with their Indian counterparts.

This was on Sunday morning.

So, it is easy to see that the ghastly act was carried out to send some messages for this high-level Burmese team.

What might be the messages?

To my mind, it boils down to the reported existence of the Manipuri rebels’ camps in and around Tamu, which is a little further inside Burma from Namphalong.

The main premise of Indian military’s strategy centres around the idea that local Burmese military commanders in Sagaing region (where Tamu and Namphalong situate), without the knowledge of their higher ups in Rangoon, are giving shelters to the Manipuri rebels, probably in exchange of monetary or material compensations.

So, they might have reasoned, if the higher-ups from Rangoon are greeted with sealed borders with border trades closed because of a shoot out inside Burmese territory, they would be forced to ask questions to the local military commanders. Then one thing would lead to another and ultimately, local commanders’ hush-hush sheltering of Manipuri rebels would come in the open. Finally, Manipuri rebels’ camps would be busted!

That’s a very comforting idea, albeit a little childish and moronic!

International diplomacy and intrigues do not definitely work that way.

But, for this childish and moronic idea the Indian military went all the way to instigate a thug ( most probably a Kuki thug) to fire and throw bomb on innocent and unarmed civilians. This is definitely an act of terror, perpetrated by Indian military.

Stock taking

So, I sat back for 4 days and took stock of what I was upto.

I still want ‘beauty’ as the deciding factor for my all of my crucial decisions.

For example, blogging. If I’m so hard-pressed for time and effort for making postings in this blog that the ‘beauty’ of blogging is likely to be eroded, then, I should have the courage to stop keeping this blog. Nothing else comes between me and this blog other than the appreciation of the ‘beauty’ of keeping a blog from my side.

Is this too lofty?

What about the trade-offs? Would the trade-offs be too costly for me?

Flash bandh!

Today, Imphal was blessed with a flash bandh! People came to know of the bandh only when they read news this morning. I invest much time in dissecting news on daily basis but I didn’t find any announcement of today’s bandh.

I think they are taking sadistic pleasure in making the announcement only this morning. Else, how can we explain this behaviuor?

I myself was very confused. So, I decided to see how other people felt; so, I played the role of a spirited reporter this evening! On the way to my daily visit to the library, I asked several people if they had any idea of why the bandh was called.

Each one of them replied they had no idea!

So, we have stooped so low that we have no idea why a bandh was called but still observed it.

'No show' storm!

Last night, I was all set to go to my desk for starting up computer when I heard a distant rumble. I went out and tried to make sense of the distant rumbling sound.

Suddenly, it came to me—STORM!

My mind was racing how it came so late—almost a week. It had been forecasting that a storm would hit NE because of an unusual depression in Bay of Bengal.

I went inside and waited for the impact of the storm. It came. With pretty strong winds. But after 10 or so minutes, it was gone! One part of me said ‘Thank God, it was gone’ but another part was rather disappointed with the ‘no show’ storm!!

But during those 10 minutes, Imphal was completely blacked out. For once, I agreed with their decision for blacking out Imphal!

A business leader

Last evening, I bumped into an old friend of mine. This friend of mine is considered a budding business leader—I mean, at least, within the smaller circle of farm business, if not by the whole society.

He talked about his newest investment plan. His plan consists of investing nearly half a crore of Rupees in his farms.

It was really disappointing to hear him talking of his investment as if it was big news. It should be news here if his farm could absorb at least 50/60 crores of Rupees of investment. He should also visualize how some sectors of our economy could absorb several thousand crores of Rupees investments.

Why should he lack such visions?

It's coming!

Accessories for cell phones are coming! Right now, I’m using a basic phone. I think mid range phones are waste of money. As soon as there are enough accessories, I will move up to the upper end of the range.

I would want a dock for my cell so that I would be able to play my playlists without having to boot up my desktop. It should have a decent camera. And, emails also.

Here is an interesting article.

Yesterday

These are the glimpses of what yesterday was!

