Tales of Human Mischief

If tales from one of the remotest corners in the world were never told elaborately with great care, embedding all emotions in the backdrop of circumstances, then Tales of Human Mischief is a young writer's genuine attempt to do so. Set in Kangleipak, which the author uses in place of Manipur, the tales are the clear insight into the psychological state of the people and the meticulous descriptions the circumstances which mark the place. The Indian border state has been a strife-torn place marred with prolonged armed conflicts between those fighting for sovereignty of the place and an Indian state ruling the place with a draconian law like Armed Forces Special Power Act which deserves no place in a modern world.

The long short tales depict the lives of insignificant lots whose stories otherwise would have existed untold; the stories of those caught up in their own land and adversely affected by it that the created environment apparently shapes them as characters of avarice, brutality, collective failure and systematic subjugation.

Thoiba: In Thoiba, one can see the distinct transformation of a sincere student like Thoiba to an easy accomplice when his world at home changes after the death of his mother. His world was simple, so was his ambition which could have been completed, like the fleeing many, in one of the mainland cities. What follows the mother's death in a violent protest is the emergence of a vacuum emerges into which the devastated son sinks and sinks further without any consolation, and he when looks for distraction, it presents itself as the ever ready and violent circumstances into which he sinks.

A Kanglei life: In a similar backdrop, but a rather an impoverished situation, all that a young hope, like Punsi wants is to salvage his family of hard working mother and his paralyzed father from abject poverty. But the situation in which he lives is such that people rush home before dusk, and while at home they are gripped by the fear that someone could come anytime to get them. This perennial fear is the monster which seems to be eternally awake and it has counted each of them, and people apparently live with an understanding that it is matter of time till they meet their unnatural and premature demise. Punsi's ordinary ambition to salvage his family comes to an abrupt end when he finds himself a victim of misinformation fueled by suspicion. Being treated a dead meat and discarded, his damage now cannot be undone. But in a place reigned by chronic brutality or tyranny, there is little that one can hope, except the sole and common hope of dodging death. The procreation is thus a confused and subservient society, for people have known only to flee; and in a foreign setting they become easy victims, constantly on the edge, and without any bargaining chips, thus conceding to anything thrust at them.

The stories were written between 2009 and 2011 when the author was based in Bangkok.