Days of my Life

What a frenetically hectic time of year this is. The floor tiles took 2 and a half days to put in but almost double that time to clean up the dust and dirt that resulted. The Assembly election results surprised everyone with the Congress that's been kept down for two terms coming back with a bang. It made me realise that Mizos don't do things by half plus we do things unanimously. When something's the flavour of the people, everyone jumps on the bandwagon not wanting to be left out.

The day the votes were counted, something terrible happened that we'd long been dreading. One of our dogs Mami died after a week long illness. She was 11 years old and absolutely devoted to my sister P. Was a constant, ever faithful companion. Never left the room without her mistress and only deigned to trot behind her wheelchair when absolutely necessary. Her passing numbed us all. Rest in peace, little one.

On the evening of the first day we began working on the floors, someone stole my sister M's cell phone from the dining table. We can't imagine who could have had the audacity to slip in and calmly pick up the phone with its charger. That cheeky bit of burglary coupled with Mami's death, and the fact that our dogs are somewhat elderly anyway made us decide to put in a steel gate. A few thousand bucks poorer, we're now happily planning to use it to put up Christmas lights.

Then a couple of days last week, the Sunday School kids had a special camp just before their confirmation as full-fledged church members. My responsibility, alongwith 6 or 7 others, was in the kitchen, in the food dept. and preparing food four times a day for almost 100 people and cleaning up after them is no joke, believe me. We literally spent time washing mountains of dirty dishes, cups and spoons et al, and then immediately sitting down to peel and cut potatoes for the next meal, slicing veggies etc etc. E-x-h-a-u-s-t-i-n-g. And it was so cold and dark in the kitchen too.

It's hard to believe there's only just a couple days left for Christmas. Everything's so pretty and beautiful again. Everyone seems all agog with expectations, and there's so much goodwill being generated. It's a bit sad though that with cell phone connectivity, the old tradition of sending and receiving Christmas cards has almost disappeared. Of course, simply sending batches of instant sms-es on Christmas day to near and dear ones is so easy but there's a certain something in receiving lovely paper cards. Ah well, some things change but some good things abide still. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Poll Day Woozeheads & a Winter Love Song

Mizoram went to the polls yesterday to vote in a new house of legislators for the next 5 years. Since Monday we've been hard at work around the house putting in burnt orange-brown floor tiles and the house is a mess of workers, water sloshing all over the floor and cement dust coating everything within sight. So my sister and I had to clean up good to go cast our votes. At the last moment I realised I didn't have my regulatory electoral ID card with me and couldn't remember where I'd left it. It wasn't where I thought it was supposed to be. Not in my wallet, not on my table, not in my drawer, not in my wardrobe. I frantically rummaged through my messy room, swearing I'd really get down to cleaning up as soon as possible as I keep meaning to. The dratted ID wasn't in sight and I wondered if I'd have to skip exercising my franchise this time. Then as I breathed a quick fervent prayer, I remembered my bedside Bible. I often store really, really important things there and gloryosky, there was my ID card nestling between the front cover and first page. Like they say, the Bible always has the answer to your prayers!

Here's a beautiful love song I just recently heard and love to pieces. Song for a Winter's Night written by the Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, hauntingly sung here by Sarah McLachlan and Jewel with footage from the movie King Arthur (which I haven't watched yet btw). All the snow makes me über cold and I can't believe they're all actually moving around in those thin pieces of clothing! And while we don't exactly have snow in this part of the world, well, turns out Lightfoot wrote these lyrics not in the middle of a Canadian winter with snow falling outside but during a thunderstorm in July.

If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
On this winter's night with you
And to be once again with you

For you, baby...

The Bold and the Beautiful

I've said this before but it doesn't seem to have flushed the rats out yet so here we go again. I'm seriously pissed at all those snoops who regularly invade my blogspace but don't bother to leave a courtesy note. Even just a little line saying Hello I was here, nice blog you have here or whatever. So to those furtive lurkers from Apia, Samoa, Singapore and Calcutta, West Bengal, whoever you are, either step forward and introduce yourselves or quit spying on me.

On to happier things, ever been on the panel of a beauty pageant? Ok, so beauty pageants aren't quite politically correct anymore but the enthusiasm they generate is still enormous. Especially at the undergrad level. And especially among the male population of said level.