Quite early in the morning, I went for a haircut. I wanted to be among the first customers there. As I reached there, there were already 3 guys sitting there, thumbing their cells, waiting for the finish of haircut of their friend, which was presently in full swings.

I asked the hairstylist if I could be the next.

He, in turn, asked the 3 guys sitting there if any of them would have a hair cut. They said in chorus—‘NO’.

So, I was there waiting for my turn.

But as soon as their friend was finished with his cut, one of three guys sitting said he changed his mind and he would have a hair cut as well!

In similar manner, the remaining 2 guys also changed their minds in the last moments and had their hair cut one after the other. And I was sitting there patiently waiting for the completion of 4 haircuts in a row!

Now, cut to the scene at night. After my supper, I started up my desktop. My creaking desktop takes several minutes to fully boot up. I was there in front of it watching the red blinking light. Slowly, the blinking light started to fade out, signaling that it was completing booting up the programs.

Just at this moment, the light went out!

Immediately, I shut down my desktop!!

The resurrection!

BBNL’s broadband is now working. This is the third day of its coming back to life!

I thought of telephoning their helpdesk but I was so overwhelmed by the amateurishness of the whole situation that I could never pull myself up to dial their number. For the whole of last week I was drifting—decisions deserted me.

Then, 3 days back, the service came back to life by itself. This shows that my router was not the problem. It now seems that their service went down continuously for 7/8 days!

But nobody said anything! There are more than 200 users now and these include all the media houses in Imphal. So, they also said nothing!

Such a limitless patience!

A new and fascinating link.

I've have added a new and fascinating link in my left bar. It is in the 'This is the 3rd' section.

It's a fascinating letter by Mr John Mauldin. It's about the wireless mesh network in a small city in US, called Richardson.

I ususlly think that ubiquitous wireless connectivity is in some distance into the future.

But if Mr Mauldin is to be believed, it is about to happen in this small US city.

Please find link in my left bar--'This is the 3rd' section.

Surrealistic hues

It rained all day long today also. There was no let up for even for a few minutes. It just continued raining.

Imphal is a humid place. So, when it rained continuously for 12 hours you feel like you can touch the humidity around you. It makes me kind of restless.

More than the restlessness, I have this feeling that some divine hand is coloring Imphal with surrealistic hues. Streets are deserted because there was a bandh. Police cars and paramilitary forces were guarding the empty streets because State Assembly is in session.

Streets are deserted, shops are closed and there is nothing to buy in the perennially crowded Ima market. And there is the rain. When it rains I feel Imphal is exactly like a small way-side station in the hills.

All these give me the surrealistic feeling that all the folks in Imphal have left the place for an unplanned and sudden vacation somewhere!

Two scoops

It appears that not a single media organization gets winds of this new trend. So, you should be one of those select few who would get to know of this trend by virtue of reading my blog!! Well, that’s just a joke.

But Kangla has just become a must-stop spot for the busloads of school children who are on their ‘educational excursions’ during their summer vacations. Normally, they would go to Moirang, Sendra, Kangchup, Keinya etc. Now, it appears that each and every busload of school children want to stop by at Kangla and see what Kangla is with their own tender eyes.

I think it is a good development. Every school children should know the history of Kangla.

I have another news also, which is yet to go inside the newsroom of any media organization. So, I have got two scoops today!

But, first, what do you think of this subtitle? A film was premiered today. The name of the film is ‘Meera’. And, it is prominently subtitled as ‘Memcha’. What do you think of this? I think it is inelegant as it can be.

Now, here comes the scoop. The film was premiered at Asha Cinema. Remember Asha? It’s one of the best cinema theatres of State but it was converted into a school after Hindi films discontinued showing here. When a film was premiered there today, does it mean that it’s returning to showing regular cinemas?

If the answer is ‘yes’, it’s a big news. I mean, a scoop!

Rains and peoples

It rained all day. Not heavy kind but drizzles.

