Millet, millet!

I bet it would be a little irritating for the 'novice'to hear the lectures by my sis and her husband about the virtue of meditation.But if you are a little into wellness, like me,you would be able to understand their enthuasiasm.

It's heartening to find out that they are starting to question the traditional kitchen and they are actually acting on some newer ideas of how we eat.

But all my remaining three sisters in Imphal are firmly moored onto the traditional kitchen.

In my mind, we need to start questioning the traditional kitchen. Traditional kitchen is desperately in need of newer ideas.

We talked a lot about the practice of wellness and of breaking away from the traditional kitchen.

On one such occassion, I just mentioned in passing that millet is the best staple food but it's not availbale here in Imphal.

After several days, my sister was there at my house with the millet!

She asked around and found a shop selling millet.

I tried making porridge of millet and found out that it's okay.

I'm going in for corn and millet as soon as my stock of peas exhausted itself in a few days time!

My sis and Ima Keithel

My sis returned to Delhi today.

I'm not sure of her but her kids considered Delhi their home. They were born and raised up in Delhi. So, this is natural for the kids to feel Delhi their home.

Several years ago, the whole family came down here. The two kids stared at us and said aloud, like calling out a name-- 'Manipur'. There was something about it that was funny but at the same time thought provoking.

Did the word 'Manipur' a challenge to their to their notion of 'rootedness'in Delhi?

This time the kids are busy in their school and college. Inspite their absence, my sis seemed to devour every minute of her stay here.

She made a point to visit every family member--both from our paternal and maternal side.

My house served as a strategic launching pad to spin out in every direction for visting the family members! One day she returned to the 'pad'visibly excited. She sat down and started her story.

I was there with two of other sisters.

She told us that she had just returned from visting an aunt. This aunt happened to be the one to whom our grandma gifted the one 'shop space'( Is this the correct term?) in Ima Keithel. She told her that she would take that 'shop space' to start her business when she returned from Delhi.

This made me laud out aloud. It's a little hard for me to imagine my sis among the womenfolk in Ima Keithel tending her small business!

But, my other two sisters got animated about hearing it. RIGHT! WE SHOULD TAKE BACK THAT 'SHOP SPACE'.

Isn't it an eyeopener?

All the dazzles of Delhi seem incapable of snapping the primordial ties of Manipouri women with Ima Keithel.

Military activities in the afternoon sky

During afternoon, there was a lot of military activities in the sky.

Choppers were flying around. And real,snub-nosed military turbo-props were also seen flying.

As I saw them, they were flying towards Churachandpur and coming back again.

I have no idea if the activities were something to do with the reported rebellion within the ranks of a major rebel group operating.

The scene of the rebellion is reported to be along the Burmese border.

It's now official:DROUGHT

It's now more or less official now.

We are in midst of an emerging drought.

But we may have still hope for July.

Come rain--July is waiting for you!

Two stories

I went to a marriage yesterday. When I received the invitation card, there was no mention of 'Heijingpot'. I thougth there must be some disagreements with the bride's side and all the rituals and ceremonies would be a groom's side affair.

When I went there it surprised me to find out we were going to bride's place.

Marriage without 'heijingpot'.

I think it's a good sign that people start accepting such practice. If some people want marriage with 'heijingpot' it is also ok. But if some poor people want their marriage with less pomp like the 'heijingpot' it should also be acceptable to the society.

I mean if some members of society want to go with the bare basic of marriage ceremony it should be broadly acceptable.

In related matter, my soster told this story.

In Delhi, recently, one of her relatives decided that going to Imphal for would unnecessarily burn a lot a cash. Like maony spent on painting and decorating both the houses of the bride and groom. So, they decided to ask their parents to come to Delhi instead.

Now that Delhi has a sizable Manipuri population also helps. There are people for attendance in the ceremony and so, only the parents are needed!

The moral of the story is that they save a lot of money!!

Which class?

Is June 18 AMUCO's legacy?

Again, is June 18 UCM's legacy?

The answer to both question is an empathic NO.

June 18 is one of our Society's brightest legacies.

Nearly 10 years after the historic event, our society's mandate, at the moment, to any NGO, be it AMUCO,UCM etc, is to guard this bright legacy.

