Sports, drama and a blast

By Chitra Ahanthem This week saw two major incidents: one was literally a loud blast in our own backyard `“ the bomb blast at MG Avenue and the other happened

By Chitra Ahanthem

This week saw two major incidents: one was literally a loud blast in our own backyard `“ the bomb blast at MG Avenue and the other happened in far away Incheon in South Korea. The former left casualties, one dead and many injured. The later incident is still seeing reverberations in the media, in the sporting world and amongst the public. The bomb blast was not the first of its kind-we have seen such cases, a blast in the heart of Imphal where non migrant people could have been or not been the actual targets and then on with life as usual. What happened with Sarita (host country using unfair means to get their medal tally on the increase) and her own action thereafter despite many feeling she was `unsporting`™ in her stand of not accepting her medal has rallied people not just from Manipur or the North Eastern states but across the country as well. With the bomb blast, a sit in protest, a few releases denouncing the attack and the heads of state calling the incident `unfortunate`™ and `act of terrorism`™ is all there is to it. But there`™s more to be read into the Sarita incident, which is what this column will be about.

It`™s no secret that sports have never been accorded the respect and support that it needs in this country. Barring cricket that has got the kind of infrastructural and financial support and the media attention, no other sports discipline gets close to being promoted. But things kind of shifted in a very subtle manner following the Commonwealth Games hosted in Delhi. Yes, the media coverage did start with the scams around the Games but to be fair, it did stay on the athletes and sportspersons in the arena. And then, it became almost fashionable for various media outlets to come up with stories of sportspersons left out in the cold without any Government support: which explains why there is no dearth of former medal winners living a life of poverty, squalor and neglect. This is not to say that such stories are needed: in fact, they are necessary as they expose the almost callous nature of Sports officials and the blind eye that the Sports Ministry and various associations associated with Sports in the country.
But in the end, what all these stories have ended up doing is make this apathy towards sportspersons in the country almost normal and acceptable and that we are all fine with how things are going.

And yet, when Laishram Sarita refused to accept her bronze medal, it was as if the floodgates of public opinion gushed forth. The last time I did a Google news search, there were more than 1000 news items on the medal. On social media networks, the wave of comments made Sarita `trend`™ (which means most talked about) with the most heartwarming take away being that mainstream media were suddenly talking about the trails of sportspersons besides slamming sports officials. The swell of support that the boxer has received from people across countries and regions has not been kept in the real of media footprints and the online world but has brought other forms of support in terms of awards. The most interesting is the one that has come in from the Olympic Gold Quest, an initiative started by Geet Sethi, a professional Billiards player and winner of various tittles and Prakash Padukone, again a well respected sportsperson who has bagged various international tittles in Badminton. The agency has not only honoured the boxer with a cash award of Rs 10 lakhs but has also earmarked another 10 lakhs to take care of her training needs. Another boxer that this agency has been supporting for the past many years is of course Mary Kom who may well find herself facing some rough times in wake of her most recent comments over Sarita refusing to take her medal.

End-point:

Mary Kom, as we know earlier said she kind of showed her support for Sarita when she said that the later was treated unfairly but in her most recent interviews said that Sarita should not have done what she did. When regular folks go into the right and wrong of what Sarita did at the medal ceremony, it is not such a huge thing but to have Mary Kom and Sarita pitted one against the another is a little bit unfortunate given that there was an earlier incident involving Mary Kom where she was said to have said before the media in Mizoram that Manipuri media was baised against her and in favor of Sarita. This was of course a reference to the rumblings over Mary `taking over`™ Sarita`™s weight category for her Olympic participation. If Mary Kom`™s latest statement snowballs into a major controversy given the state of the public emotions, she should not be surprised. After all, Manipuris love ethos and drama.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/10/sports-drama-and-a-blast/

On reading and books

By Chitra Ahanthem Lately, there is this ‘tag friends with your list of 10 books that have deeply influenced you’ going about on a social networking site. The exercise is

By Chitra Ahanthem

Lately, there is this ‘tag friends with your list of 10 books that have deeply influenced you’ going about on a social networking site. The exercise is meant to be done without thinking too much and just come up with the 10 book list in the shortest time possible by the end of which the list is to be shared with 10 other people. Anything to do with books is of great interest for me and I got down to mentally sort out a list but while going about it, I realized that one person’s list would keep on changing over the course of life. Right now, my list of 10 books includes only four books (Vikram Seth’s Golden Gate, Bridges of Madison County, Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead and The French Lieutenant’s woman by John Fowles) that I read in my college days with the rest being ones that I read in the last four to five years. Only one book from my high school days (Gone with the wind) made it to the list while Kiran Nagarrkar’s Cuckold; In other rooms, other wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin; Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi; The moon and six pence by Maugham, The house of spirits by Isabelle Allende had only been read in the last five years.

If the same task were set to me when I was in high school, my book list would have been mostly of those written by Sidney Sheldon whose strong woman characters around whom the plots revolved, made a deep impression on me. Charles Dicken’s Great Expectations would have in that list too because it wasn’t maudlin or fall into the category of ‘sad books’ that I relegated his other works like Tales of two cities or Oliver Twist to. It would take me years to revisit the same books and appreciate them. From what I remember of that period, getting books to read was not an easy task then with school libraries not really stocking up on popular reading materials for young people and most people caught under the spell of Mills and Boons romances. At best, one read what was available on the borrowing circuit and growing up among older male relatives, I ended up reading a whole lot of black and while cowboy comic books and quite a few books by Louis Amor`. With relatives in the legal sector, there were Perry Mason books that opened up for me how the legal system and crime investigations worked in another country.

It was College that opened up a broader range in my reading. The college library had a staggering collection of books, journals and magazines while second hand book sales made it possible to buy books at cheap rates but the best part of living out of Imphal was to be able to stroll among thousands of books and browse through them in the kind of book stores that one is still to come across here. Living in hostel along with other students who took on varied subjects meant being able to exchange a whole eclectic range of books and authors. Reading books took a hit once I came back home and more so with a long illness in the family and then death but after emerging out of an acute phase of book reading mental block, I discovered online book stores that have more than made up for the lack of books and book stores here in Imphal. If asked to name 10 books that left a lasting impression on my mind during the college days then, it would definitely be a range of literary works including works by Marquez, Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy amongst others.

Looking back, it is amusing that one had to send a bank draft to be able to order books online earlier for all it takes now is a few minutes to pay online through net-banking, though of course one has to pray for a good enough internet connection to be able to complete bank transactions. Additionally, the emergence of private courier services (call it the interplay of demand and supply) have made deliveries swifter (mental shudder here remembering the days of online orders headed via slow post…er, normal post packages).

End-point:

Earlier, one came across books through personal interactions: either you had someone recommending a book in person or came across books sitting in someone’s home or work place which you then picked up and read. Now of course, it is easier to discover and hear about books and authors in the virtual world with various internet book discussion forums and book chats. The reach of social networking sites have in fact been tapped in by publishing houses and authors to promote their books through live chats, lucky draws et el. The advent of e-book reading devices are now available that makes it possible to read books on the move without having to carry the actual books. But this last bit is something that I am yet to warm up to for I do not find enough delight in reading long texts from a computer screen and nothing beats the feel of paper and reading actual print. Enough of only talking about books: after all, they are supposed to be read and the latest book challenge I am part of, that of reading 24 books for 2014 now stands at 21 books off the mark. I see the 22nd book of this year waiting for me to read…gotta go and read up!

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/08/on-reading-and-books/

Notes on writing

By: Chitra Ahanthem There have been various instances when people have tried to nudge towards writing on an array of subjects. This outgoing week, one person sent me a very

By: Chitra Ahanthem

There have been various instances when people have tried to nudge towards writing on an array of subjects. This outgoing week, one person sent me a very indignant SMS asking me why students were getting neck deep into politics by getting involved in the ILP agitations instead of sitting in their class rooms to study. Earlier, the same friend had asked me why ‘everyone was silent on the bomb blast near Manipur University but all loud when security personnel commit excesses.’ Over the week-end, while waiting for my flight at Imphal airport another person who happens to be a well known voice on All India radio (Imphal) who had made a visit to the women’s restrooms in the waiting area asked me to write about the sorry state of the airport. These two are only recent instances but it’s become common for people to ask me to write about certain incidents or issues but whenever such occasions arise, I feel a range of emotions. First is an immediate chuckle that people are actually being very kind and green behind their ears if they think or believe that anybody listens at all when we write and point out what is going off track. The second reaction is the bit where reality bites and I know nothing happens with anything, that there is just too much of thick skin at the level where there needs to be responses.

Yet, having said that, the only thing that a wordsmith can do is merely string up words and sentences: to pitch an idea, to make a point, to just write. If in the path of writing, one’s words move someone to respond that is always an additional pleasure but that is something that may or may not happen. Then again, with the outburst of social media sites, who really cares for well thought about arguments or viewpoints when everybody with an internet connection has the freedom to rant, accuse, make allegations and throw insults left, right and center? Everybody but everybody is an expert and the trend is to have as many ‘friends’ as possible whose ‘likes’ or comments are taken as the yardstick for one’s popularity. Ask anyone with an internet connection and who has accounts on social networking sites what their main activity is and the answer will be to update ‘what are you thinking’. Not many will have given a thought to whether it is important to let the world and its relatives know what one is feeling/thinking/eating/going where/doing what. And yet, that’s what a majority of people do on social networking sites, sharing personal updates and pictures.