To top it all, there seemed to be a bandh. I’m confused. We may be seeing a trend of bandh days increasingly becoming more and more like an ordinary day! Normally, there is nobody to enforce the bandh. All they are doing is just announcing a bandh through the media. So, all bandh days are increasingly becoming ordinary days minus the buses carrying passengers. It’s because buses and trucks are the easiest targets for arsonists.

But in the evening, I could not find vegetable to buy. Even on bandh days called by rebels ( meaning, they are more or less successful ones), we can buy anything in the evening.

So, it’s not because of the bandh but of the rain!

I’ve this feeling that rain affects collective psyche of the Manipuris. They seem to be allergic to rains!

When I read ‘My Three Years Experience in Manipur’ by Mrs Grimwood, the passage does not go away from my mind concerns her observation of rains and their effects on the people here. She said if it rains even the most senior, and thus indispensable (in the running of day to day affairs of the State), officers would not report for duties. When they reported for duties the following they would say-“It rained yesterday’—as if it’s the most normal excuse for not reporting for their duties!

So, I kept thinking there must be something funny between rains and the people of this society.

But one fateful day I read a column entitled ‘Letter from Hollywood’ in one of the most reputed weeklies of US. But I’m truly emphatic in underlining that I have no intention of comparing this society with the place from where the letter emanated.

Incidentally, the letter concerns itself with the rains and its effect on the inhabitants of the little planet called Hollywood. To drive home his observations, he supplies a vivid anecdote.

He was in the lobby of a popular watering hole of Hollywood. A car just entered the driveway and a beautiful lady in 500 dollars shoes was just about to embark from the car when it started to rain all of a sudden. She refused to come of the car! Her male companion tried all the tricks he knew to coax his lady to come of the car but to no avail. As a last resort, he drove the car nearly touching the curb of the building and told her to jump! He told her to jump to the curb which would fetch her only some sprinkling of drops of rain and after that, she has all the evening before her!

But she was there inside the car patiently waiting for the rain to stop. But it continued to rain. So, the car reversed and drove away!

So, there seems to be something funny between the rains and the inhabitants of Hollywood. But remember I’ve no intention of making a comparison between the two places in question—I truly do not have that intention!

A case of tight fit!

I could get access to the BSNL broadband regime for, may be, 10 minutes this afternoon!

That set me into a thinking jaunt. Mine is a 4th World blog and it is equally fitting that I should blog using a dial up internet access! In another words, it is a case of tight fit!!

As I kept trying to log on to the service, I began to feel that broadband was some kind of misfit here in this society. Ours is a slow-paced society; so, how does a fast internet fit into the picture? But you know I’m bad thinking like this—I should not get this pessimistic.

I’ve been using dial up access for the last 6/7 days. But once you get the taste of faster access, it is a pain in the ass to wait for the pages to load in a dial up mode.

But all is not lost, it seems. I read in the news that one particular book was sold out. A book actually SOLD OUT in this non-reading society!
It was reported that not a single was found in the market. All copies were gobbled up, so to say. So, they are going in for a reprint. I think this calls for a celebration.

The name of the book is ‘Khengjoi ching-sang-da’. It is a travelogue by a journalist who traveled to the Burmese border to meet an important rebel leader. I also did a two-part series translating a piece by an Imphal-based editor. Right now, I’m not in a mood to dig up the archives to give you the link. But I think searching my blog with the keywords ‘Hijam Rajesh’ will fetch up the posts.

Is this a techie speak?

Since Sunday night I have not been able to use the ADSL access. Even after plugging the phone line via the ADSL splitter, I could not log in. I was so pissed off that I tinkered with the setting of the router. I’ve a small booklet given by BSNL detailing how to configure the router, which happens to have a separate IP no. Following the step by step instructions given there I rebooted the router. In the process I selected an ADSL protocol which was there in default mode. There are five different protocols listed there like PPPoE, Select an IP address automatically etc.

Which one of the listed protocols is deployed by BSNL for their broadband service? I have no idea but still I rebooted the router selecting a protocol!

