Bring Back the Wow!

Sometimes my sisters and I marvel at how non-enthused kids these days are. If you ever watch New Girl, remember how Schmidt angrily spits out, “Youths!” to express his immense disdain? That’s become us.

I sound so old but back in the day, people seemed much more enthused to experience things. People putting up Christmas Decorations in the streets? Oh My God we have got to see that! Entering a new restaurant and trying out a new dish? Wow this looks so good! Visiting a new park? I’ve wanted to go since forever! First plane ride? I am half-terrified, half-eager… all-around excited! The Statue of Liberty? Sunsets? Full moons? Shawarma? Stepping out of a vehicle out on to modest little villages we don’t often travel to? Stirring giant vats full of sugarcane juice to turn it into jaggery? We don’t get to experience this often at all, this is awesome!

Maybe it was just me, or my sisters, but I doubt it.

Recently though, I feel like people are so cool they’ve stopped caring. They’ve stopped being wowed. They are no longer impressed by anything, even large-ass rubber dinosaurs in the middle of a mall. 

Speaking of malls, recently I was at Noida and a friend and I walked past a Tim Hortons at a mall and I just stopped in my tracks. I’ve ever only seen Tim Hortons in movies and TV shows. I have not eaten donuts in a long time and I don’t truly crave sweets very much anymore; I can even go days without a sweet tea these days. But a Tim Hortons was something I had never tried before and only seen on screen and I was damned if I didn’t go in and try something even just to see what the fuss was all about. 

I was not disappointed. Tim Hortons do make excellent donuts. Add that to a really nice Canadian rustic vibe setting, and wow, I was on HIMYM heaven. My friend indulged my excitement and we both enjoyed donuts and drinks. Then she accompanied me again to Def Col market where I’d once used up my pocket money on Opera Pastries and rainbow cakes. Bakery heaven. I am sure there are other pastries better than that and I would love to try them and I’ll be excited again. But for me, Def Col has always been it and I am happy to have been in the company of someone who understood that for me.

See there are some people who don’t get excitement like that. They think it kiddish. Perhaps it is. But to go through life never experiencing that kind of childish joy is something I feel is sad. Beyond what I can explain.

It's not even about things being fancy although a lot of it is precisely that. Something other than the ordinary, the mundane, the everyday. I get excited over seeing fireflies along the banks of a river at dusk. I get excited over old-fashioned multi-coloured sticky sweet corn steamed to perfection because we don’t see them all the time anymore. I get excited over seeing a zawbuang last week crossing the road just close to Sateek (or indeed last year near Tuipui D). I get excited over picking freshwater snails along the River Tiau, under a brilliant full moon, laughing into the open sky. I get excited over projects people would find silly and ridiculous. Ah feck, I get excited over new stationery.

Life does not always go the way we want. We don’t get the jobs we wished we had. We don’t get the posts we hoped to fill. We don’t stay in houses we wanted to live in. We don’t even stay friends with people we thought we’d be with forever. But that can’t bring us so low we don’t look forward to anything again. The sun keeps setting but also always ends up rising again. Tomorrow is always a new day. New people enter our lives. New happiness replaces old memories. New joy erases what we once mistook for elation. Life keeps on keeping on.

And in all this, I find it just a touch disappointing to be so jaded (or pretend to be that deadened?) that things don’t thrill you. I’ve seen sunsets and full-moons and I’ve yet to tire of it; indeed, I have never failed to be impressed. I’ve been to fancy events and Las Vegas and been suitably dazzled. I’ve been moved by music and art and I love being stirred thus. I’ve enjoyed roadtrips filled with music and people I love, or even like. Don’t waste time being so cool you don’t get to enjoy what Life can offer you. Life is actually filled with a million little wows and every wow just seems to lead to bigger wows.

Bring back the wow. It makes life so much better even when things are mostly shit around you.

Governmental Conspiracy Theories

I like a good conspiracy theory, me. Feed me one of those “the US government has a secret underground facility where they house aliens and alien artefacts and it is called Area 51” stories and I’ll believe you and immediately think of Roswell and the men in black. I am gullible, I freely admit. Tell me lies, I don’t mind. As long as the story is good. 

But if you start with something promising and then end with a lame “the government keeps it a secret because if word gets out, it is too powerful”, is when my attention wanes.

Some time back, I was educating myself on this weird hippie culture theory on how the earth was a simulation and we all had been volunteers who had chosen – pre-birth – to be born to our parents (who we had chosen, too). That Life is something like a lesson or a game and we keep learning with each incarnation. The whole everything everywhere all at once quantum thing. I was very intrigued. Exhausted, but intrigued.

The plot was lost, however, when they said this was all proven by some man who could move out of his body and let his soul travel in the astral plane.

Don’t get me wrong. They didn’t lose me there. I was still very invested. I had read and done my research on astral projections and demonology and Satanism after reading a book called “He Came To Set The Captives Free” by Rebecca Brown as a kid. (Been properly scared too, by the by). As long as the astral travelling was reasoned out with demons and Garden of Eden and the Heavenly Battle, I was still very interested. Self-aware gullible, as I said. Also, great hook on this story, just ask Hollywood – amazing spin-offs and fanfics.

The greatest difference between fiction and non-fiction, as they say, is that fiction needs to make sense. Reality doesn't always make sense. But fiction must. In that framework, even the most Murakami-esque works need to operate on a set of well-defined parameters. The outrageous must have their boundaries. Logic is necessary for fiction to work. Hence what I said about conspiracy theories. Make it as wild as you can, just back it up. And tell it well. If your story must involve the government, make sure it doesn't include an all-powerful government, the kind that is perhaps run by Heaven. And if you remember, even the bureaucracy of Heaven produced Lucifer.

