By Bobo Khuraijam
What a season to start with. Two new yearly lunches in a single month have brushed all our teeth. The awaited date with the rain came, have washed away the dust settled in the inmost reaches of the town’s anatomy. The velvety fleck of dust which used to caress all possible sense organ of the body is now married and settled with the water. Enough sunshine and the automobiles will disturb its honeymoon. They would soon divorce and serve us again. People yearn for a longer date with the rain. Rivers are running dry, so are dams standing empty. No water to drink, no power to light. Blessed are those who have the French sewerage in their vicinity. Water that gets stored inside comes to their salvage. This French sewerage’s crusade to smoothen the flow of our excreta has diversified its function taking into account of the need of the people. They served as a permanent employee of the traffic control police. Then can get open up anytime – anywhere and be a speed breaker with fatal signal (hole). That’s the engineering marvel of dedicated individuals who have sacrificed all their lives for the project. The list includes the engineers, planners and contractors. Their work is a testimony of their professional acumen. It is evident that they must have been a sincere individual for all their life. They mustn’t have cheated in the examination. They must have got their degree without any donation fee. We can only blame the rain for their insincerity.
WHY TALK? It has been an enduring mystery for us to ponder on why some people should talk. Why? All people talk, for that matter, human is a talking species. There are no other species which talk. One could say the animals and bird also talk in a different way. We give them all kind of names for the sound they make. No wonder, it could be the other way round. Animals and birds could have also given another name on how we make all kinds of noise. But do the animals and birds talk like us. To be precise: do they talk turn by turn with so many of the same species gathered around. Before speaking they are called up on an elevated platform. They are allowed to sit on different chairs – different from the rest of the species. They are decorated with shawls on their shoulders. On the chest they would be decorated with ribbon art work, evenly stitched in a circular motif with the brightest possible colour. Now, they looked different from the rest of the species who are sitting, waiting for them to talk. Some nosy scientist who loves noise must have invented the thing. Well, the thing on which human speaks. Their voice becomes louder in exponential term whenever they speak through it. Human being love microphone anyway.
WHO TALKS: With the kind of care given to them we expect that they would talk in so many ways different from the rest of us. The long ritualistic wait was broken by their thundering voice of reason, of new idea and what not. One of them said the book which is made public on the particular occasion is a good book and worth a read. Most of them said the same. We do not doubt the quality, so to say, the goldmine of knowledge and information stockpiled in the book. The air becomes comfortably numb when the man behind the microphone started sharing his wealth of knowledge to the people. Quoting an overseas name, he said the name is one of the most quoted intellectual in the present times. People here in the landlocked do not quote it. He has made his point by quoting him: that he is a rare species. The next byline was: people here are suffering from ‘surplus of monologue – deficit of dialogue’. He illustrates his point by vanishing from the hall as soon as he finishes speaking. Someone told us that it happens on many occasions. What followed him was another versatile man whom we have seen umpteen time behind the microphone. A good amount of time was spent on how much he loves his mother. Mother, the universal symbol of love became strangely meaningful that day. We thought we should immediately rush home and play on mother’s lap. He went on to say that the family’s meal is never cooked contrary to the choice of his mother. How did he left out his father, we do not know. Further, he said the writer writes very well, and writes very similar to his style. Good god, he did not mentioned that the writer would be sued for stylistic plagiarism. Yet another crowning glory of the moment was the declaration that he spent a good time of a day by reading books. He is getting older and is not sure of his end. So he reads a lot. It was evident; he did not touched much on the issues the book purports to throw up. An octogenarian academic who shared the dais with him was honoured by his avowal that there is no one worth to be called a teacher in Manipur. The self-adulatory rambling of the microphone heroes once for all reminded to us that narcissism is one of the most important agendas in the predicament of our times. We have a few options left with us. Get refresh with a sip of water from the French sewerage or listen to the talk of the animals and birds. We opted for Mr. Bean with the last bit of power left in the inverter.
FOOTNOTE: the Shumaang Lila Shanglen has literally become a burrow for tombola housie. People throng the place every day to throw away money with a minimum of a few thousands. Leipung Ningthou calls it, “number na arem apaa gi budhi da lila sanaba”.
