Report on the first bandh of the New Year!

Either it is something to do with the previous day’s ‘wining and dining’ or the plain support of the bandh, the first bandh of the New Year is an effective one. On most bandh days, we can buy groceries and et al in Keisampat area. But today it was completely shut down.

I had a schedule for meeting a friend. I could not miss it and so I went there anyway. Two wheelers, cycles and rickshaws were plying on the streets. After finishing talking business with me my friend told that he went to an epaan thouram the previous night. On the way, he passed the mortuary of the RIMS. The mortuary was packed with all the top brass of Manipur People’s Party (MPP). They were waiting for the mandatory post mortem on the lifeless body of Mr Chingsubam Akaba.

My friend suspected that unknown to the general public Akaba seemed to have a very active role in the recent developments in the affairs of the MPP, particularly in the run up to the coming election. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for a State Assembly from Wankhei constituency.

My friend was visibly disturbed and told me that Akaba’s killing seemed to be the beginning of a coming spate of political killings likely to accompany this coming Assembly election.

For several months now, few of the regular readers in the small library hotly debated about the advisability for the naharols to try to influence the outcome of the Assembly election. They have been doing that loudly inside the small reading room! According to them, it is by now well established that the naharols are trying to influence the election.

I have not given any particular thought to the raging debate inside the reading room! But during the last few weeks important MPP leaders have been publicly expressing their political agenda for pitching in for plebiscite for resolution of the insurgency problem. That seems to point to some grain of truth to the raging debate.

Around 7 tonight I had been to one of my sisters’ house. There I learnt that shots were fired at the sitting MLA of the Wangkhem Constituency, Mr Nimaichand Luwang. He is also a top leader of MPP.

I have no means to confirm the news at the moment but if is true, I think we can talk of seeing a pattern forming.

A military plane over bandh-afficted night sky

At around 6.30 in the evening I sighted a plane flying very low over the Southern horizon. With red and yellow lights, it was flying from the Southern to the Eastern horizon. I watched it heading straight towards the Eastern horizon. Then suddenly it took a detour and again headed towards the Southern horizon. When it was taking that detour, the whirl of its engine faded and then the flying object itself became flimsy over the night sky. It must be taking that detour away from the Imphal valley.

At around 8.30 at night, it again returned.

Tonight it was flying really low over the horizon.

Tonight it also occurred to me that the whirl of its engine somehow had the ring of a toy plane! That means it must be a UAV.

Then, it must be a military plane flying sorties over the night sky looking down towards the somber and bandh-afficted Manipur valley!

AUDACITY

What would I expect of this New Year? More to the point, what would I do to mould myself to go along with this New Year but at the same time manage to extract from it what I desire?

Every time I try answering this question, Barrack Obama comes to my mind!

It makes me smile trying to figure out why should I have this much audacity to tangle up with the rising star in America’s political firmament in answering a very personal thing.

But I must hasten to say that the key word is the word ‘audacity’.

I’ve be reading stories about Mr Obama. The first thing that strikes me is his name. There is something about the name ‘ Barrack Obama’. All the stories focus on how he could be the first black president of US. Would a black in the helm of the mightiest nation in the world have a discernible impact on the keeping of the peace and upholding of justice of this global village? Personally, I would nudge myself to believe that it would.

Like most Americans, Mr Obama seems to be real hard worker. He is 40 something, first time Senator but he has already published his second book.

I can’t remember the name of his latest book. But the word ‘audacity’ seems to form the central theme of the book.

And, the word never leaves me from the moment I read that particular story. It strikes a chord with me.

AUDACITY.

Yes, it is the word which will push me all throughout the New Year to battle for getting for what I desire most.

First bandh of 2007

We are hardly 24 hours into the New Year but we are already encountering the first bandh of the year.

Bandh sucks.

Mr Chingsubam Akaba was shot dead by two assailants near his own home around midnight of the last day of 2006.

His supporters are calling for a bandh on the 2nd of Jan as a protest of the slaying of their leader.

Akaba is mostly known for his works for trying to bring the Manipuri script back to the mainstream uses.

From what I’m reading in the papers he seemed to be 60 years old man. I’m at a loss why should anybody want to shoot down a 60 years old man.

A very happy New Year.

A very happy New Year.

Gift of Emoinu!

Today being the last of the year, I bought a calendar for the New Year this evening!

This mostly sums up the moods in Imphal as I’m typing this post right at the moment. It is not fair to describe it as the low key celebration of the end of the year. It will be more appropriate to describe it as the absence of celebration. I’m surprised by this turn of the event.

By now, it can be safely inferred that something is definitely going on in this society. It’s the feeling of not living in a normal time and situation. I suspect that previously this feeling of living in an abnormal time and situation was just an undercurrent of the society. But by now it is forming the mainstream of the society.

Today is also the day when Emoinu is worshipped.

I’m not that religious to plan for anything particular for the Emoinu’s day. It’s just the normal day for me. I shopped for vegetables, fruits and fish. The elderly woman selling the fish gave me double the quantity of fish which I would get by that amount in any given day. I was surprised. But she informed me it would not lucky for her to bring home any unsold fish on this day of Emoinu. This is news for me. But I got the larger fish!

When I returned home, I found out I spent all the cash I carried for my shopping. Except for one single coin of the denomination of Rupee 1 in my pocket. I was surprised! Just one of Rupee 1!! So, I took it as the gift of Emoinu and locked up safely in my locker!!!

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.