Kangleimaichou

He resembled the Flying Dutchman character with his long and bushy beard which left the eyes and the nose visible, if the eyes hadn't moved he would have been mistaken for a morose sculpture which could withstand the world for few years and then would crumble to bits.  The wind was strong and cold and it was certain that the rippled blue water would soon be more disturbed, but that would happen only when the golden disc, which had been influencing the water and everything with its hue, had disappeared; even his whole self seemed to have transformed by it , thus rendering him to some glittering standstill figure. Finally , darkness dawned upon the place, the water which was golden was now pitch black and its surface sparkled when the strong and swaying lights of lamps cast upon it. It was blueish, comforting and it promised something to life in days, and when it was golden it was full of melancholy , and now everything was still but fear. This old-looking corroded...

They made it fun Everybody had fun They had hopes They wanted to see The hope in me grow It did I could feel it But it was stopped I didn’t stop it I didn’t want that either But that was meant to be Was there something else? Something else to look at? Name! There was nothing Nothingness was The substitute I was not alone Never alone It was a boat The bloody water was choppy We knew our fate We had faith in our fate The fateful fate It thought it could hide It didn’t hide In our nothingness We tried to give it a meaning But many were busy with hunger Then we all were kept busy By him Him, we know We had another name Always friendly But nobody needed the friendship Nobody wanted But it was be ours It arrived early Sometimes too early We had no time to wonder We were doomed To be his We made him We grew out of us He outgrew is We reckoned we could slay Instead he s...

It isn't the place where you are that defines you, but it is the place that your imagination can fetch. All these months in the capital city of India you have been in a room; more than an oven in the harsh Summer of the city, and in Winter always wrapped in a sleeping bag. You weren't ready for the latter after having lived in hot and humid places for years .  Mind wanders off to the sight of warm climate, not so hot, and the white sandy beaches their ends marked by lines of palm trees, people in deckchairs, and the noise of the ocean waves rushing gently and ending with mild slaps, mildly rocking the moored boats. Only a while ago the whole place was bright, each part revealed, the chatters of people heard in near corners. The golden disc over the glistening wavy water seemed to have cast a spell. No life was visible on the beach, the folded parasols and the abandoned deckchairs wore a despondent look, but the place was alive with the sound of the waves, louder,...

My father always said, " I invested all your dowry money on your Media Studies, you'd better get a decent job after this." He wanted me to study the course and I managed everything within five in the morning and seven in the evening. You know we are from a very traditional family, and no one in the family went against any parental decisions.  My grandfather was a hardcore vegetarian , when he caught my father eating boiled eggs with his friends he made my old man sleep in the courtyard for three nights and made him bathe three times a day. Till to this day my father brings up the incident every night to ensure we preserve our traditional values. Some say we all are pickled in a cookie jar ,soaked in dos and don'ts, timed and when time has come for marriage, after having searched, found and negotiated, we will be pulled out from the jar. But this is my life, who are they to comment. Now I have a job which I got through an uncle who happens to be the fri...

When I met Jina while travelling in a North Indian city she was full of her husband, who didn't even show the courtesy to return my greeting when I was introduced. She left Imphal for Delhi for college, leaving behind a bad picture in which she was brought up ,in its dirt and tensions. All that she wanted to do was to experience a better life after  a better education  and Imphal being never the ideal place for such a place, where education exists for namesake, she looked at it with indignation. As she had been watching Bollywood films at home , Hindi was never that difficult for her when she was in college. Since she could communicate with most people it was easy for her to mix up with others. Having come from that remote corner of the world and then to mingle up with city-bred people in shopping malls and pubs she knew she had come a long way, unlike her peers who were still struggling with the language as well as with the system of chaos, racism, etc.  She ...