So, I went to the building housing the techies of BSNL, which is a fortress guarded by armed paramilitary round the clock. I persuaded an armed guard to let me in—I told him I could not use my broadband since Sunday and I got to meet a techie to solve the problem.

So, I was inside the air-conditioned housing all the servers for the Imphal node. There sitting on a swivel chair is the tech chick! Whenever I ring up help desk, she was usually there answering me. She is not actually a looker but very feminine.

I recounted her how one of my friends tinkered with the router, rebooting it in the process. I lied to her! But that was a harmless one deployed mainly to speed up the rebooting my router by BSNL techie. She told me to come with the router tomorrow. No, no, I told her, I would come with the router right away!

I rushed backed home, quickly unplugged all the cables and hurried back to the techies’ place and handed the router to the lady.

She took the router and told me that she would reboot it together with my user name and password directly into their servers!

I think that was meant to position my broadband access as an ‘always on’ type. But right at the moment it is not happening and I’m not still able to get access to the broadband.

Should I meet her again?

To facilitate answering this question, I should not fail to give you an anecdote! While she was busy rebooting the router, I also mentioned my problem not able to change my password. I told her that I tried several times but somehow the DataOne website refused to accept my new password. I also told her about this problem over the phone several times. Each time she advised me to try some days later!

This time, she suddenly looked me in the eyes and dazzled me with one those rarest girlie smiles and told me—

‘ May be, that password is destined not to be changed at all’!

Is this a techie speak?

Sharmila airlifted to Delhi this morning.

This evening’s papers carried the news of Irom Chanu Sharmila’s yet another trip to Delhi—this time under custody of Delhi Police.

It was reported that at around 9.45 am a team of Delhi Police with Sajiwa jail personnel and a team of three nurses boarded the IndiGo flight. It reached Delhi around 2 in the afternoon.

She will be produced before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, New Delhi tomorrow morning. The Magistrate had earlier instructed the Delhi Police to produce Sharmila in person before its court.

But why they are so heartless?

Sharmila has been nose fed for many years that she was so frail. How is she going to endure the scorching June heat of Delhi?

HOW?

Why this sensitive?

This morning was just another typical summer start day of the day. It was warm with intense sunshine.

Then, at around 11, there was this sudden downpour. It was totally unexpected and heavy. Heavy rains for 2/3 hours.

The sudden downpour brought with it the equally sudden change in weather. Right now, it is not exactly cold but not another summer night. It’s pleasant.

But my body can’t somehow stand such sudden change in weather. I feel like I’m going down in a fit of depression. I’m not exactly depressed but I can’t concentrate on anything.

Why should my body be so sensitive to such changes in weather?

DSL is dead

I’ve been testing my DSL. It has been dead since last night. I posted last night by using dial up service.

So, I was on the phone whole this afternoon contacting the help desk for the broadband service of BSNL.

First, a lady came on the line and she asked me to unplug all the cables and re-plug them anew. I did that. Nothing happened. She told me to reset the router. That was new to me and so, I told her that I would call her as soon as I was through the re-set thing.

It turned out to be a quite a simple thing. But after resetting the router, the broadband was still dead.

Again, I picked up the phone but it was never answered.

I tried ringing up for nearly 2 hours at 15 minutes interval! At last, at around 4 a man came on the line.

He repeated all the questions the lady had earlier asked me. At last, he asked me to check the two cables coming out of the ADSL splitter. Splitter? I thought it was meant for splitting the ADSL signal for a second computer and never use it!

The tech guy was horrified that I was using the service the service without the splitter for the last month!

Now, I’ve already connected the cables via the splitter but still it's not working.

I'm still using dial up to post this.

2030: when Ganga starts drying up

2030 is not in the distant future. It’s only 2 decades away.

But the scenario likely to unfold at that time is truly scary.

Is it a bit alarmist?