Here, we need to go a little further back in time when AMUCO decided to break away from UCM, which at the time was an umbrella body of around 10 NGOs. In the sense AMUCO represents the interest of a particular class (as do other NGOs represent their respective interest of various classes in our society), it is quite understandable for AMUCO to start working for this particular class, once the historic necessity for the continued existence of UCM lapsed. But(THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT) AMUCO should rise above its class interest to guard this bright legacy of our society.

This is AMUCO's historic responsibility.

Why guarding this legacy?

Becasue we need still to learn extremely important lessons from June 18.

Lesson like understanding the particular interplay historic currents that propelled the formation of UCM,which, though briefly, truly represented the united will of Manipuri society.

Lesson like coming to grip with our capability to again letting the united will of the Manipuri society flower to a full blooom according to the demand of our time.

But at the moment we find ourselves in the midst of hectic deployment of precious time and money to consciously entrap the populace in AMUCO vs UCM meme. This means we are actually starting to take steps in the opposite direction of 'guarding this bright legacy of ours'.

That said, it's not the time for finger pointing.

We need keep our cool heads and try to emperically answer this big question:

Which class of society is proving unequal to the task of guarding 'the bright legacy of ours'?

Relief today!

For several days, my sister from Delhi have been telling us that today she would have a must-attend schedule.

Today at around 9.30 in the morning, she would be going to the place in Senapati district where Dr Kishan together with his two subordinate staff were murdered.

From what she had been tellng us we gathered that it was planned for a private function for family members for Kishan to erect a memorial stone at the spot.

Yesterday, she told me to expect her late in the afternoon.

But she didn't turn up.

I suspect their plan had gone awry. They planned it as puely private function. But then they found out that everybody wanted to attend with probably full attendance of State's media.

So, it might turn out to be an elaborate function.

That she didn't turn meant other sisters also didn't come. That means I was relieved of palying host to her sisters today!

But for the coming days it would be my must-attend duty to play host to my sisters late in the afternoon. Until she returns to Delhi on month end!

My little niece and the dress code

When the little daughter of one of my sisters first saw her eldest aunt just coming down from Delhi,she quitely went to mom's ear and whispered-- 'Would you ask this 'che che' to bring a pointed shoe for her?'

She thought her eldest aunt was a 'che che' because my eldest sister was in a salwar Kameez.

She was properly imprinted with the idea that all the married women should be either in a phanek or a sari(half-sari,isn't it?).

The scene with me little niece was hillarious but it made me think about the state of dress code for married women in our society.

What's the use of this code?

Do people expect the woemnfolk here to bring out an aura of 'class' when they strictly adhere to their dress code?

This is the only reasonable ground for the dress code,if one is forced to think out one.

Otherwise, the dress code only serves to supress womenfolk by male-hierarchic society. Suppression. Period.

Dr Kishan and my family

I came to know of it only yesterday--Dr Kishan was a very close relative of my sister(last post) from her husband's side.

In fact, Dr Kishan started his education in DU from the small rented room of my sister. At that time my sister was saving up to buy her current apartment.

My sister was telling us the story as if Dr Kishan was just a small boy, who also insisted on helping her in the kitchen. I suspect it was because Kishan was a little childlike.

At that time, my sister was so heavy into saving that they were eating PDS rice! On most days, when she returned from her work, she would found Kishan wafted clean the heavily adulterated PDS rice, cooked it with a hot and steaming 'chamthong' to go with it. But that made my sister mad because she wanted him to turn his undivided attention to his study.

When Kishan planned to quit his teaching job in Delhi to appear for Civil Services exam in Manipur, my sister and her husband were the first to steadfastly oppose it.(You know, I don't like this part of the story--why should everybody be so passionate of 'don't go Manipur' meme---even though Kishan's case is extremely tragic).

Yesterday, my sister still looked genuinely disturbed that Kishan refused to listen to them.

Sweet chit chats

I got a phone call at 8 in the morning today.

I said 'hello' and, to my surprise, my eldest sister was at the other saying she was at my gate.

At my gate?

She is my sister who is residing in Delhi!

After her, all other sisters started arriving.

This is a rare when all four sisters and the lone brother meet together.So, all lot of chit chats went on well late into the evening.

That's a good and sweet experience but all my normal routine went haywire.