Care enough for a social cause? Ah! But all it takes is just a bit of sharing a news link, a bit of rants, a bit of opinions on the issue and bingo, the number of ‘likes’ that garners or the number of ‘shares’ it evokes, is the indicator of your levity and your response to the issue at hand. In this backdrop, the revelations of personal information being taken over by various corporate bodies to make their forays into your online world ought to make us more careful with what we post and what we share, given the technological advances. To cite an example, how many times have we used the internet search engine to say book flights or a particular product and then later on swamped by advertisements on other web pages? That ought to tell us that even as we use the internet to read up or look up anything, the internet is not only keeping track of what we are up to but is sharing that information with companies who want to advertise their products. Get a bit scary huh?

End-point:

I don’t know how it goes with other folks but with me, I can’t help thinking that social networking sites with their constant ‘what are you thinking’ puts a sort of pressure (for lack of a proper word that defines what I am trying to say here) on us to be more profound, more knowledgeable, more involved and engaged; never mind if all of that and more does not really help things when they matter. Confused? Don’t be for it is common to see status updates of people flagging emotional outbursts or very solid arguments about say child labor while not giving it away that they themselves engage underage children as house helps. Talk about online life being far removed from real life! And no, this is no one sided look at the disadvantages of social networking sites and what people do with it. There must surely be advantages to them but the only one I can see for myself is that they are wonderful mediums to track long lost friends: the kind you have not met in years though on the flip side (yet again), one needs to be also aware that people you do not really want to stay in touch with can also pop up!

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/08/notes-on-writing/

The media files

The post The media files appeared first on  KanglaOnline.com.The media files By Chitra Ahanthem The IFP Saturday edition’s photo, showing a bloodied hand and a shining if not sparkling gun held as ‘proof’ of the: ‘UG fired at us, we fired back…

The post The media files appeared first on  KanglaOnline.com.

The media files By Chitra Ahanthem The IFP Saturday edition’s photo, showing a bloodied hand and a shining if not sparkling gun held as ‘proof’ of the: ‘UG fired at us, we fired back and shot him dead’ theory nailed … Continue reading

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Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/10/the-media-files/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-media-files

Passport to inconvenience!

The post Passport to inconvenience! appeared first on  KanglaOnline.com.Passport to inconvenience! Chitra Ahanthem By an unexpected play of fate, which took me out of the country recently, I was able to apply for my Passport renewal at the Regional Pa…

The post Passport to inconvenience! appeared first on  KanglaOnline.com.

Passport to inconvenience! Chitra Ahanthem By an unexpected play of fate, which took me out of the country recently, I was able to apply for my Passport renewal at the Regional Passport Office in Guwahati last week as my return … Continue reading

The post Passport to inconvenience! appeared first on  KanglaOnline.com.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/09/passport-to-inconvenience/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=passport-to-inconvenience

That chip on the shoulder?

By Chitra Ahanthem Having missed out on so many Sunday pages of Imphal Free Press,… more »

By Chitra Ahanthem
Having missed out on so many Sunday pages of Imphal Free Press, it sure is a relief to be able to write again: the blame lies entirely with the Electricity Department in between. Meanwhile, a lot has been happening in Manipur all this time – regular surrender ceremonies that armed groups say are staged and security forces tout as successful initiatives for peace; the hide and seek game of picking up children for recruiting as child soldiers take v/s children leaving homes on their own accord to join armed groups take despite the fact that those under 18 as not having gained adulthood cannot make decisions on their own and guardians have to step in to do the same; the regular MLA tours of their constituencies accompanied by photos in papers and nothing much happening afterwards et el. But the burning topic is a huge issue called “racial discrimination” that has popped up in the national media in a twist of irony.

The ‘ironic’ bit comes in because Manipur and other states in the North East region are often blanked out in national newspapers and TV channels: so if highways are blocked for months on end, some media folks (on the national level) may pontificate on their social networking avatars about it but not give much coverage or raise the issue; if fake encounters are happening left, right and center the statistics will end up as tickers on the TV screen and has 1 paragraph reports but not go further than that. At best, the national media has only looked at the region as ‘exotica’ and surface reporting, not bothering enough for analysis or understanding of the region, its issues and its people. So, there will be generalizations: “so, one person in every 100 in Manipur is HIV positive?” That was someone in a mainstream news outlet asking me and I merely wanted to laugh out loud at his ignorance. For him, it did not matter that 4 other states in India (Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland) have the same HIV/AIDS epidemiology trends. He was much too intent on making a story out of it without getting into the details. There are just too many generalizations about the region than I would care to write here.

It took two unfortunate deaths of two young people from the region in two metro cities to get the media panting with feverish zeal. The bit of where the deaths happened is critical to the story. If the deaths had happened in the region, the media attention would not have happened and neither would the buzz over ‘racial discrimination’ threaten to become a rousing bandwagon. The discussions on social networking sites are currently adrenaline fuelled with outbursts of being “racially discriminated”. Only a few voices call for internalizing the issue and ask whether the same persons are also not discriminating of other minorities within their own groups. Predictably enough, these voices are shut down with vitriol.

Everyone on the bandwagon has stories of being called names by other people, of being teased. The convenient amnesia is over the bit of these same people using names for other people different from them, over how over-zealous males strut with ‘how dare our women change their surnames when they marry outsiders’. With regard to how police are dragging their legs over the death of Richard Loitam, no one wants to talk about the real thing: that the legal and police system is greatly flawed and that it takes either power and position or public protests to make sure that even a complaint is registered regardless of the nature of the crime and who commits it. Richard Loitam belonged to a lesser power position as someone not from the state (Karnatake) but that does not mean ‘racial discrimination’ was the only root cause as it is made out to be. Many other people in the country and the NE region have died without getting justice while many others languish in jails because the legal and police system plays into the politics of power, pull and position. But it took the chest beating over ‘racial discrimination’ to get the media all excited. Then came the hangers on: political posturing (for brownie points) and certain people getting their moment(s) of fame on national media time and space. More power to them but has anyone thought about the core issue of whether the charge of ‘racial discrimination’ is true at all?

That infamous manual for people from the NE region released by the Delhi Police some years ago was a serious issue of discrimination. It asked people from the region to follow certain codes of dressing and what sort of food to eat (“non smelly”!!). But apart from this uncalled for guideline that was meant for everyone in the region, the rest cannot be called as discrimination upfront. Let’s go back to history and look at the Black’s Civil Rights Movement: when public transport systems had separate seating for Blacks and whites, when there were separate and segregated spaces for the Black people. That was racial discrimination: when everything boiled down to race and the rights of the Blacks were not considered at all. Do people from the NE region have a segregated space in public life? In getting their due when they have merit? The answer is a big no for people from the region have made it to the top in various professions and can sit in Competitive Examinations. Racial discrimination is a civil and political issue whereas the current outpourings over not being made to feel to belong are emotive ones. The sooner we realize this and the national media gets it, the better mind-frame we can get in to engage on the various layers that confront us today.

Unfortunately, the innate nature of minority voices being shut down has also meant that the juggernaut on ‘racial discrimination’ is drowning out saner voices though a few have stood out. Swar Thounaojam a young playwright and a theatre director based in Bangalore raises some core issues: “Why are the prime time news channels, all based in New Delhi, enthusiastically taking up the Fight Racism against the North East cudgel? Because it is the most lightweight of cudgels to pick up and you can use it to pontificate on national integration and the diversity of India. Another offshoot of this debate is the sporadic growth of a stereotyping of the Mongoloid population from the NE as a bunch of people with attitude and victim complex issues. The greatest problem with the current racism debate is conflating region with race. India doesn’t yet have a full-fledged articulation of the discrimination faced by its minority Mongoloid population. No contemporary Indian philosopher, intellectual or social scientist has contextualized the stratification of this particular population – from NE, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, China etc – and we are all struggling from the lack of specific political and social idioms that would have helped us examine the state of the nation critically.”

End Point:
As this piece ends, I can almost sense the amount of hate filled comments that will emerge from within my own community. But if we had no space for debates and discussions, aren’t we falling prey to the “either you are with us or against us” phenomenon that is the root cause of all forms of discrimination? Discrimination is not of race alone, it has also got to do with minority voices. I end with another sane opinion made by a young friend Devakishor Soraisham : “TV channels and prominent members of the `civil society` of Manipur, enough with the discussions about `racism discrimination of NE people by the rest of India` for now! Please! Let us not divert from the real problem here, that of justice denied to a student killed! And before we accuse others of being discriminating, let us look at ourselves first.”

Just a note again: Anyone remember the names of the 18 migrant labourers who got killed a few years ago? The diktat by an armed group asking ALL migrant labourers to leave the state, failing which they would be killed? Now, what was that? And what did we do?

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/05/that-chip-on-the-shoulder/

Dear Electricity Department: Please shed some light!

