Their Own World-Part Three

Knowing they have also something of their own but being unable to look at through a keen eye like they are required to do in their attempt to read  others' history. This conscious negligence and absence take away the pride that must have sprouted in them and forced them to embrace others' which they can hardly comprehend. 

At homes they all pretend what they have embraced is really theirs, but their borrowed ideas which they haven’t examined only belittle them when they go and try to mingle with others. It is like forcing themselves to embrace that English culture should be theirs and whatever the British do should be exactly followed. When people become a mimic kind they cease to think and ask, they only look at what is thrown before their eyes and sniff, much like a dog would do, at it with great display of interest even though they have no idea what object are thrown at. It could English faeces.

The maichou once said, “Children when we look at someone from an advanced place, we look at the person from his hat to black shoes, and ask the man where we can buy this clothes. We even want to wear the same socks he is wearing. But a person from a civilized society with their indigenous pride would observe that man, wouldn't just look. He would certainly need a thing or two but not the entire things which cover him from head to toe. When Buddhism travelled to countries like Sri Lanka they accepted the whole of it, but when it reached China ,a place elevated by Taoism and Confucianism they held Buddhism in their hand just like a man person holding a ball in his hand and observed its beauty as well as it defects. So with that kind of observation they didn't accept everything and thus it became Cha’an, and after it had been sieved and passed through the Korean peninsula it became Zen in the Shinto-dominant land.”

The way of worshipping  nature  and ancestors to show gratitude to those who founded the land and tilled the earth and learned how to live in harmony with nature is disregarded.

They created their own world and everything around them had a name, and every event had a meaning and they correspond to their life and people knew the values of those around them. 

They would plan these in our own way: Mera( the first month of the year) is welcomed with several dishes offered to the spirits of ancestors. In every event or gathering artistic talents are displayed, soomang leela (plays) which began in people’s courtyards became entertainment meant for larger audience in fields. 

If the strong young people had to look for sports there are yubee lakpee which is played in a field smeared with mud and made more slippery with water thrown in , mooknah and mooknah kangjei. If men lay their claims in rough sports ,then ladies can’t be beaten in dances, kaang and likol.(*)

People now care more for cricket of lousy people standing and watching two groups of people play, they find rugby more challenging than yubee lakpee. The enthusiasm people display in others’ now have buried their own, and from this folly and ignorance of few generations have emerged a kind of people who have extracted their understanding of their own from their ignorant parents, they are the kind of people who understand that rice is eaten everyday but it is to be brought in from Punjab. They see beauty in a shalwar kammeez and kurta pajamas because they find embroidered sarongs and  shawls and pheijom as things which belonged to their grandparents; and these confused ignorants are sent out from this platform which is now in the grip of people like Tamo Ningthem and his teenage boys for degrees so that they could insert themselves as competent job seekers.(*) 

Overwhelmed by their ignorance of their place where they grew up they have nothing to offer or to present to others what other could perceive as unique as respectable except for the features. The they would be caught as a people attempting to emulate others every moment and those who have succeeded in the attempts become  the elevated sorts who don’t realize they are in fact crows in peacock’s feathers. 

This inferiority complex also makes them a meek people who can easily be frightened when they hear a word which they have been learning to say and understand, and those who know how inferior they are successfully take advantage. So either they become a cheap and meek people who can be picked up, and pressed down and thrown or a loyal kind who are to be pitied.

More to come.........

(*)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manipur