But I still all those chit chats!

An anecdote by Mr Niketu Iralu

When I entered the auditorium, a lady was just finishing her question to Mr Niketu Iralu. There were apparently several questions raised by other persons before the lady's turn.

Mr Iralu tried to present a single answer to all the questions.

As a way of presenting that, he told this ancedote to the gathering.

He was from Khonoma village near Kohima. Khonoma is made famous because it's the birthplace of AZ Phizo.

About 4/5 years ago, forest in and around Khonoma was depleting. The main cause was the logging by local youths to make timbers for sale in Dimapur market.

Village elders gathered and passed a resolution that logging should be stopped.

But the youths from the village just laughed at the resolution and just continue the logging.

That was a completely new thing to the village and, more particularly, to the village elders.

Because in the Naga tradition and customs, elders and their resolutions are never laughed at.

So, something was terribly wrong.

Another meeting was called, this time Mr Iralu included. They wanted to find out what went wrong with the youths and the valued Naga tradition.

The meeting came up with suggestion that it might be due to the intra-Naga killings in the village in the height of Naga Rebellion. Then, they pin pointed 21 killings in the village by their very brethren in the same village. They created small groups which copuld sensitively approached the families where the feuds situated.

After time consuming approaches, they facilitated asking for forgiveness by the family members of those perpetuated the killings(the actual killers were long dead) and the smooth granting of forgiveness by the family menbers of the sufferers.

After this acts of asking for forgiveness and being forgiven, Mr Iralu said, the village is now normal course of Naga tradition.

Slowly, youths began to obey the elders' resolution of stopping logging.

Now, Khonoma has one of the best forest reserves in Nagaland.

I think it should be an eye opener for us living Imphal valley as well.

New Delhi's decision

The Central Buereau of Investigation had got the go ahead from the highest court to produce the killer of Dr Kishan before a Delhi court. In normal process of law he should be produced before a court in Ukhrul where the FIR had been lodged.

The attorney of the CBI, in submitting his prayer to the supreme court, painted a picture that depicted that there was already a communal flare up between the Meetie and the Tangkhul in the aftermath of the murder.

But there was no such a flareup.

The attorney sounded like the communal flareup between the two communities was his most cherished wish list!

Another very significant aspect is that there was appaently a deal between the NSCN(IM) and the Home Ministry in Delhi that the killer should never be produced in a Manipur court.

If he is produced before a court in Manipur there is just a possibility that all the behind the scene activities of the murder might come out.

I'm pretty sure that Hopson Ningshen did not act alone. There was a very active partner in Imphal valley.

Home Ministry in Delhi has already decided that the active partner in Imphal valley should be all cost.

Now crisis, and then, deadend?

If we are in crisis(my last two posts) because of our tiny population, are we in a deadend?

Do we have not a hope for the future?

To my mind, the tiny-sized population like us should look forward to the ubiquitous connectivity that's coming up in the next few decades.

In that environment, there might be just and rightful working spaces for small communities like us.

We must try to be optimists and see no deadend for us.

Is this our common crisis?

Our common criis? (See my last post).

Let's take up an easily verifiable example--the world of cinema.

Normally, people want their cine stars to be little distant, may be, even a little mysterious. But when our society produces its cine stars everybody quickly grasps up the who's who--from which leikai, whose son or daughter etc.

It's because out society is so tiny.

But, to satisfy their yearning(ie, the aura of distance or mysterious of cine stars) people start looking to Korea! They love Korean stars!!

The very fact that our society is so tiny makes people feel it normal to search for cine stars outside of our own society. In many societies, its the exception to have some overseas stars--I mean, it's an exception not the rule.

So, our society is facing a crisis in that its people is reluctant to accept the cine stars produced homeground.

We can expand this example in almost all other fields.

In politics, any political leader worth its salt should be in New Delhi. Every politicians starts looking to New Delhi for political leadership.

In religious mmatters, people start looking Vrindaban, Mathura or Chaityana's birthplace for the 'light'.

Actually, we are facing crises in every spheres of our society.

I'll repeat again---the very fact that our society is so tiny makes its people feel it normal to look for cine stars, political leadership or religious delverance outside of our own society.

In my mind,it's the common crisis facing the similarly sized society like those of Nagas, Mozos or Manipuris.