BY Chitra Ahanthem Today’s FOOTNOTES is a first ever: it is an open letter and… more »

BY Chitra Ahanthem
Today’s FOOTNOTES is a first ever: it is an open letter and entreaty to the Electricity Department, it is an elegy to all the time I have lost more than half my mind trying to figure what to do when the light/electricity goes off while I am writing and I am stuck with a deadline that I have to meet, it is a cry for help. One reads newspaper reports that the entire state will be electrified by 2020: but if electrification means rationing out a few hours of electricity per day, pray what achievement is that supposed to be? There is a PIL seeking adequate electricity but nothing much has happened. Rather, the ration of some 5 and a half hours of electricity that happens in 3 cycles every 24 hrs has been recently decreased. It has now become a 3 hour ration of power/electricity/light every 24 hours.

Five and a half hours of electricity was difficult for most people. One still had to juggle every plug point in the house: charge mobile handsets, the battery and the inverter, do the ironing, washing, operating the water pump, heat the water and what not. Since the 5 and a half hour would be spread in three cycles (one for the morning, afternoon and night) it meant that one could only do certain things at the said hours. This would be the norm in every household. For people earning a livelihood by taking up small industries like rice milling, vehicle workshops and others; the short spells of electricity means loss of their earnings or having to invest in generators. The later meant that extra cost for petrol or diesel, which in turn raised the cost of services.

As someone operating on a freelance basis and working from home, I do not have an office, which takes away the electricity factor for me. That means I have lost the number of times I have gnashed and gritted my teeth in frustration when I am in the middle of a report I am writing or an article that I am trying to finish while the laptop battery shows a thin red blip that says “only 9 minutes left”. I have also lost count of the number of times I have lugged my laptop and left it to be charged (turn by turn) at 5 different houses in my locality where they have VIP electricity connectivity. I have also found that it is very distracting when I try to write in somebody else’s home and plus, there is always the added factor of discomfort of having people ask why I am doing what I am doing.

I am also genuinely confused over the “VIP line” : does it mean 24X7 electricity can be given to ONLY to VIPs? Or does it mean that it is a VIP line in itself? As it is, one hears that file moving fees and getting the necessary approval for the VIP line does make it special. I will not have any chance at all if this line is meant for VIPs: in no way can an unemployed and freelance writer and researcher ever have the VIP tag. Could the department please clarify who is a VIP and/or what needs to be done to get the VIP line? I am told that a person who is granted the VIP line must pay for the cable lines and that normally the grand total of the money needed to get such a line would be something in the bracket of 50-60 thousand ruppees. The simple maths tell me, that could be one reason why the 24X7 electric supply is called the VIP line: normal people would think many times before spending that much.

What then is the alternative, dear Electricity Department? One reads of power drives and bill drives and then you seem to forget everything and go back to square one. Manipur certainly must be the only place in the whole wide world where people have to pay their electric bills not per usage but by a fixed rate and that too, pay for the electric that is never there! Like many households, my family invested in a Moreh bought set pair of a battery and an inverter to make up for power shortage at nights. This was in 2000. We always thought the situation of electricity would one day improve: we are now into our third set of battery and inverter! However. Having a Moreh bought inverter and battery set (or even an Indian made set for that matter) really does not help: one cannot use the power so generated to iron, heat water, run the water pump and in my case, plug in my laptop to write!

Three hours of electricity for every 24 hours possibly means that the electricity department of Manipur may well have a shot at an entry in the Guiness book of world records. There are power cuts or load-shedding(s) happening everywhere but a mere 3 hours of power supply! Should we then congratulate you or hang our heads in shame that we the public, have allowed this to happen?

End-point:
You could not have given us the 3 hour electric supply as a New Year gift or is it supposed to be a prank? I certainly hope it’s the later. So we have found it funny. Look, it’s even featured in FOOTNOTES so please, let’s stop the prank now shall we? If this is indeed serious business and is an omen of how the hours without electricity will only get longer, one shudders to think of going back to the dark ages literally. If this was anyplace but Manipur, I would have thought of reading my citizen rights: I would have pointed out to the international charters and covenants and said the state is meant to give its citizens a life of dignity and that would mean electricity, water supply and good roads. I would have thought of taking you to court and suing you for my consumer rights. But this is Manipur, where everything can happen but where everything that should happen, does NOT happen. And because this is Manipur, I will now start (or attempt) to look at how that blasted VIP line can reach my house.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/dear-electricity-department-please-shed-some-light/

A B`day note for E-pao

BY Chitra Ahanthem That Manipur has a generation of people living outside of the state… more »

BY Chitra Ahanthem
That Manipur has a generation of people living outside of the state and establishing themselves in their respective sphere of work is an accepted norm. Name any major city or town in the country and you have Manipuris leading corporations and private sector firms, in the hospitality sector, banks and what not. Over the years, there is an increasing number of Manipuris staying outside the state and the country who on their part are trying to keep themselves abreast of what happens back in their backyard. And though most major newspapers do have their websites, the number of hits is far more on private web site initiatives, which carries new, views and various other interactive features. The story of E-pao (www.e-pao.net) is one of innovation, social reach and information. The journey is nothing short of inspiring (that’s why this mention in Footnotes) considering how the idea of E-pao began to take shape from the first few years to the phenomenon it has become today.

Staring out 12 years ago, E-pao has become a storehouse of information on Manipur: it’s people and traditions. As it stands now, there are more profiles of personalities from the state on the E-pao website than the globally known wikipedia. A list of questions mailed to E-pao threw back astounding figures: 19 profiles of bands/musicians, a total of 48 profiles on musicians/singers/film personalities including directors, make up artistes, actors, 37 profiles of Manipuri women achievers and 28 profiles of Manipuri National award winners (ranging from Padma Shri to sports awards to those in film and culture etc).

Launched on 31st Dec 1999, E-pao was the accumulated effort of a group of young people based in Bangalore who felt the need for a web exposure of Mnaipuris. The group had initially thought about creating a e-newsletter for circulation through e-mail but subsequent brain storming sessions and designs later, the idea took the shape of a web-site. While local newspapers agreed to share their news updates with the site, a diverse group of people, mostly software engineers stepped forth with their assistance in designing applications and web pages. E-frenz, a social network application/service was added in 2001, long before popular social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook caught global attention.

Other popular additions to the web site have been the yellow pages section and the officials directory that lists down phone numbers and contacts of business establishments and important government offices in the state. The ‘announcement’ web page on the site runs itself on the basis of people sending in calls for interview/job placements/employment opportunities and examination notifications, thereby facilitating an immediate information flow for Manipuris based outside the state to keep themselves in the loop about what openings exist.

What makes E-pao popular? The answer lies in the amazing range of foras it has created for people removed far from their homes but connected by this one forum where one can learn Meitei Mayek to catching the local cable news in its video section, where people can send in their creative outputs like poems and articles to recipe lists of Manipuri dishes, to checking out the latest pictures coming in from the state. At times popular rock concerts or other social happenings in the state have been uploaded in the video section of the web site following go ahead from local program organizers etc thereby creating an immediate buzz and connectivity between what happens in the state and people living outside. E-pao’s willingness to chart new territories have made the site to reckon with: their online coverage of the General elections in 2000 when the web site had just begun says a lot about team at work. Over the years, it has also won popular points because of the various opinion polls on a wide array of the serious to the mundane issues, internet/online voting for selecting beauty queens in the state and a directory for searching Manipuri baby names. Other very popular sections are the music section that puts a huge collection of songs from the soulfully old gems (Pahari, Sanaton, Shyam, Jamuna and others) to the craze of the current generation (Ranbir Thouna, Sadananda, popular rock bands).

My own usage of E-pao started when I began to work for various agencies for media studies and research. Very often, newspaper offices would not get back after my request to access their archives and E-pao was one resource that came in to help me out. It also helps that there is generally more feedback and more online buzz to the same news report on the site than on the actual site of the newspaper from which E-pao carries their news! The feedback section to most news reports and opinion pieces often get vitriolic and often insulting but one can take that expression as a reading for the angst of a generation left with violence, corruption and helplessness. Having said that, there is a need for more careful scrutiny of certain articles that are carried by the web site. I remember the shock I felt when a friend sent me a link to the site: it was a write up by a young man who kept his identity anonymous and then went on to write a long article about the girl he had been in a relationship who had left him. This young man in question named the girl, gave her address and then went on to slander her. To e-pao’s credit, they immediately took off the article when it was brought to their notice. But once careful scrutiny of independent contributions are taken care of, E-pao can only continue from strength to strength and cater to the many Manipuris who are scattered around the globe.

End-point:
As another begins with the dismal announcement that a certain group has announced public curfew to stop new year festivities and picnics, here’s wishing Team E-pao crossing many more milestones in the future. May E-pao continue to keep bridging the gaps of distance and poor connectivity. May the team keep on introducing more interactive platforms within your website. Take a bow!

