Memories Don't Leave Like People Do

To keep or not to keep? A diary, that is. I picked up the habit from both my parents who always kept tiny little plastic coated affairs which fit into the palm of the hand and which took in only just a few lines of really important things that happened to them daily. I was about 8 or 9 when I first started keeping diaries and I still have stacks of them tucked dustily away in a high compartment of my wardrobe. Since the last ten years or so though, I haven't really been writing as I used to. Sure I still buy a diary every January as I did today but the entries are now pretty few and far between. Last year's had just a single entry dated the 4th Jan. Maybe I then misplaced the book all year long :P

But old journals are actually great fun to read. When I dig into mine I get caught up for hours on end, reliving fabulously happy days, squirming through painful or embarrassing moments, cringing at my furious ravings and rantings, reading details of the past that have since completely slipped out of my memory (and Lord knows that's something I'm having more and more trouble with as time goes on). Sometimes I want to slap myself for the whining asinine idiot that I was, never looking beyond myself, my problems and my comfort zone, and other times I marvel at how smartmouthedly I wrote, but most times I just sit and laugh my head off at the memories the pages evoke.


A few choice excerpts:

From my schooldays at Mount Hermon, Darj - "27th March, Dear Diary, We had such a lot of free periods. History, Clubs & English. During Clubs, since Jariy, Asha, Pornarrin, Engzam & I are the only ones in Miss Russell's club, we just went for a long walk through the woods by ourselves - that is only five of us. We had a lovely time but I wish someone had come and kidnapped us. (ack did I seriously write that?!) Today was Brian's birthday (can't for the life of me remember who Brian was). Goodbye."

"31 March, Dear Diary, Today is Doris' birthday. Last night we were going to have a midnight feast but Mrs Bond (our new very not-with-it dorm matron) came and so we left everything - already served and fled. She's very suspicious! We had a picnic by a waterfall. Only Louise, Sasi, Awon, Twe, Rothang, Helen, Doris, Puii and I. We had a lovely time and at night, Doris gave us a piece of her birthday cake. Good night."

From my University days in Shillong - "Saturday: Bath, shampoo. The girls practised the Pangpar lam first thing in the morning. That looks easy enough - not so Solakia! Sharon (my Hmar roommate for a semester) insisted that I go with her to the Hmar Sikpui Ruai somewhere in the wilds of Happy Valley so I rather reluctantly went. As it turned out I knew absolutely no one there and sitting it out out there in the cold open air all day gave me a real big cold. After dinner went to the Varsity Cultural Nite. Great fun. The place was absolutely packed. Back by 9.

Sunday: Got an ENORMOUS kingsized cold. Damn Sharon for dragging me out to her lousy picnic yesterday. I feel absolutely terrible what with blowing my goddamned nose every 2 minutes - yeesh, don't even have enough clean hankies, shit. Spent the entire day here listening to music. Afternoon, sent Binda (the hostel chowkidar) out to buy me chicken fried rice & ate it clean. Evening P, M & V came."


A couple of years later after I'd landed a teaching job - "Back to the slog. The 1st BA & BSc classes open. We're opening Elective English & I'm supposed to take Fiction - Wuthering Heights, Robinson Crusoe etc. Yucky prospect. How the hell am I supposed to teach others in turn when I don't even feel quite up to reading the damn things myself?! Mark Twain was dead right when he said - A classic is something that everyone praises but nobody reads - sth to that effect anyway. Who wants to bury yourself in bone dry prose when the world is zooming past. Damned bulb's bombed out and I'm writing all this dry unromantic stuff in romantic candlelight."

Just shortly before my older sister was to get married - "June 17, New chap came in yesterday. Since Hp's leaving for good, we need someone to run the house during the hours we're all at work. I suppose we do need maids - male or otherwise but I don't really dig having strangers staying in the house. Especially corny folk who munch food noisily - yucks. It makes me want to puke all over the table."

LMWAO!! Pure entertainment. Gotta say this for these old diaries....

Memories don't leave like people do.
They always stay with you
Whether they've been good or bad
They leave you something glad behind
People take all of your time
They walk out of your life
And then they hurt you
But a memory would never be that unkind
Claim to be your friend and then desert you..

A New Year Blessing

For all my wonderful friends online...

and for myself as well for I need all the blessings I can get as a brand new year stretches ahead like an open road with twists and turns and dangerous falls below and stupendous sights and sounds along the way...