At work, we have these little pageants as part of the annual sports and socio cultural fests and I've been on the panel for the third year running. Not exactly all fun and games as you might suppose. There's usually a great deal of planning and coordination that goes on behind the scenes. The girls practise catwalking and general deportment and are made to watch videos of past year competitions. And then of course, there's the little prerequisite that not very many beauty queen hopefuls enjoy - the interview round.

The first time I was a judge, the three of us on the panel, all female by the way, hadn't been told about it in advance. At the last minute, we were just told we had to ask a question of each contestant. Whoa, thinking up intelligent but not too taxing, things to ask at such short notice and in front of a very interested audience is not exactly a picnic at the park. All I could think of was What's your favourite colour. Naaaw, my two agitated co-judges said, something a little more complex. Another colleague sitting with us had obviously watched a few more pageants on TV and was able to come up with a little more happening questions. Like which person do you admire most and why. We ordered her to write out good questions to ask while we assessed the girls who'd already begun nervously sashaying up and down the stage.

Last year, the problem was solved with a list of questions already neatly printed out for us. All we had to do was pick them off the list. The girls too had already been made acquainted with the list so they knew what to expect and were able to sound considerably more intelligent and much more composed than the previous year's batch, poor things.

This year, the interview round was simplified even further to soothe the jittery nerves of the girls by informing them, albeit just a half hour or so before the event, which question in the list they were to answer. Question #1 would go to contestant #1, and so on. All they had to worry about now was prettifying themselves and pirouetting around confidently. Which they did beautifully. Salut, here's looking at you, kids!

Land of my Heart

Today's the 14th anniversary of my mother's death. Looking back, it seems unbelievable we've gone through all these years without her..

Sad reflections apart, the view this morning is one major reason why I a-d-0-r-e winter up here in the mountains. Thick, low lying clouds fill the hills and dales making for a brilliant illusion of stormy, wild, white seas.

Having lived most of my life in mountainous terrains, I often find it extremely taxing spending any great length of time in the plains. And in especially bad moments, it gives me a feeling close to claustrophobia not being able to see anything beyond the next few buildings. In the mountains, you always have a vast, unhampered view of houses and people below or above you.

Perhaps I unconsciously draw comfort from the fact that I can actually see life around me or perhaps I'm just a mountain woman at heart.

Chilli Pickling for Dummies

Here's a nice easy way to update your blog....woops, did I say update your blog? I meant a nice easy way to make chilli pickle :D

At this time of year, we have lots of these red hot little chillies called vai-hmarchate here, literally translated into birds' eye-view chilli. Get loads of these, make sure you break off all the stems and discard any that are even partially squishy. Then get a fork and pierce little holes into them. This can get pretty tedious but it's to make sure the the oil and masala gets properly marinated into the chilli innards.

Next you get a packet of pickle masala. Told you this is a recipe for dummies!


You then liberally sprinkle it all over the pre-fork-pierced chillies, like so....


Then you heat a liberal amount of oil in a pan and pour your spicy concoction into it. Make sure the heat's not turned up too high, and keep cooking till the chillies are tender...

Wait for it to cool down and then pour into a jar. You can put it out in the sun for a couple of days or you can eat it right away if you want to. And hey presto, you're all set for a red hot chilli winter!

Looking for an Echo

Despite living in a fairly small town, as you get older and pinned down to an unrelentingly unchanging everyday routine due to work and family obligations, it's rare that you get an opportunity to travel back in time and visit old haunts. This week I jumped at the chance to go back to my old college. I haven't gone back for over 20 years though I'd heard there were plenty of changes. Thursday was the perfect opportunity. It wasn't going to be some yawningly formal do that would've kept me rooted in one spot all day but a total fun outing - my college volleyball team was playing a rival team in a fiercely contested, very noisy final. The first two games went our way after which I slipped away for a walkabout...

Once upon a time, there used to be an empty field here, behind which was an old sprawling corrugated-roofed building which housed the college hall, classrooms, library and the students' recreation room. Now there are all these separate concrete buildings and volleyball and basketball courts.

This used to be the Science building where, as the junior-most class we were regularly shunted around these classrooms with elevated back benches. I don't for a minute suppose the tables and benches are the ones we'd used long ago but the scenario looked eerily the same..

In my time, there had been just a large wooden gate at the main entrance which I can't recall ever seeing closed...

The administrative building is new and freshly painted but at least it still stands in the same place it had always stood..