To a lecture

I went to the 4th Arambam Somorendra Memorial lecture at JN Dance Academy.

This year's lecture was delvred by Mr Niketu Iralu, Tustee, Centre for Policy Research and Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation. Though himself a Naga and a close of AZ Phizo, he is based in Shillong and considered to be an expert in reconciliatio.

As usual when I reached there the lecture was over and the question and answer seesion was in progress.

But I got a copy of the printed lecture.

Titled "Our common Crisis:What are we do?", it's a rather small lecture containing only 11 pages.

His main theme is in the line--'If the individual Naga is not good, Naga society would not be good', which is useless from a sociological point of view.

The Arambam Somorendra Trust, in its brief introduction, puts it more succinctly--'Given the decay in moral fibre in contemporary societies/polities like ours, the attempt to marry ethics to an essentailly political enterprise like social restructuring is arrestingly piquant'.

But Mr Iralu is searching. He qouted form several books, even from Israely and Arab writers. Like Iralu, we also find people here searching by reading up Mao thought, political struggles in Vietnam etc. But we form a rather unique in that we are so small in number. We are not normal viewed from this context. We should not hope get answers from the writings of other 'normal' societies.

By asking the question---'What factors made us run throughout the course of our history with so a puny population?'---would answer a lot of questions regarding oor ills.

If we come to grips with the reality of 'abnormally' small size of our population, then a fundamental question arises--'Do institutions themselves, which would produce 'good individual Nagas(or Meeteis or Mizos) got corrupted from the influences of the bigger and 'normal'societies surrounding us?'

This is a fundamental question because, being so small and foisted to live in an environment of huge societies, our chances of getting unwanted influences naturally get magnified manyfold.

I'm asking myself--'Is this our comon crisis?'

The 10 minute show

While I was readying to go to bed at around 10 pm last night, we got a proper downpour. Just like the good old June rainfall!

But it barely lasted for 10 minutes.

10 minutes or so later, it lost its steam. Together with it,the temperature also lsot its steam in going upwards.

When I went to bed I even made use of the ligthweight Chinese duvet. It was more like one of those nights just on the onset of winter. It was actually very pleasant. And, I inevitably slept like a log!

Early in the morning, I found out that it was bright and sunny. Like it was already spring.

By 10 in the morning, we were greeted with clear, blue sky. Not even a speck of clouds.

C'mon, we are talking about a June morning.

Within the duration of around 12 hours, we had experienced such drastic changes in the moods of weather god. What's happening?

I'm beginning to think such drastic changes are not good signs at all.

TOTALLY DISTURBING

Today's headlines makes me immensely disturbed.

Phungyar, in Ukhrul district which is hardly 100 kms away from here, is confronting a crisis.There SEEDS REFUSED TO GERMINATE!

Most likely reason is the lack of soil moisture,which must be surely due to lack of reainfall.

So, here we are, most likely in the throes of the first symptom of the climate change, which most of us thought to appear in most distant future.

As the headlines went, this is the straight second season when grains refused to germinate. Most of the people there have no choice but to start cucumbur and rhyzomes. Had it not been for the unlikely advent of the Federally funded rural job guarantee schemes most of the people there would have been starving long ago.

Those people are appealing to the State government helps through the media,as several appeals to the district administration have brought no results so far.

If the rainfall is decreasing(my last post) here, it is logically to see the upper regions in the mountains to have the initial impacts.

This is disturbing--TOTALLY DISTURBING.

Troubles ahead

Are we already in trouble?

There was a story in the Times of India,NE edition dated 6th June telling us that the rainfall in NE has been decreasing at the rate of 10mm per decade.

Is the general trend all over the globe?

I got it from the story that the trend is specific to the NE.

The story further told us that decreasing rainfall in the rest of the Ne would be accompanied with increasing cases of floods in Arunachal Pradesh. This is because of the melting of snows in the Tibetan plateau.

The story stated that the surface temperature of the NE States has been increaing steadily as a direct effect of the decreasing rainfall.

Today also there were only spurts of rainfall. Somethng is definitely lacking that's clearly discernible in ordinary June rainfall. I wish I was wrong in saying this.

I read the story in library on saturday. I'm not in a mood to find the links in their online edition.