Though having said all that, I have to admit that at my age and never having been the stick-your-neck-out-on-a-limb type, I'd be happier with just a very peaceful, straight road ahead kind of year in 2008.

The Magic of Christmas

And so another Christmas has come and gone. When I look back, it seems to me that the best Christmases were when I was a kid. Mum would start cranking up her sewing machine sometime in December and sew us the prettiest Christmassy-est dresses. For all her three daughters she'd repeat the same frilly, frothy, lace-trimmed designs (all this was before my older sister turned 11 and got smart, refusing to wear the same dresses as us and wanting a different look instead). New shoes and socks and sometimes a cardigan would complete the picture and we'd be all set for another magical Christmas. Dad would string up brightly coloured streamers across the ceiling starting from the centre and rippling out to all four sides of the room and we'd sit warming ourselves by the brazier, pigging out on the oranges Mum always made sure to stock up on.

On the night of Christmas Eve, we'd put large empty trays by our beds for Christmas Pa to fill, and next morning we'd excitedly jump out of bed to see what was on our trays, usually an assortment of toys, little fashion accessories, sweets, balloons etc. Again it was my older sister who first found out Christmas Pa wasn't some nice kindly old geezer but your own parents and told us so. I didn't want to believe it and I still vividly recall the huge disappointment I felt the day I was idly talking about it to Mum who was busy working at her sewing machine again, and she admitted that yes, it was true and she even got up and swearing me to secrecy, showed me the stuff she'd got to load onto our trays the next day. I guess it's an indication of the shock to my system that I still remember one item she showed me... a little doll on a swing who swung round and round when you turned the key. Needless to say, that was the last time Christmas Pa paid us a visit.

Happily the tradition continues. And one of the most delightful sights and sounds on Christmas mornings are the little children asking each other 'what did Christmas Pa give you?' and showing off their goodies to everyone they see...

A December Caboodle

December, almost the end of the year already. And Christmas season bigtime. Not the greatest time of year to be broke. I went to an atm to check my balance last week and found I had the princely sum of Rs 9.54. Ouch.

~~~

As beautiful as the origin of Christmas is, it's amazing how our largely hedonistic concept of what it ought to be like is so off-tangent with its beginnings. Most people seem to think Christmas is a time to let rip, literally and metaphorically. Little wonder there's so much pressure and tension, and SADs run rampant. Expectations and reality just don't seem to gel at Christmastime when people seem to be more selfish, grasping, and self-indulgent. On the surface, we all seem to open up a lot more, like a friend of mine once remarked in January, "Why's it that everyone goes back into their shells as soon as Christmas is over?" Maybe I'm just being overly cynical but maybe that opening up is just some subconscious maneuver to get a piece of the action.

And then there's my eternal grouse.... Christmas Eve, that ethereal night of songs like O Holy Night and Stille Nacht was probably silent and holy centuries ago; today it's the night of the most raucous noises and sounds equalled only by December the 31st.

Phew, feels good to vent.

~~~

Lately I've been working on a new project that suits me to a tee. I was born to a culture and a people credited with being the second most literate group of people in the country which accounts for us having a fairly sizeable heritage of literature. Unfortunately it's mostly all in the vernacular and while it's all rather simplistic and elemental, I had the bright idea of bringing it online in translations, what with cultural studies being what it is today. Part of the inspiration came from a good online friend who appears to be a larger-than-life figure to everyone who knows him in person (take a bow, Pu Epis :)) He got me wondering if I could make some meaningful contribution online and just about the same time I came across this book The Heart of the Matter featuring stories from the North East...

And so was born my Mizo lit in English blog. Had to make do with a blog since I know nothing about making a proper site and anyway right now I'm more interested with its contents and trying to track down people I know who write/wrote creatively in English. Most beat about the bush claiming they haven't written in aeons and all their old stuff is gone with the wind (which I personally don't buy for a second but then I wouldn't want anyone to lay eyes on the atrocious rubbish I wrote once upon a lifetime ago myself either).