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/a-bday-note-for-epao/

As the Year Ends…

By Chitra Ahanthem Well!FOOTNOTES has missed its Sunday date with the IFP page for two… more »

By Chitra Ahanthem
Well!FOOTNOTES has missed its Sunday date with the IFP page for two consecutive Sundays now. The first Sunday space was made up by the translation of Irom Sharmila’s message which she had handed over to me as I was waiting to talk with her on behalf of a journalist who came down in Imphal. The second Sunday date miss out happened thanks to electric load shedding, which happens to be a pet peeve. Everyone without a VIP electric line connection lives through a close to 18 hour or more electric cut in a 24 hr cycle. This means that people like myself who work from home have to resort to near cases of hair pulling (my own self) while trying to meet submission deadlines. I have resorted to walking into people’s offices and their homes (on a rotation basis so I don’t over extend their hospitality!) after checking on the “on” and “off” of electric supply. One time, I sat down at the lobby of the government-run Hotel Imphal, pretending I was invited for some seminar and/or waiting for someone, just so I could charge my laptop!

But to come to the year end period, it is time to look at how the year rounded off without going into what happened on a day to day or episodic happening. Rather, we will look at some specific happenings that took place this year from the nature of my association with them. The year 2011 began by taking away two major cultural and historical icons of Manipur- Imashi MK Binodini and N. Khelchandra. I only had only one personal interaction with the later while accompanying a camera crew that had come down from Mumbai in 2004. The project was to look at linkages between dance and symbolism and I remember a certain goose bump moment when the film director was asking whether there are any linkages between dance and martial arts. Pandit Khelchandra started answering with a “yes” and started to explain a bit and then he simply stopped himself and started to show the connection between the two.

With Imashi, I had a close and longer interaction lasting for 8 years. I came back home one day to find that Imashi had called me up. When I called back, she asked me if I could translate a radio play that she had adapted from a short story that another person had written. There would be no money in the translation, I was told. I went ahead anyway because I was aware that Imashi Binodine was very particular about her works being translated into English. I wanted to know whether she would be satisfied with my efforts. I would like to think that I was able to satisfy Imashi’s artistic sensibilities for in 2006 (or was it 2007?) I and another former IFP colleague were approached to work on translating “Maharaj Churachandgi Imung” a book that is a collection of her memoirs of her royal family. Again, there was hardly any money to the venture: my former colleague and myself were paid a thousand rupees each and we set out to translate half the book between ourselves. We were also made to understand that our names would be acknowledged as first draft translators but we went ahead because we wanted a connection with Imashi. Thanks to the fact that my house is not that far from Imashi’s house, I was able to spend quite some time after Imashi Binodini became bed-ridden and I will treasure all my moments of talking with her. The memory of her soft, “Ibemma, you are so tiny. I have seen you on TV and you look a bit large there”, stays with me as the year comes to an end shortly.

The blockade in 2011 made it to the record books because of its length. The length of queues for petrol remained the same though the petrol cost went a bit further than when the 2010 blockade happened. Another marginal difference was the presence of national and international media following up with the blockade spectacle in the state. While it was encouraging that what happens in the state is being spotlighted (though not to the desired level) in the national media platforms, I have my own doubts of whether journalists who come in for a few days at the most and end up speaking to only a few people they are recommended to speak to (and often, they speak to the same set of people too) can do a real study of the situation.

End-point:
The year ends on the buzz over the assembly elections happening in January. Many thought that the elections would be sometime in February but now with the election dates having been announced for a single polling, what happens in the few days to the year wrapping off and the new year coming in will be worth a watch.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/as-the-year-ends/

Manipur as a travel/tourist destination

By Chitra Ahanthem That Manipur has many things to offer to travelers and tourists alike in terms of places to see or as destination points is no secret. So when… Read more »

By Chitra Ahanthem

The list goes on…but for now let’s hope the tourism department is reading this piece

That Manipur has many things to offer to travelers and tourists alike in terms of places to see or as destination points is no secret. So when a team from the state taking part in a tourism mart came back with the tag of the state being an upcoming tourism destination, it was not a surprise. But one sincerely hopes that tourists and travelers when they do come to this “exciting destination” are not left unpleasantly surprised by how unprepared we are. Since it is the season of media censures and newspaper bans (not to forget the vitriol that will spawn on internet web pages in the form of comments and debates), let me hasten to add that one is not disputing the tag of a great destination. However I will vehemently dispute the nature of the destination(s) in Manipur.

Here are some reasonings behind my take:

– Social networking sites are often choc a bloc with positive comments and inquires following photo album updates of sights, scenes and locations of the state. The more adventurous even want to sample local cuisines (we will look into this too, but later) but anyone has any idea why none of the decent hotels in Manipur have the local cuisine in their spread? Check in any hotel and you will see their menus with the usual Chinese, Tandoori and Continental segments. Yes, local cuisine gets served at conferences and seminars but we are not talking of that.

– Accommodation issues are a sore point once those projecting Manipur as a tourism destination are thinking of taking them tourists to places beyond Imphal. The Government has to really spruce up the Government rest houses in the district headquarters at least. The tourist lodge at Sendra comes to mind mainly because of the buzz over the Loktak lake. Unfortunately, it stinks of urine and one is not clear whether it is open to hosting tourists. There used to be a private hotel (very small, and one that comes with no star rating) in Moirang but it soon became a dingy place. I recently saw the outer structure getting a new coat of paint (some rather hideous colour). One sincerely hopes that they have done something about the inside rooms as well: I distinctly remember a one night stay with a camera team that came in from Mumbai to video shoot the Moirang Lai Harouba. The bathroom had no water in the taps! Unlike tourists, travelers do not look at luxury but there is something called comfort. A clean bed and toilet-bathroom and home-made meals are often what takes it to make a great travel spot.

– Combine the first two points written above and one can see how unprepared we are! As far as the beauty of places go or the excitement factor goes, there really is no lack of places. Think Moirang and apart from Loktak lake, there is a huge scope for making the area the favorite destination for wildlife enthusiasts by introducing activities like camping at the Keibul Lamjao National park for one; angling around Sendra (that would mean taking away the Army psst..psst!). These and more can be done only after there is a proper accommodation set up at Moirang. But the same applies everywhere else once one moves away from Imphal. Think Ukhrul and one thinks immediately of the Siroi peak and the Siroi lily. But again, it is the same accommodation issue here too. Yet, if this factor gets taken care of, other areas in Ukhrul apart from the Siroi peak can be put on the tourist map. Think Nungbi, think of Khangkhui Cave, think Kachouphung Lake. Let’s now imagine a situation where accommodation gets taken care of (and for this, we are not talking necessarily only of big hotels but home stays or community efforts) and then we have the immense potential of bringing local community people as trekking guides (for Siroi peak), pottery tutors (for tourists who want to have a try at making pottery) besides of course boosting the traditional handloom and handicraft industry. The story repeats itself for every other district: think the Thanlon caves, think of river rafting on the Barak but….

– Before the tourists or travelers comes in from outside the state, ever wondered why the tourism department has not looked at home tourists? Most states have week-end getaways with accommodation logistics being developed precisely to generate income from within the state. There is definitely a huge market for this in Manipur as well.
End-point:

This is going to be a bit longer than the usual end-point. Keeping in mind the topic, let me stick to a point format on what can be done or thought about:
– Adopt a heritage walk program for the Kangla. A light and sound show is a must and can bring in locals too, thereby generating money also for the concerned department. But a guided tour (in English) inside the fort is needed for tourists, which is also good news for the educated but unemployed section. Much like heritage walks, there can be a cultural emphasis too. There are various harvesting festivals in the state and there would be immense interest in them.

– Do something about the transportation segment. We do not have a pre paid vehicle system at the airport, which is supposedly being considered for an “International” tag. The distance from the airport to the hotels in town are very short as compared to the distances that gets commuted in other cities but the charge that the van/tata safari/auto syndicate charge on a mutually agreed upon rate (and hence, harder to negotiate and bargain with) is much steeper. There is an imperative need to have vehicle services registered and following a Government standard rate. Once this gets done, they must also get petrol from the government depot so they do not hike up the vehicle hiring rates when highway blockades comes calling!).

– There is a strong need to change the concept of the Sangai Tourism festival. Till date, it is a carbon copy of any other “Mela” in town: one sees the same stalls, the same agencies. All you see are glittering blouses and sandals and cheap plastic toys for children being sold at hiked rates. Yes, there is talk of bringing in “international stalls” but pray, how does that help tourist foot-fall? Instead, bring in new blood and new ideas. Think out if the box initiatives like perhaps a photo walk: call in paid registrations from within and outside the state. For those coming in from outside, give them subsidized stays so they can spread the word for the next festival.

– Ah well! The list goes on…but for now let’s hope the tourism department is reading this piece!

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/manipur-as-a-traveltourist-destination/

Meeting Notes: Anna Hazare and Sharmila Irom

  By Chitra Ahanthem It was 1997, the year India was marking her 50th year of Independence. There would have been many celebrations of this momentous occasion but only one… Read more »

 

By Chitra Ahanthem
It was 1997, the year India was marking her 50th year of Independence. There would have been many celebrations of this momentous occasion but only one unique observation of this historical timeline stays on with me: a NGO based in Mumbai was taking about 250 young people from India and across the world to places of India’s history and future in a train specially reserved for the purpose! The announcement was made on a popular cultural TV program (which we don’t see the likes of now) called Surabhi beamed on Doordarshan and various other newspapers. It was a happy moment when I got confirmation that I was to be one of the said young people on the train that would ultimately travel for 11 days across the country facilitating interactions with people who were inspiring: Mark Tully, Abdul Kalam (then with ISRO and who talked us then of the possibility of an Indian moon mission which did become a reality!), Bunker Roy of Tillonia (married to Aruna Roy and behind hugely successful rural enterprises, water harvesting, adult literacy among others in Tillonia in Rajashthan), Kiran Bedi (much before her controversial stint in Mizoram) and Anna Hazare who was known at that point of time mostly for his pioneering work in Ralegan Siddhi, a village in Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra.