And peeping in through the empty English dept. room, I was pleasantly surprised to see a sketched portrait of my old English teacher who had died shortly after I passed out. We had always adored John Ruata because apart from being a good teacher, he was young and with it. He'd once even been persuaded to get up onstage with a guitar for a song at some function. But he'd also once embarrassed me in class. In a small Honours class of some 8 or 9 students, I'd been fighting heavy eyelids and had nodded off for a minute when he remarked something along the lines of the air down in the campus valley not being quite what it should be but that didn't excuse anyone from sleeping in his class! Rest in peace, U John, amid all the echoes of happy times...

Meltdown

I'm just about all wilted out. Been a hectic last few days. Exams at work again with the obligatory morning rush to be on duty by 8.45 am. When duty calls that early, I usually skip my morning meals and make do with omelettes or some other stomach fillers at the workplace. It's always struck me as being absurdly silly that we have to rush about so berserkly just to sit quietly for the rest of the day.

And then we've been having this unusually scorching spell of Indian summer. Octobers up here in the mountains are usually mild, pleasant times when the monsoon rains and humid heat fade into a cool tranquility by day, and nights have us digging into our cupboards for light blankets to top up the quilts. This October has been anything but. First it was heavy relentless rains and then relentless searing sun. I've been having to slap on sunblock first thing in the morning and then forget to reapply.

One of the saddest things about life is losing loved ones who were part of your life for as long as you can remember. Last week, my cousin gave up the fight after a fierce struggle with cancer. One of nine children, of which six were boys, he was the last male to go. Two sisters are the only survivors of that brood. I remember loving going over to their house as a kid. They had this pomelo tree right outside the house which grew the best fruit ever and any time we wanted, we just had to get a fruit and feast on it. My cousins also had lots of friends and at a time when record players were costly, precious things to have, they had one with plenty of great LPs and singles. The house seemed to be always filled with people, long-haired and hip, and every visit was always truly a memorable experience. The old house still stands today but the tree is gone, as have the people and the music. And one by one, my cousins drop away like tired fallen leaves.

5 Life Lessons My Mother Taught Me (and Some Of Which Backfired)

With Mum and older sis

1. Bur keh thei a thil sa thun dawnin a bur tih lum phawt tur (Preheat a glass jar before pouring something hot into it). This came about one evening when I'd been heating pork fats and pouring the liquid into a glass jar which began to crack, spilling away the precious fat. Mum then gave me this piece of advice which I've never forgotten. She was like that, full of common sense and practical wisdom. I don't think she knew everything but in crunch situations, somehow she always had the knack of coming up with a practical solution to the problem.

2. Rizai sin lam zawng bik neih loh tur (Don't use just one side of a quilt or blanket, as the case might be) This one came when I once complained I needed a new quilt because the edge of one side was badly torn and dirty. She got me to bring it to her and on inspecting it, tut tutted disapprovingly. "Do you always use it just this side up?" she asked. "Yes Mum." "Well, you shouldn't do that. Use both sides, otherwise you'll quickly wear out the one side you use." Right, this one taught me to be adaptable and has stood me in good stead in several other things in life.

3. Mipa hnathawk bulah nula an thu mai mai ngai lo (Young ladies shouldn't sit around doing nothing beside working men) In an all-female family of four sisters and a widowed mother, we often needed male help around the house and usually took on hired hands. Sometimes they would be guys we knew well - neighbourhood guys who'd come over after dinner and watch TV or just drop in for some timepass. We liked those days when they'd be working on some very hard manual work and we'd hang around talking to them. That's when Mum would drop her admonitory stinker. The catch was we never did quite understand what exactly she meant. Don't distract working men or if you want to talk to working men, give them a hand. We assumed she meant the first and would quickly go looking for something productive to do elsewhere.

4. Mi mawl biak loh tur. An hminga koh zel tur (Address people by their names. It's rude just talking to people blankly) This was something Mum drilled into us right from the time we were little kids. She insisted it was impolite and rude asking people questions or just blurting out things point blank. Instead we were to always say, "Pu Biak, khawnge i kal dawn?" or "Ni Tlan, thingpui i duh em?" Mum drummed this into us so thoroughly that much later in life, there were often times when I'd meet acquaintances whose names I couldn't remember and end up passing by without a word or avoiding eye contact altogether. I've now learnt to let go of Mum's lesson in certain situations and acknowledge people with a word or a nod or a smile without actually remembering their names.

5. Aia upa zah tur (Respect your elders) Again a lesson I learned so well I sometimes have trouble with the flip side of it - respecting my juniors. Sigh, how terribly complicated life is.