A Naga baba at Haridwar "Arey baba, welcome, welcome. I happy you like
listen my story, also happy you take my story your country. I come here
many many years ago with my guru. I boy, he teach everything. Now I find
peace. Life good, my guru good. Haridwar my home now. I like many many
people come pray god. You come for god too? Come, come you look good
man, from good country. Take photo my guru, my friends, and we smoke.
Good god smoke, you like for sure, baba. But why you listen my story,
meeting my guru, my friend and do god smoke and say 'god live because
you live?' No good, against god. Now you look good, look come from good
country. But you not for real."
Delhi was once Chinglen’s ‘cradle of love’. With his student years over and the love that once comforted his stay has come to a tragic end, he is seized by a strong urge to flee the city. Run as far as he can from the memories of love. As a costly escape is beyond means, he returns to Manipur, a place long marred by protracted violence, a failed revolution, an engineered incessant political chaos, and already neck-deep in corruption. Perhaps to lick his wounds and hide with the beguiled sense. That the distance and the rich bizarre should shield him from the very memories sloshing thick inside him. His attempt to keep himself engaged as well as to make a meagre living lands him a shoddy journalist job and the opportunity to pursue a PhD at the state's only university. In the absence of his laidback editor and opportunistic professor, he teaches himself some degree of creative writing and dabbles in academia. As he moves further into the labyrinth, he learns the hard way that trying...

Comments
Post a Comment