The said rail yatra was mainly organized to instill in young people the essence of leadership, innovation and social development. The routine was that we would be traveling in the train non-stop till we reached the places we were meant to be and then getting back to the train for the night. So, there was an air of curiosity when we were told that we would have an overnight stay at Ralegan Siddhi to meet a Gandhian who had taken up rural conservation and community work. The villagers took us around the place and we were told how small canals had been dug up to generate water flow. But it was two things that impressed me greatly: a school for juvenile children and the practice of Shramdaan or volunteer work as a form of social charity. The school had classrooms but if the children so wanted, classes would be held under the shade of trees in the open. There were yoga classes for “anger management” while most constructions in the village: the small dams, solar panels, wells, places of worship were all built through Shramdaan.

In the evening, we sat in a community hall and then, in walked Anna who spoke of his “second life” (he was the lone survivor during an enemy attack during an India-Pakistan war). We talked then mostly of philosophy and working for social upliftment. Like many of my fellow yatris, we thought nothing much about questioning his rigid stand against alcoholics (they were beaten up, period) and I even piped in my two bit and told him how Nishabandi women in Manipur were also doing the same! It would take me some years to understand the concept of public health and harm reduction and see that the greater crime of punitive measures on substance abusers only marginalizes them and do nothing about addressing the dependency. Anna Hazare’s activism against corruption started later and one cannot say much of what happened in between. But personally, the posturing Anna that one sees on TV (wagging fingers and dictating terms) is a very different person from the Anna I met all those years ago. The Anna then actually asked us young people on what we thought he should incorporate more into his work in his village in terms of forest and water conservation etc. The Anna one gets to see now refuses any kind of disagreement with his thoughts and beliefs.

November 2000 and a young woman called Irom Sharmila decided to fast to protest after 10 civillians were gunned down at Malom. My first reaction then (and I am/ not ashamed to own up to this now) was that it would be some token fast. Some days later, there was the “fast against AFSPA till the act is taken off” context and I thought that hers was an illogical/irrational and totally crazy stand to take. I also shrugged it off as “some group must be behind her” motive. I totally bought the “AFSPA is necessary till there are insurgents” theory for quite a long time till my own readings on militarism and armed conflicts around the world and conflict resolution/reconciliation processes made me sit up and engage in some serious questioning.

The first meeting happened in March 2009 during her customary yearly release. It was total chaos: there was a meeting of over 50 odd woman journalists from all over the country happening in Imphal and they all wanted to meet her. And then, there was the usual local media attention too. The first meeting was more of a brief sighting especially since I did not believe I needed to add my own questions to the many that were being addressed to her.

The second meeting happened in a unique setting: something that I have only shared with a few friends but one that can be let out in the public domain now. January 2010 saw me with very high fever after a trip to Bangkok and my Uncle, a doctor asked me to get a swine flu test done. Since he was with Jawarlal Nehru hospital then, I went there. Those who follow news would be aware that I was tested positive for swine flu but much before that news broke, I was raising hell over the state of the isolation ward at the hospital. What I did not want to call attention to the media then was that while I was standing outside the isolation ward with the face mask on, waiting for hospital staff to find the keys to the room (they took about an hour and a half!) I saw a familiar figure some 10 metres away from me. It was Sharmila Irom! My heart plummeted inside me: here was this one person I wanted to talk with and I was supposedly at risk of an infection that I could pass on to her. I have a small face and the mask covered most of it and I saw Iche Sharmila looking quizzically at me. I rolled my eyes at her and hoped that she would not come near (I did not want to be responsible for her health!). When eventually, my test results came in positive, I wasn’t too worried about my own health (I did not take Tamiflu medication) or my family (they did not have any fever) but I obsessively kept an ear open for any news on Sharmila’s health!

In May 2010, I got third time lucky and I had a long meeting with Iche Sharmila. I was going along as a sort of translator for a journalist and writer. We talked mostly of non-political issues: of her books and poetry we talked at great length. And then she took both my hands and said solemnly, “remember when you were at this hospital with your mask on?” And then she laughed and told me, “you don’t know the amount of activity and consternation that happened here after you left!” There was no air of moral superiority following the status of icon-hood that has settled on her: I was face to face with a unique person yes but also a normal human being, a young woman kept in isolation but very aware of the world around her.

End-point:
Many people have pitched Anna Hazare’s crusade against corruption and Sharmila Irom’s stand against AFSPA. But their stands are different and the battlefield totally apart from each other. My own interaction with both of them happened at different times and stages of their journey. But what stays on following my interactions with Iche Sharmila are the little ways in which she is so much a person than an icon. It is something that one does not get to see in other people who take on the mantle of greatness.

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Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/09/meeting-notes-anna-hazare-and-sharmila-irom/

Doctor rounds

By Chitra Ahanthem Once upon a time, a trip to a doctor meant a pretty decent time interval where the doctor would take patient history and then follow it up… Read more »

By Chitra Ahanthem
Once upon a time, a trip to a doctor meant a pretty decent time interval where the doctor would take patient history and then follow it up only with required medication instructions. Looking at those times, it is also a matter of great irony that though there were lesser doctors then and few private clinics, there would never be a rush of people waiting for their turns to be medically examined. But they say changes are the only constant of life and the scene has changed and how! For one, the number of doctors and specialized ones has increased and so has the number of private clinics and hospitals and doctors on private service. But along with the number of doctors increasing (and we are talking mainly of urban centers), there is also an ever growing number of people who are becoming inclined towards seeking health services.

There are interesting insights into the phenomenon of seeking health care. There is of course, the fact that people are becoming more aware about the need to be concerned about their health and to take medical opinion. But on the other end of the spectrum is also the fact that urban life styles have added to new medical ailments. Over and above these areas, there is a disquieting tendency for doctors to treat their patients like money spinning enterprises. There is rarely any doctor (doing private practice) in Imphal or for that matter, in the district headquarters who do not charge a set patient consultation fee. Most of these doctors have a family member or a relative manning a sort of ticket table. They allocate serial numbers and take the consultation charge. The going rate at present is Rs. 200 on the first consultation and Rs. 100 for every follow up medical check up. 99.99 per cent of the time, the doctor will give a list of medicines that you have to buy and the ticket attendant will lead you to the in house pharmacy. Chances are also that you will find free doctor samples of medicines being sold.

This piece today is certainly not a chest beating or vitriolic rant against the medical community in Imphal but a mere mirror image of the practices that has become totally normal. It is certainly not a stand-alone practice for the same situation exists in urban areas and cities. But one wishes that there was a standard set of rules or code of conduct and ethics that the medical fraternity here would stick to. Most private clinics that I have seen functioning outside the state have a social responsibility program where they give subsidized health care to senior citizens and people with poor economic backgrounds. I happened to take my son for a surgery for plugging his leaking tear sac at the Nethralaya Eye Institute and was very impressed by the standard of health care and quality that justified with the amount of money they were charging. They had a patient counseling session where they explained the operation and what would follow later on. But what impressed me most was the fact that they had free surgery and medication policy for senior citizens and people from poor backgrounds. For the later, they checked with BPL cards and when I asked what would happen in cases where people do not come with any official documentation specifying that so and so is poor, I was told that the one thumb rule to check such cases was the desperation of people seeking services and the state of their appearance. I was told that it was as simple as that!

Personally, I have nothing against doctors on private practice so long as they are not shirking their Government work timings. It is I as a consumer, and customer and patient party who is aware that I can also seek his service at a subsidized rate at the government hospital where he/she is practicing. And if this “I” feel that waiting at a hospital is not in the order of things, it is only fair that “I” pay for the time that the doctor has devoted to me. But having said that, there are many areas that need to be considered from the doctor’s viewpoint that justifies the money that is being charged for his consultation. For one, it would do well to have a strict order of who gets in first. Very often, doctors have a set consultation time, which is known or announced. Patients troop in and an attendant, who allocates a serial number, takes down their names. But mostly, the serial numbers do not matter because someone they know or some one in their social circle drops in unannounced for a check up. Also, there are certain doctors who will give first priority towards the patients they have been administering at his/her government hospital set up but who follow up with him later on a private consultation basis. This would mean that they would jump the waiting list and ruffle up a few feathers.

End-point:
They say that an apple a day keeps the doctor away but either, something is wrong with the apples or the doctors have become indispensible for on an average basis, about 4 people out of 10 would most definitely be seeking medical attention or consultation at any given time: if not for his own self, for a family member, for a child etc.