C'mon, politicians

The State Director General of Police actually told some 'select' mediamen that 'the people of Manipur know who are behind the students organizations'.

I'm confused. It's unmistakably 'politics speak'.

Why should a police chief speak like that?

Ideally, he should have told the media that the State Executive felt that some 'roughies' are instigating the students organiations and the police is invesgating.

It's the police job to investigate, collect evidences and punish the culprits according the laws. If police starts acting like politicians, we are serious trouble.

Why should he make it 'select' mediamen?

I read the prominently front-paged story 2 days back. I read most of the papers that day and I could find it only on a single paper. I tried to find if other papers carried a day later. Not a single paper did so.

I bet that some politicians are instructing the police chief to spread out the words that rebel groups are intigating the students organizations. But why should not they themselves do it?

The military deployment in Manipur is on a much larger scale than that is currently deployed by the Western world in Afghanistan. And, as another part of the twin strategy, crores of Rupees are pouring in as 'development projects'.

Still, the politicians are working from a terribly consticted space.

Why is that so?

But where is the rain?

When I went out shopping last evening I saw people hurrying back to their homes expecting a heavy downpour. There were even several thunderclaps.

I also hurried back. On the way back home, I even noticed some rain drops falling on face. I doubled up my pace.

But when I woke up early in the morning today, there was not a single trace of rainfall.

And the temperature is steadily rising.

But where is the rain?

All these things makes me think about the much talked-about climate! It might sound silly but there is something actually unnerving about all these things.

It's so sudden

The temperature has jumped up.

It's not growing up gradually. The sudden jump was so pronounced yesterday.

Last evening, it was a terrible feeling to come to face to face with the moment when I suspected that the Windows was about to crash. Several times the Windows could not boot up fully. After several attempts, I had to boot it up in safe mode and then, shut down again. Then, I tried booting up normally.

I've been asking myself why it failed to boot up fully so suddenly and without any apparent reason.

Was it due to the sudden rise in temperature?

I also thought that with so heat there there would be a heavy downpour yeterday. But nothing did come down.

Right now, it's so warm.

It seems a bit unusual for place in a high altitude like Imphal.

What's life without some struggles?

I'm again struggling with my fooding regiment.

It turns out that the foods we eat determines the pH profile of our body. To be healthy, we need to keep the profile slightly alkaline, around 6-7 on the scale of 0-10.

I learnt that both wheat and rice are acid forming foods. If we eat two big portions of either rice or wheat based foods, there is no way we can keep our body's pH profile alkaline.

Generally, fruits and vegetables are alkaline producing foods. Only millet, taken to form part of wheat or rice in the sense of staple foods, is alkaline producing.

I've no idea if millet is grown here at all. Corn is controversial--some say it's acid forming while others say it's alkaline forming. Peas are slightly alkailne forming.

I'm depending on this site for looking up which is alkaline or acid forming.

Another important thing is that we should not eat acid and alkaline forming at a time. We need to space out the two foods. If our stomach produce 'acid' and 'alkali'at the same time, we have the problem of bad digestion.

So, I've been struggling to space out the two foods. Breafast is lot of fruits and vegetables. How do we eat vegetables for breakfast? Once I read that best way(most nutritious) of cooking vegetable is to pour bioiling water over it. I've been wondering if it would properly cook the vegetables. Past weeks saw me experimenting with it! And I've learnt that it actually cooks!

After a spcae of some hours, I'm eating eggs and walnuts and cashew nuts, all of them surprisingly acid forming.

Then, corn break bread for lunch.

In the evening, I just microwave some portions of cucumbur.

For supper?

Right now, I'm cooking peas. Peas are delicious!

The right diagnosis!

I've dusted off the innards of my computer.The dust and the cowebs!! I should have done this on regular basis.

I've also removed all the expansion cards.

The memory cards has been removed,cleaned and again,placed back to their places.

I've also replaced the cmos battery with a new one.

Now, it's clear that the problem lies with the monitor. I've also been been able to diagnise it properly.

Now, I've learnt that if I turn on the computer and find that the monitor is blank, then I let the computer stay turned on for some 10 minutes. Then, I turn off the monior and immediately turn it on again.

If I follow this procedure, I've have found out the monitor is just fine!