Margaret who appears to be about the only active translator around has been just amazing - generously and tirelessly providing me with material and urging me to try my hand at translations too. Which I most certainly promise to do. And then there's Mona. This girl is a living, breathing genius. I tell her she ought to be in academia, giving literary seminars all over the world and instead she tells me she's tired of the "deconstructing King Lear's grey hair" routine. Not to worry though, the crystal ball in my mind tells me we'll have a few print collections of her mindblowing poetry in the forseeable future and kids will soon grapple with her writings in bastions of higher learning :)

The process of putting Mizo stories and poems online has also brought me to a new appreciation of Mizo art. I have this notion that every post has to be accompanied by an appropriate image and the more Mizocentric the better. I've been freely dipping into our foremost artist Tlangrokhuma's online art gallery and wishing more Mizo artists would make their work available online. And not just paintings either but sketches, photographs and other graphic arts. It'd certainly help display their skills and talents, besides giving them a good excuse for getting online.

~~~

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time when I was young
and the world was still in black and white

Me and my older sister with Mum and Dad

With gran, cousins, sisters and me. The baby's my cousin Mama who's since passed on, as has my gran. My older sister's the one that's happily grinning into the camera, the toddler with a hand on her head and panties half hanging down is my younger sister, the oldest girl sitting next to gran is my cousin who now has an adorable grandtoddler of her own, and yours truly grimacing in the far right.


This must've been someone's birthday tea party. Me far right again, my two sisters and another male cousin who too has since passed on. He was attempting to rescue his 12 year old son who got into deep waters in the Tlawng river. His son survived, my cousin didn't....

~~~

Splashes of Colour

Orchids grow wild in Mizoram. We had a few samples around a couple of years ago when my sister, who's the one with a green thumb, could move around. Since then I think this is the only plant that's still bravely defying neglect and flowering beautifully in somewhat arid surroundings.

Little red hot chilly peppers blushing mightily in the sun

Our first poinsettia of the season. It's not perfectly shaped but it's still beautiful.

Literary definition howlers

Metaphor: It is a way of something by comparing something else and something that was in a particular pattern.

Simile: It is a way of something word compared with something by used this words.

Quatrain: Name of an instrument which is widely used for the measurement of weather.

Satire: The poet has the proud words. The poet had announced the great and they announced and vivid the proud poet is known as satire.

Elegy: (i) It is a hymn normally made up of lines consisting words about people we long for and who have left the world. It is a hymn for sobbing and sad people.

(ii) It refers to a song used in ancient days for funeral purposes. It is used till today. It is often practise in churches and temples.

(iii) It is also defined as the rumour that one had experience before. He might be suffered from different things maybe a love affair between man and woman about marriages, family problems, live or death, suffering from some diseases etc.

Sonnet: (i) It is a way of describing a word with 14 lines.

(ii) A sonnet can be defined as the remembering of true love by nature and the recalling of past life that one had experience. The imagination of one thought of real sense of beauty of nature.

(iii) It is a meditative attempt to define the nature of ideal love. In the course of this definition, an ideal love is set against a sense of true love.


Argh... these kids are crazy!

~~~

Goin' hi-tech

The end of the year is usually super hectic for most people, teachers in particular. I've been swamped with papers to wade through... evaluations and the shhhh strictly confidential kind. I haven't even been able to do anything beyond a casual flip-through of my obligatory Cosmo and Readers' Digest.

Plus I finally got myself two new high tech toys this month. One's a new Sony Ericsson W810 cell phone to replace my two year old K750i. I still love my old phone and would have absolutely no quarrel with it were it not for the joystick which has to be the crappiest thing ever created! So off with the old, which my sister's happily taken up with, and on with the new. Since the new model has pretty much the same features as the old, no problems there.

Not so with the other new toy, sigh. I've wanted a digicam for ages but now that I finally got one, a moderately priced Sony DSC W80, I've discovered I'm no photographer. Or at least I know zilch about the technical aspects of photography. Like I said earlier, I've been so busy with paperwork I haven't really had time to tinker with it much, and the best or worst part was a couple of evenings earlier on October full moon night when I decided to take stunning shots of the moon. Shock, horror, my pictures kept turning out even worse than my phonecam pictures! Frantic calls to my photography expert who assured me that capturing great moon shots is easier said than done, and much tweaking of ISO, shutter speeds and what have yous later, the results were still the same. The moon rapidly lost all its appeal and the cam's become another challenge that I'm going to have to meet, come what may!

I did manage to take some pretty ok pictures though. And here's a few. Now sooth my bruised ego and tell me that I have the makings of a fairly decent photographer in me :)