I wish that it was the noises of some bleeding heart alarmists. But there are concrete reports coming out of China telling us that some major tributaries of the Yellow River are actually drying up. And the Chinese policy makers are in the midst of hush hush debates regarding whether they should consider diverting waters from the Tibetan plateau.

Now the glaciers in that plateau have already started melting away unnaturally fast because of the global warming up. It is happening so fast that it is almost sure to unsettle the delicate balance which so far ensures that there are enough glaciers up in the Himalayan plateau for the perennial watering of the plains beneath it.

If that balance is unsettled, there would be more waters flowing down the Ganga during the next 10-15 years and by 2030, the great river will start drying up!

The story headlined today’s NE edition of Times of India.

In that scenario how we, in the highlands, would fare? Would there be scarcity of water here?

But one thing is certain: There would be chaos in the Indo-Gangetic plains which would have immense geo-political impacts.

The Prologue

Went to see Ratan Thiyam’s play ‘The Prologue’ at the Chorus Repertory theatre.

The Prologue is a bold attempt to re-enact ‘Lai Haraoba’ on stage.

When we go to any Lai Haraoba, we usually are bore with the proper ceremony itself. We are mostly attracted to that stage where the dance programs start. We have generally had a very poor knowledge of what Lai Haraoba is.

So, when the trained artiste of the Chorus Repertory Theatre performed many snippets of Lai Haraoba I could finally understand how exquisite Lai Haraoba is.

But how successful is the play?

Let me answer this by recalling what Aribam Syam Sharma said during one of the gatherings of the film fraternity of Manipur. He told the audience that he had received so many offers to make documentaries on Lai Haraoba and Ras Lila. He turned down all the offers. Why? He answered with a question. How could I make a documentary on the philosophy of life, he asked himself. Or, of Bhakti.

I think Ratan’s play is just a start. Manipur’s society will continue to connect with Lai Haraoba and then, try to re-enact it for many generations to come.

My viewpoint

What’s the use of criticizing others if the exercise itself does not facilitate the forming of new ideas in the mind of the person doing the criticism? I’ll try to form my own ideas and try to find the point from where Ms Mukhim went wrong.

So, what’s right? Here I’m giving the link to the Ms Mukhim’s piece again.

What’s perceived to be right in the Meghalayan society ( for example) would have a possible condition in Manipur’s society where there is likelihood of it being perceived as wrong?

Let’s go with a stark example. To the group of people bound by a set of principles derived from the Koran(I’m not talking about Islam as a religion), it is not right to eat pork. Pork is not kosher to them. But it is easy to see reason why the eating of pork is right to many peoples of the world. In a similar example, to the people known as Hindu it is not generally kosher to eat beef while in almost all other parts of the world it is considered to be a wholesome food.

In Islam’s case, it is only the matter of people living in the idea of what’s right for them under the panoply of a ‘constructed’ truth derived from the Koran. It is similar for every other groups of people in the world. The only underlying difference is that while many groups live in the ‘constructed’ truths derived from their holy Books, many others do so in their own ‘constructed’ truths derived from their histories, myths, folklores etc.

Now, let’s come to the case of Northeasterners. Here we find it so bewildering in coming to terms with so many ‘constructed’ truths. You go a mountain range (NE is mostly mountainous) and in no time you will find a ‘constructed’ truth in a tiny settlement consisting of a village headman and his subject household, which at times may be as little as a dozen in number! With the prevalence of such numerous ‘truths’ it is extremely hard to bring about ‘honest conversations’ amongst them.

It is tempting here to compare the present state of NE with those of tribal Arabs before the advent of Islam, or those of European societies before Christianity. Personally, I think it will be good for the Northeasterners to find an overarching set of beliefs like Islam or Christianity.

But, should we content ourselves studying the past histories where religions like Islam, Christianity or Buddhism provided those set of beliefs? What about the opportunities presented by the present? By present state of technological development?