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Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/doctor-rounds/

Flood flashback

Chitra Ahanthem The rains it seems are good only in films. The languorous pitter-patter of rains over the past week in Imphal has led to the inundation of small lanes… Read more »

Chitra Ahanthem
The rains it seems are good only in films. The languorous pitter-patter of rains over the past week in Imphal has led to the inundation of small lanes and many roads across town. On a happier note, the rains have not spared anyone but merrily mired people in slush and mud, regardless of social hierarchies and flooding embankments and residential areas and office complexes. Whoever thought rain could turn out to be a great social leveler? The rich and the powerful with all their might and the grandeur of their homes have to face the ignominy of having their homes encroached upon by water from nearby drains that in turn have become mere slivers of water being clogged with plastic and other rubbish. Drains have more or less disappeared from sight over the years following the concrete jungle fixation, the greed for more land and the presence of the evil plastic bags that everyone seems to love throwing everywhere.
And while nothing about floods can be romantic, the current situation of flash floods arising out of water deluge following brief showers brings back the memories of excitement associated with floods, and a big one at that. The 1989 floods happened sometime in summer, which makes that spectacle more than two decades old. We were in school then, a period that was yet to be marked by internet or mobile phones or even cable TV. Doordarshan and All India Radio were the only means of entertainment and news but our own inherent tendency for kumhei meant that people would go out in droves and move about town taking stock of how the flood was advancing. They called it “eeshing chaoba yengba”  and it was more or less effective in warning people about when to pack things in the house and get ready for the flooding. Sometimes, people would set up their fishing nets in places where there was flooding and come back boasting about their catch. In most cases, it was the news that came from this ventures that would warn people much before the local news on AIR!

Nude wires over the Nambul river, plastic garbage in background Photo credit: Chitra Ahanthem

Looking at it now, it is rather strange that before my own experience of the 1989 floods, we had only the hearsay of our own parents of their flood experiences during their own childhood. This gave it the rose tinted outlook: floods sounded like so much fun! That would be an understatement in more ways than one. For starters, my father ended up joining his friends for a “eeshing chaoba yengba chatba” expedition and it was while he was away that the floods decided to come calling! As my younger siblings slept through the night, I was slogging with my mother: we had to pack books and clothes and keep them on higher locations inside the house. We had to wedge in bricks under the hen-coop and repeat the same exercise for the small thatched granary that we had at home. Father came in home after we had done the first stocktaking and calmly said, “the floods have come.” It was as if we still had that fact to be pointed out to us when we had been already been scrambling about with water swirling around our ankles in the house!

Scene in the heart of Imphal: Paona Bazaar. Photo credit: Chitra Ahanthem

But that frantic rush as it turned out later, was not enough. My treasured comic collection was sogged and so was a large part of the granary. My younger brother who had been besotted by two small ducklings and had them in a small cage was heart broken to find later that the waters carried away the ducks: cage and all! Much later after the water receded, the paddy that got wet developed white moulds but the price of rice had gone up after the floods. So we ended up eating pungent smelling rice for a long time and I pestered my parents asking whether our paddy had turned to the huikap breed (it is said that huikap is so called because the taste is so vile as to make even dogs cry!) because of the floods. This would come later but after the scrambling, there was the element of fun that started out with the first morning after the floods came: the sight of an uncle and a cousin rowing on a raft made of the trunk of banana plants. Of course, the lanes in our locality will no longer fit such a contraption now but back then lanes within Leikais were broad and people asked about the welfare of their neighbours. Uncle was telling us that people had started packing their belongings and taking shelter in his building and other tall structures. He sent in a rickshaw to ferry my siblings and myself and we spent 3-4 days with our extended family in their building, a tall one that was still being constructed.
The most vivid memory of that time is the picture of all of us surrounding grand-father as he would tune into the local news on AIR and hearing about when the flood level would go down. There was great excitement and chaos when some snakes came out crawling and the usual circus following naughty children trying out water adventures: the later got taken care of through some trashing! But the fun times did not last long: we had two doctors in the family and they promptly vaccinated all of us children so we did not get any funny infections (am not sure what those injections were about still). Then my maternal grand mother came to fetch us to her home at Kakwa, which was not touched by the flood. I stayed with her for 2 weeks till it was announced that schools would be open once again. That brought the end of all excitement but the after effects of the flood was still around when we got back. We came home to the sight of our mother scrubbing the mud off the hens!
End-point:
That was then and much has changed. While there are many places around Imphal and its outskirts that stay under flood for a day and more, thankfully they do not remain submerged for days on end. Having said that though, it would be disastrous to remain complacent about floods. The sight of nude electric power lines and cables hanging oh so near above the water surface on the Nambul river is enough to give me ulcers. The flash floods that happen after every brief downpour also continues to be an eye-sore and speaks volumes of how we are not taking care of waste disposals and drainage and sewerage around our houses. Most houses have got added height in their ground floor structures following ground leveling but if each of us can care enough to also think of what lies beyond our own homes, then we could actually get down to living without the slush and the mud. So long as drains remain clogged with plastic or worse, get to vanishing point, the sight of concrete surrounded by slush will remain.

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Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/RdToN5YZ9WA/

Watching Hindi films: A personal revolt!

By Chitra Ahanthem Ah well! Imphal now has a cinema theatre showing the latest English films after a more than decade long break. But the news does nothing for me… Read more »

By Chitra Ahanthem
Ah well! Imphal now has a cinema theatre showing the latest English films after a more than decade long break. But the news does nothing for me bent on my own personal revolt of watching Hindi films. Heck, it was that ban way back in 2000 that made me so stark raving mad, I wrote a letter to the editor (IFP) dripping with sarcasm (NOT at my editor but to the folks who live under the ground…er!) and pointing out Hindi film bans should consider the tastes of people like me who love the clichéd “Bolywood jhatkas and matkas”. That letter was carried in IFP and I went on to write more and more till Editor called me in to write every Sunday. Unfortunately, the ban on Hindi films and TV channels stayed on and led to many other after effects including the theatres becoming departmental stores, educational institutions on one hand and depriving many women who earlier sold cinema ticket “in black” from earning a living. For me, the ban did not just make me write that letter but triggered an almost obsessive compulsion for Hindi films. I had to watch them because they were banned. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t given to watching them in the theatres every other day. Neither did I go the “borrow from the CD library way” prior to the ban: it would only be a “watch the ones I want when I want” basis. But once the ban came on, there was no way I was going to let it go unchallenged!

The first way of beating the ban was to watch pirated copies: they were now more cost inducing for me because of the ban again. Prices had gone up but often, I would rouse younger relatives and we would contribute on shared basis. But the aggressive eeyambas also went overboard and set about warning those selling Hindi films or either seizing them and horror of horrors (!), setting them on fire. The mention of fire reminds me of a hilarious (but very seriously discussed then!) anecdote: an aunt of mine living on the outskirts of Imphal and also a Meira Paibi (the eeyambas had this great show, continued to this day where they call in attention loving Meira Paibis who want their photos in newspapers and their screaming aggressive postures on TV every time there is an “anti-social drive”) called me up. She was hyperventilating- not because she would be in the papers the next day overseeing a truck load of Hindi films being burned on behalf of the eeyambas but because she wanted to ask me which ones I wanted for myself before the fire ceremony started. She got me quite an armful of them in the end!

Back then, I was a full time NGO employee and though there were times of getting out of the state (read, going to places where there was no ban), such trips were totally work oriented and so rushed that it would mostly be a trip to the airport to the place of my destination, then the hotel (for seminar, workshop etc) and back again. The movie watching experience then wasn’t worth pursuing alone: issues of safety and ticket availability were foremost on mind. The norm then was single screen theatres where every social strata packed in: the aggressive auto or truck driver lot who were prone to mad revelry every time an “item” song came on screen but worst, those looking for a physical grope taking advantage of the rush of people at such places. My only way to Hindi film Nirvana was hotel cable/dish TV. The moment I checked in, I would ask at reception,” Do you have Hindi films on cable TV?”

But once the multiplexes arrived on the scene, there was no stopping me! Every opportunity to travel to Delhi for work was a divine blessing for me once cinema multiplexes came into being. Delhi meant the additional safety net of my siblings and I would drag them one by one to watch films. Watching “Chak de” with my brother stands out: the sound effects of the theatre were such that when the hockey matches in the film happened along with the film sounds of whistling, clapping etc, I naturally turned around and asked my brother, “who was whistling?” He gave me a very disgusted look that was suggestive of my country bumpkin status and told me very firmly that he would not watch another Hindi film with me ever! Of course, given such an ultimatum, I could only drag him to another show of “Gandhi, my father” at the same multiplex: not a regular song and dance movie but the sound effect was my latest love. My brother would get back with his own: the next cinema outing on my next trip to Delhi saw him tricking me into thinking he had got me the tickets for the latest Bollywood film and I was easily conned since multiplexes have different posters for all the films they show…I went happily and went into silent disapproving mode when I realized that he was making me watch “Casino Royale” instead!

