By Bobo Khuraijam
“Nothing is permanent but change”. It is written in the book. I have seen it. Our leader had shown it to me. He says that there cannot be anything permanent. The only thing permanent is change. Intriguing indeed, I think I will never understand. How can change be permanent when it is changing? He says that the book which he had shown to me is written by a big philosopher, who had spent quite a hell of a time thinking and writing. I wonder how people can write such weird things after thinking. The poor man must have think and think that he lost his mind. After losing his mind he must have thought of taking solace into writing books. The kind of books people would never understand. I think there are only a few people who could understand these kinds of books. Our leader is one such person who claims to understand every bit of word written on it. He had promised us to make us understand every word in the book when he got time. But I don’t know when the time will come. That day when he gave a lecture on “struggle”, he had briefly mentioned about the importance of “change”. That we are going to bring about a change in the society. A profound change: No force on earth could stop that change, he said. Every time he gives a public lecture I have goose bumps. I feel strong and confident. I feel proud of him. I feel proud of myself. Not that I understand everything what he said. It is the uncanny feeling that I am part of a “struggle”, and also the fact that I am near to someone who can give powerful speeches. I hope one day I will be able to give very good speech like him. So many people will clap when I speak. The Press photographers would surround me. They would take my pictures. In the morning, I would show the picture on the paper to my wife. How happy she would be. Till now I have given speeches to a small group of ten to fifteen people. But I wish, one day I could give speech to hundreds of people like our leader. He is very famous. He is famous like the film actors. He says he does not want to be famous. I don’t know why people who do not want to be famous are famous. I like to be famous but I am not famous. May be I should try to write a poem on it. May be the poem could bag some awards for me. But where do I get time to write poems? Lots of my time are gone going for press releases. My leader writes a good number of press releases. I feel happy when I see it on the newspaper. Though I have not written it, it makes me happy thinking that I was the one who delivered the press notes. To tell the truth, I was nobody. Nobody: in the sense that I was just another guy in the leikai before I join our organization. Now I can argue with anyone on any topic. My arguments are too strong for them. Nobody can beat me in the leikai. They have not only stopped arguing with me. Now they have stopped coming near me. Good for them, or I will show them what an argument is. What do they know about “dialectical materialism”, “historical materialism”, “class antagonism”, “scientific socialism”…what do they know about “revolution”? I can teach them all these things if they ever try to start an argument. Our leader said he will take regular classes on these topics. He gave us books to read. I tried reading some of them. It is written in English. Very high English, I have to use Shitaljit’s English to Manipuri dictionary. But some of the words are not to be found in the dictionary. Then, my leader told me to use Oxford dictionary. The way they interpret makes me more confuse. So I decided to stick to the old English to Manipuri. Now, I think, I know quite a lot about “revolution” and “change”. But why am I not able to speak like my leader. Why am I not able to write like him? But the good part is that we are fighting for the poor: emancipation of the poor people, our people, by a scientific revolution. The farmers, the peasants and the downtrodden are our friends. Our leader says we should always think about the poor people all the time.
One fine day, our leader declared that he would fight in election. We all were happy. He said without winning election we cannot take out our revolution. Huge amount of money was spent in the election. I felt sorry for our leader that he had to sell a large chunk of his paddy fields for election. We had to use the same tactics used by our class enemy to fight election. We distributed money to our people, our poor people. This is a revolutionary tactics. We have to use the machinery and the apparatus of our class enemy to fight them. Alas, we won the election. Now our leader moves in nice car with lots of bodyguards. One day, I shall be like him. I will also be a minister to bring “change” for the society, to bring a revolution for the poor. But I have to become famous like him. I have to talk like him, walk like him. The problem is I don’t have paddy fields like he do. Our leader is very understanding. He said he would make things work out for us. As long as he wins elections, he would give us work to earn money. Works like Kerosine agent…this and that agent. But work of agents does not earn us enough money to fight election. Our leader suggests, doing thika is the best option. This will help us take out revolution. After taking up the job of thika my days have become very hectic. A few days back my wife was cleaning some books. It was our book about “revolution”. It was covered with dust and fungus. I shall have to arrange an air conditioner for my room. In that way I can prevent the dust from sitting on my books. Now a day, as the month of September is coming to an end, we shall have to keep aside our thika works for some time. We have to prepare for birthday celebration of Irabot.
FOOTNOTE: gone are the days that people come out on streets to protest against so many things. We have witness huge public rallies in the past. What we see today is meetings and meetings only with live telecast. Leipung Ningthou calls it, “live telecast ki khongjung na khongjung bu bidai piba”.