One particular thing comes to mind at this juncture. Ubiquitous computing is set to arrive whether one is ready for it or not. Here we are likely to be presented with a lot of opportunities. We are living as small communities in mountainous areas. That will hasten the arrival of the ubiquitous computing by the widespread deployment of wireless networks. Such computing powers should be harness to empower ordinary folks to understand their own set of constructed truth vis a vis other such truths prevailing in other parts of the world.

If we are successful in doing so, the world would witness the arrival of smaller but empowered societies which are just cut out for the coming centuries ahead. There is no luxury for waiting for anything as Ms Mukhim and her ilk would have lulled us into believing.

Still on Ms Mukhim's piece.

I’m still on Patricia Mukhim’s piece and the link to the piece was given in my post 3 days back!

Ms Mukhim said the Northeasters are not capable of honest conversation and appreciations of one another’s point of view. It’s an interesting point. But is there an honest conversation between Dalits and Upper Caste people? Between Israelis and Palestinians? I wonder.

She also said that what is right becomes secondary to what is good for the tribe or the community. But the relations between societies on the macro levels are complicated matters. There is no ‘what is right’ in the pursuit of one’s national interest. There is no scope of morality in diplomacy.

Then, she is trying to come to her conclusion with this—‘—‘To accommodate the aspiration of others within the same political boundaries and push our own aspiration to a secondary position takes some amount of political maturity and a transcendence from the realm of the selfish to that of acculturation and assimilation’. She also said that to achieve that transcendence requires ‘civilzational process’ that might take thousand of years. To emphasize her point she also mentioned a book by the name ‘One Thousand Years in a Lifetime’ by a gentleman in Papua New Guinea.

Why a book from Papua New Guinea?

Trying to answer this question will throw light on the working of Ms Mukhim’s mind on the subconscious level. It’s likely that she belong to that class of people who are drilled into believing that the societies in the Northeaster regions are still in the process of reaching maturity. It will take a lot of time ( a thousand years!). So, what is needed now for them is to be docile and do nothing rash!

I may well also be afflicted by another set of prejudices but to me, Ms Mukhim seems to espouse that exact view point of the Delhi-hating Bengali Bhadralok, who cannot extract themselves from the self-proclaimed role of the gate keepers of the Northeasterners. It’s extremely worrisome to get the impression that Shillong, where Ms Mukhim belong to, is fast becoming Kolkatta’s cute poodle.

After all,tomorrow is another day!

I've just finished brushing my teeth after my dinner and it is almost midnight!

But I want to post before midnight.

Let's say-- after all, tomorrow is another day!

Re-reading Patricia mukhim's piece.

Last night, it was almost midnight when I finished eating my dinner! Something is terribly wrong with my time management.

Today, I re-read Patricia Mukhim’s piece in the Telegraph.

In her piece we see Ms Mukhim delved down to the processes of ‘civilizational dimension’in trying to understand the problems facing the NE region. Then, she ended her piece with the prosaic idea that the citizen’s of the NE region ‘must learn to capitalize on their rich natural and human resources’! That said, I also think that the last might have been inserted by an all-knowing editor. But that sentence kills all the momentum created by the arguments contained in the previous paragraphs.

The two central themes of Ms Mukhim in trying to understand the problems faced by NE are a) its citizens are incapable of ‘art of honest conversation and appreciation of one another’s point of view and b) in its societies ‘what is right has become a secondary factor’.

Then, she put across her own idea in trying to bind together the above two central themes. She said—‘To accommodate the aspiration of others within the same political boundaries and push our own aspiration to a secondary position takes some amount of political maturity and a transcendence from the realm of the selfish to that of acculturation and assimilation’.

I’m going to have a critical look at the above 3 points tomorrow.

An interesting piece by Patricia Mukhim.

Today's NE edition of the Telegraph carried an interesting piece by Patricia Mukhim. She raised many interesting points.

I've a lot to say about the points she raised. But it is almost 11.30 pm and I've just finished eating my dinner.

So, I've to come with my take tommorow.

Here is the link to the piece.