The James Bond movie episode marred my Hindi movie trips with my brother as I no longer trusted his ticket buying instincts! On a more serious note, I found that I could go on for a solo movie trip in the evening in metros and come back safely to my hotel. Whenever, a trip outside the state was around the corner, I would check show timings and theatre locations on the internet: check distances and landmarks on Google maps and then work out an itinerary…all for Hindi films! During the course of my trips, I found that Aizawl does not have a cinema theatre except for a family theatre put up for family of Assam Riffles personnel and other hangers on. Dimapur had none either except private screenings of Hollywood movies. In Shillong, I found a cinema theatre right in the middle of Police bazaar that I would have otherwise missed if not for my “where is the latest Hindi film being shown?” journey! I went inside and found I was only the 9th person in the entire beer bottle strewn hall dotted with giggling students in their school dresses and 2 couples who had their own reasons for getting into a dark cinema theatre.

End-point:
Objectively, Hindi films aren’t the best of films in the world: they are based on formula, melodrama and often have sharp lines drawn up between the good guys and the bad guys, therein making the viewers easily judgmental. Before my own discovery of other world movies and certain Hollywood films, it would only be Hindi films for me for their sheer music and dialogue play. But the ban on them has only added to the melodrama aspect and like any typical Hindi film, I have my ‘setting’ of friends based outside the state who will happily send me the latest DVDs and pull my legs over when my next movie outing is scheduled. To them and the folks who put on the ban, I can only borrow from a Hindi film dialogue: picture abhi baaki hain…(meaning the show isn’t over).

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Thoughts in Random

By Chitra Ahanthem Two Sundays have gone by without this column making it to the pages of Imphal Free Press or on the web page of www.kanglaonline.com, a popular web… Read more »

By Chitra Ahanthem
Two Sundays have gone by without this column making it to the pages of Imphal Free Press or on the web page of www.kanglaonline.com, a popular web site that has for some years been carrying news, features and photos from IFP. Mostly, it is the erratic power supply that makes writing difficult: it is never easy to think at leisure and develop the spontaneity that is required at a stretch when the mind is occupied with lap top battery power that decreases as one types in words and attempts to capture transient feelings. At one point of time, there was such a thing as writing by hand and journalists made do with typewriters. But the winds of change and habits are such that once computers made their presence, it has become difficult for most people to write long notes by hand. It is amusing too, the way we all tend to wail and sigh over “the old times” at one point of time or the other while we subtly get seduced by the technology and fast pace of our lives.

A two-week get together of my siblings who like most other people left home for better avenues of life and careers to leave behind empty beds in the house saw an overkill of nostalgia and musing over “the old times” at home. A home coming of all siblings after 3 years meant revisiting elaborate dishes being prepared instead of the usual fare of Kangshoi and Eromba. Along with the presence of the entire family came delectable dishes and side dishes like chagempomba, utti, nga khabak, paknam, ushoi kangshu etc on the dining table. Though these dishes and items are not fancy stuff, it goes without saying that working mothers prefer not to take time out to prepare them in the kitchen as everyday fare and more so if there are just 2 adults and one kid in the family. One sibling scoured the market to get the typical Meitei thum (salt) plates while another sibling waited at the neighbourhood pan dukan for the ‘king bon’ (the common term for the poorer version of cream buns, a traditional English bakery/confectionary item: on another tangent, is the ‘king bon’ something that came in from outside Manipur or a common and poor legacy of the British Raj in Manipur?). Yet another sibling had to taste “OK chicken” at any cost. And yes, the full fare of keli chana, singju, kabok muri.

With me it is the other way round. I have lived all my life in Manipur except for 3 years of college life and naturally, every annual homecoming saw me gorging on local delicacies then. But because my daily life is rooted in the sights, sounds, feel and taste of home; my trips outside the state comprises of jaunts to coffee cafes for chocolate desserts and gelato ice creams and other items that one does not get to sample here (besides a trip to a movie theatre to catch the latest Hindi movie…just to get back for the ban on Hindi films back home!). A case of “the grass is greener on the other side?” but definitely more than that. My rush for all things that one doesn’t get to see or sample back home reflects me straining against the limitations of my existence back home while the rush for all things familiar by my siblings and the many others who have settled outside of their roots reflect a journey of rediscovery: something more deeper and ephemeral. It is a time of reclaiming their sense of belonging despite having opted for physically cutting themselves off from their homes.

A trip down “the good old days” won’t be complete if we don’t touch upon what has changed and is changing. The children of today are the best mirrors of bringing the marks of change in the ways of our lives. And if at the other end of the prism we pitch the generation of our grand parents, the gap between the two is stark. Extended family get togethers following the return of my siblings brought home my maternal grand mother (in her 80’s perhaps) who recounted for us how she had been carried on the back of a family member during the wake of the Japanese bombings over Imphal. As my younger brother posed for photos with her all the while remarking on the photo display over the best picture captures, I ended up asking her whether she remembered her first ever photograph taken of herself. That one question led to an interesting capture of perceptions: taking photographs was not common then. She said she was at one of the receptions of Jawaharlal Nehru (no, hers was not a political presence there but an event where she and her friends had gone to see the handsome Prime Minister of the country!) where their group had a photo taken with someone in the PM’s entourage who looked sinister (am racking my head over who that could have been).

When we asked whether that photograph was still around, she left us flabbergasted when she replied saying rather off handedly that she burnt the picture after Nehru died. Reason? She feared that his death was an omen to all the people with whom Nehru had been photographed! Another gem of information from my grandmother was that weddings were not supposed to be photographed even though cameras were in existence. She went into a short rant over how weddings at present have become photo opportunities for everyone to the extent of leaving out family members and friends from seeing wedding rites properly despite being part of the ceremony. “Nowadays, those who attend the weddings also miss out on the ceremonies because everyone with their cameras block the view,” she said. And then I see my six year-old son insisting that he wants to check on every picture that I click of him, “so you can delete the ones where I don’t look good (or “yo” enough!)” and I see that the only constant thing about life is change.

End-point:
Seeing two different ends of change is a funny experience and more so because I, and others of my own generation hold the in-between. Even as we grapple over the way life has changed, our children will only know that change but not the life before them. We cannot fault them for being born into a changed world but at best, give them a sense of the journey that their elders ventured. I speak for myself here: for a long time, I would be ashamed whenever my parents tried to speak in Hindi or English with non-Manipuri friends. I cringed every time they mispronounced something or voiced a grammatical error: not anymore. I realize now that because of their own limited exposure to education and social interactions, they have made us more exposed to the world. And I know that what we will give our children today would be the legacy of having the best of what change brings to their lives.

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The Yaoshang factor

By: Chitra Ahanthem As another Yaoshang (holi) rolled off the calendar, one thing keeps coming back to mind: has the festival changed or is it my perception? As small children,… Read more »

By: Chitra Ahanthem As another Yaoshang (holi) rolled off the calendar, one thing keeps coming back to mind: has the festival changed or is it my perception? As small children,… Read more »

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RTE: winds of change or a passing breeze?

By: Chitra Ahanthem The topic of education in Manipur has various layers of complexities considering the way all educational institutions gets affected by the cycle of bandhs, curfews, school closures… Read more »

By: Chitra Ahanthem
The topic of education in Manipur has various layers of complexities considering the way all educational institutions gets affected by the cycle of bandhs, curfews, school closures etc. On one hand is the apathy that exists in Government schools where teachers hanker after increase in their salary structures while on the other hand we have private schools mushrooming around us. The irony lies in the fact that teachers in the private sector are grossly underpaid, and work over time while the standard of education in Government schools is such that parents who teach in Government schools actually send their children to the private run schools! Yet, every private school is not the answer to putting in value in education. There have been many cases where schools have been set up and vanish within less than a year; of schools running without any recognition and flouting norms etc.

Yet, with school academic sessions just around the corner, most parents who are looking towards the school admissions of their children would be busy keeping a watch on admission norms and procedures. Schools on their part, but specifically private run institutions are busy running advertisements in various media forms to hold the attention of the parents. It has long been a norm for young children to be submitted to entrance level examinations. But post April 1, 2010 it may not be the same anymore for private schools.

April 1, 2010 was when the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE), came into effect after it was passed by the Indian parliament on 4 August 2009. The Act provides for free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India. It has its share of social protection for children of weaker sections and those with special needs with the Act specifying that the State must even provide for transportation support for such children. One interesting feature is the specification that every school must have a school management committee in place that is to be comprised of parents (75%) and the remaining being teachers, community leaders, education experts etc. The Act also puts the impetus on the state to ensure that parents send their children, which is obviously aimed at keeping children who do labour. To do this, the Act specifies that no extra fees will be taken from children in schools as capitation charges (exam fees, laboratory fees and others).
In the context of Manipur where academic sessions are affected by the regular cycle of bandhs, strikes, curfews and school shutdowns thanks to the fragile law and order situation in the state, parents and guardians have looked at the easy way out by encouraging private classes, also known as “tutions”. The RTE Act bans teachers working in government or private elementary schools are banned from taking private classes. But mostly, while Government schools looks set to have their infrastructure resources being upgraded it is the private schools that will have their wings clipped. They can no longer subject a child to tests or interviews for admissions, which will now have to be based on random selection.

The RTE provisions cover quite a lot of ground and one column will not suffice to cover every bit of it. For now though, we can begin by looking at the Manipur context of how the Act needs to be implemented and ensured. The first mandate for the State Government would be to get on board the various Student groups and civil society organizations as stakeholders towards ensuring the right to education. Unless there is a consensus that education be left out of the sphere of disturbances that happen in the state, the Act will not really transfer into anything of value. Schools and school students have borne the brunt of various political agitations in the state so far every year. The 3 month long shut down of schools in 2009 is a case in point here.
An important inclusion of the Act is the ban on corporal punishment in schools and that students cannot be detained or expelled. But what of violence among students? I will make my point by illustrating with the example of a private school in Manipur, (the school will not be named) which has parents as the main stakeholders and part of the management board. This example will reflect what can well happen in every school when School Management Committees with parents as main stakeholders come into effect: a student beat up another student to the point that the second student suffered from concussions and a broken nose. The child who was involved in the beating had been implicated in other acts of violence against other students in the past and the school head decided on expulsion. The school managing board did not allow this to happen and the head of the school resigned followed by other teachers.

The question here is not whether the school head should have expelled the child in the first place but what the school board was doing when the earlier cases of student violence had been reported. Would teachers have to pay every time such cases came to light? Just as every child has a right to free education, every student has the right to being in a safe environment in school. Unless there is strong support system of trained counsellors at schools to look into matters of student violence and other juvenile behaviour, keeping a rein on disciplinary action may affect the morale among teachers.

End-point:
Education is a huge investment for the future and all stakeholders have to ensure that the opportunities that the RTE gives to the citizens of the country, but specially its young citizens are properly channelized. Having said that, the gaps in the Act and its application to the local context of Manipur need to be looked at thoroughly.

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Where is Imphal?

Chitra Ahanthem. What would you do if two people with cameras slung around their necks walk up to you and try and coax you to hold a placard that says,… Read more »

Chitra Ahanthem.

What would you do if two people with cameras slung around their necks walk up to you and try and coax you to hold a placard that says, “Where is Imphal?” and pose for the camera? One migrant balloon seller retorted back with “Imphal is certainly not in Kashmir!” Confused?

Well! The two people with camera and placard in hand happen to be IFP editor Pradip Phanjoubam, a tall man (by Manipuri standards) and myself (short, by any standards!). We were looking for places (and will continue to do so) and moods to convey about Imphal city. First stop was the War Cemetery and for lack of any subjects, I had to “model” with the placard that said: “WHERE IS IMPHAL ? ” It was late afternoon and there were only young couples who would look furtively around to see if their pictures were being taken. But two small girls who had come with their grand father saved the day. They became our first models. The next stop was on Bir Tikendrajit Road where a vegetable vendor sat about doing her business with the placard placed near her. Later, we would take pictures of polo ponies and small boys holding the placard inside Pologround; balloon sellers at Samu Makhong and an old gentleman who saw us struggling with putting the placard at the base of the statue. He got a pedestrian walking past to pose with him, both of them holding up the placard. Still confused?

So well! The story starts with a public art project, “WHERE IS HEIDENHEIM?” based in the Heidenheim Zietung, a local newspaper of Hedienheim in Germany. The project format was developed by artists Tina O’Connell from Ireland and Neal White from the United Kingdom who says of their project, “We see public sculpture more as a malleable process informed by broader social contexts, and not bound in form by physical materiality, but through the flux and dynamics of
events, which in turn become the substance and context of our own practice.”

Connecting globally many ‘local newspapers’, the project occupies public space as an exploration of the connection between a community and its own printed voice. The project is made in response to the perceived threat to local newspapers from the internet. The first link paper to take part in the exchange with Heidenheim Zietung in August 2010 was ‘The Wendover Times’ from Utah in the USA. The story of the work was printed on the front page and then reprinted as a whole page inside the Heidenheim Zeitung. Further copies of the Wendover Times were distributed in a vending machine next to a large 6 metre
sign that has been erected in Heidenheim. Newspaper stories continue to be run in both papers thus creating a bridge between two small towns separated by distance but coming together in content and flavor.

The “Where is Imphal?” photo feature will first be published in Imphal Free Press, the newspaper copies of which would be sent to Heidenheim Zietung, the newspaper in Heidenheim in Germany. They will then print the entire page from the Imphal Free press – inlcuding other articles and news on that page, as a full page inside their own paper and order copies of the paper for distribution in Heidenheim.

Sounds crazy? But then, it is a load of fun trying to coax people to hold the placard while we aim our cameras at them. Our plan for the photo feature would be to look not only at landmarks of the city but also at the essence of Imphal city: its pulse, its noise and chaos. Our only stumbling block is the part about talking to people and convincing them to pose for pictures. Candid camera shots are easier and rather than risk the afternoon light from fading too much, we ended up being models ourselves. Me “shooting” my editor and vice versa! In the process, we had our share of “who are those two weird people?” kind of look directed towards us. Sometimes, people would disperse real quick, the moment we walked up to them and stood near to them with the placard.

End-point:

For this week, if you see the tall man (Editor!) and the human version of the caricature that comes along with this column in IFP (me) approaching you anywhere around Imphal, please smile for the camera and be a sport!

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Let children be themselves

Chitra Ahanthem. This week threw a major surprise in the form of a newspaper advertisement in a daily Manipuri newspaper. It was an announcement for a “Manipur Barbie Queen contest”… Read more »

Chitra Ahanthem.

This week threw a major surprise in the form of a newspaper advertisement in a daily Manipuri newspaper. It was an announcement for a “Manipur Barbie Queen contest” for under 12 year olds to be held at in the hall of the memorial to Subhash Chandra Bose at INA, Moirang! While there is no dearth of shocking developments taking place around us like the very recent warning to private mobile service providers to wrap up their mobile towers and the deafening silence from the civil bodies; this small advertisement made me blink in shock. Just how have we reached this plane where sensibilities have disappeared?

Children Beauty Contest Advertisement in a Daily Manipuri Newspaper

First of all, the sheer madness of it! How can girls younger than 12 years compete in a beauty contest? And then, a contest that is named after Barbie; the classic prototype of blond and anorexic? Won’t a beauty contest for young children be a classic case of child exploitation and rights violation? What parameters would be used to judge the young participants? These questions trouble me deeply. A child is beautiful in his or her own way regardless of features or attire. It is their inherent innocence and playful nature. So why should beauty contests happen where children will be made to look like caricatures of adults?

Children can pull at heart-strings. They can also be a market decider. That is why most print and visual advertisements feature children, regardless of whether the product being sold is a toothpaste, soap, noodles, car and other vehicles, electric appliances et el. The strategy works because when a child sees another child possessing something that he/she does not have, her concentration goes to that
object. Try saying a “no” to a child who after popular advertisements for snacks wants a packet. You can risk it at the cost of your ear-drums being shattered by unending wails. My own soon to be 6 year old explains to me kindly: “Mama, they also say brushing your teeth twice a day keeps off all germs. So why can’t I have a pack of Uncle Chips/Bingo/Mamoos…?” Try getting past that logic! And while building a brand with a child appearing in its advertisement is another matter altogether, the concept of beauty contests for young children may well be unethical and violating norms of child protection. Some of the Constitutional rights that may well end up being violated are Article 39 (vocation unsuited to age, protection of children against exploitation), Article 45 (no child below 14
years shall be engaged in hazardous employment) and Article 46 (protection from social injustice and exploitation). Also, every child has a right to participate in cultural activities that may include songs, dance and any other artistic pursuit recognized to be healthy. But a beauty contest for young children cannot be termed “healthy” by any stretch of imagination.

But how do such contests tend to go towards exploitation? The answer is clear on this: with children as the main players, there will be parents who will happily assume that the contest is a platform for their child to show her talent, to prove herself. Some critics can even turn around and question my disquiet saying: “but if the parents are comfortable with their young children taking part in a beauty contest, why raise a hue and cry?” The fact is that most parents will not look critically into the question. They will get carried away by the hype, the shot at 3 minutes of fame n local channels and newspapers, the few amount of prize money but not consider that such a contest will only serve the interest of everyone concerned but for the children taking part in it. That is where the child would end up being exploited by all parties concerned.

Some time earlier, there was intense debate on a national level around the nature of “talent contests” on TV channels that featured child artists and hopefuls as participants. The debate happened following the emotional and mental break down of a young child participating in a music reality show. She had been given a public and very vocal criticism of her performance and went into such trauma that she had to be hospitalized. Following this incident, there was a public and media scrutiny over the nature of children taking part in such talent contests: how many hours would they have to practice before they went on TV, how many hours they would get to rest and sleep and play and how much can children take in as public criticism. Soon, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) came up with strict laws for TV shows involving children. These call for a counselor on the sets of the show, limited working hours and no deep make-up for children.

End-point:

Competitions are part of the process of growing up but when it is tied to the concept of beauty, it gets into a difficult terrain. Perhaps the organizers of this soon to be held contest have not thought much into it and gone ahead with their planning. But it is not too late to consider what demons they might well unleash in the lives of the young girls. Small little girls who will walk under public scrutiny and perform songs or dance or whatever it is they have to do to take way a crown that will be meaningless in a place where they don’t have a clue over their future and its safety. PS: A photograph of the advertisement along with a calling attention has been sent to the Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights to alert them about this forth-coming event. This step had to be taken up on an individual level following the silence from NGOs working for Child rights Protection in the state at the time of writing this column.

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