So it was that I closed my research the moment they started saying the man who could astral-project was taken by NASA and they tested him and he could correctly tell them what the weather was like in whatever co-ordinates they gave him. That he could even go to Jupiter and count the rings there. But then NASA got spooked because he was proving astral projection was real and it could be taught because all humans could do it if they knew how to. Because then, prisons would have no hold on humans anymore. And the government could no longer control us.

As I keep saying, when the government gets involved, everything becomes sus.

Not because this could never be untrue. That the government might very well not want this shit out, I can believe. But assuming something of the government that it simply is incapable of is problematic for me. The government is not some super mystery entity. It is filled with people like you and I. If all this stuff happened, there will be leaks. Definitely there will be leaks. Besides which, if such a thing existed, it is basically X-Men territory so of course there will be leaks. Even without people like you and I.

This line of thought assumes something basic: that we can take people at their words, and that working for the government suddenly makes everyone super tight-lipped. Not just that, the government is also usually made up almost entirely of bumbling idiots, in all its many headed glory. It is one thing for a section of it to stay quiet. But what of others? People truly underestimate the buffoonery of people in general.

That great wit Douglas Adams said, and I quote: A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. Something about this piece reminds me of that. What a great man! Gone too soon.

Moving on, it is however interesting to think that we don’t expect the government to be competent enough to, for example, build good roads and provide sufficient electricity and shit. But suddenly when it comes to astral body projection, they are super efficient about it? And mind, it’s not just once. This is supposedly a "capability" so that assumes there are many people who can do it, or that we can train people to do it. I really am all for believing that shit like this is possible. But let's not involve the government please.

I know all of these are examples of the US government which is not my government but a government is a government whether it is the US one or the India one (or the Mizoram one, under which I work) or the Vogon one, from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Whatever differences different set-ups have, bureaucracy has a way of levelling out a lot of basic things. Also governments are run by people and people are people. Whatever cultural or temporal differences we have, there is a universality to us that bureaucracy often reveals. And I chose all these examples because I very well can NOT give examples from my own work.

I stand by what I said. Feed me lies and I shall believe you. But let’s not get carried away with government conspiracy theories. No government is that competent to contain Dr Strange level magic. No government controls its servants that efficiently. If genetically altered superhuman mutants and Stranger Things happen, there will be leaks. 

Until then, we look to Sci-fi.

109 Ramhuai

H/No 109 West Kidwai Nagar, New Delhi kha ka pa service laia a quarter awmna a ni a. Khami in aṭanga lehkha zir ho kha kan imaginative vak lo nge, kan groupchat hi 109 ni deuh thawr mai a. Puipunni ah pawh 109 tihin kan in zawng mai zel a. Mizo film 109 nen kha chuan kan in kungkaih lo.

Imaginative vak lo e, tih lai chuan kan tui zawngah hi chuan kal na tak tak vek hi kan ni hlawm a. Zeldin hi kan group hobby a ni bawk a. WhatsApp hi a lo ṭha khawp a. Inhmuh khawm tak tak hi a awm ta lo chung hian Mizoram syllabus thar ang te hi chu angle hrang hrang atangin nileng ṭhak ṭhak pawhin kan lo discuss ve vek ṭhin a. Sawi chhuah tlak vak phei chu an ni ngai lem lo a. Tlak lohna chhan pawh eng dang vang ni lovin thutak khuka khuk pui tham engmah kan rel chhuak ngai lo.

Ramhuai, aliens leh sci-fi hi kan tui tlanna ber an ni a. Mahse kan tuipuia kan buaipui ang hu hi chuan encounter kan la nei ngai lo. Neih phei chu a hranpaa han chak viau chu kan awm chuang lo a.

Hetiang vang hian Hnahthial ah min post-na lehkha ka dawn khan ka rilru ah thil 3 awm zinga 1 chu Pangzawl dai shrines ho va en, kha a nia. Mahse National Highway kawng zauhna ah an lo ti chhe tawh tih min lo hrilh a, ka ngaihtuah zui ta lem lo a.

Tun hnai tê, Independence Day leh audit leh DM&R leh Polling Station rationalise leh probable L&O leh MCS exam conduct leh Revenue office function ṭan tih vel a rualin kan han ngaihtuah takah chuan ka rilruin tlanbo na a zawng deuh nge, Pangzawl dai shrines ho hi ka vei tet tet a. Pangzawl North VCP Pu Siamtea nen kan in bia a, min hruai a peih hmel a, va en ngei ka tum.

Pangzawlah hian hman deuh khan zan khat riakin kan zin a. A tukah Lunglei lam kan pan tur hi shrines ho awmna ṭhin bulah hian kan ding a. Gypsy hnungah ka chuan vang khan a hmaa ṭhu ka nau kha, “Saw lai ah sawn monument 3 an awm, thla va la lawk teh,” ka tia. A chhuk ve mai a. Kei ṭawngthei lutuk ta khan, “Hmanah ramhuai a awm ṭhin an tih vanga an sak ania,” ka ti ta hram pek a nih kha. A rang a rangin a lo lut leh a. Kan kalpui te an lo tlan leh tawh si nen Pangzawl dai shrines thlalak ka neih loh phah ta a. Mahse kar hmasa khan Thiltlang VCP Pu Rindik-an thlalak hlui min zawn sak a, ka nei leh ta hlauh. Ka lawm hle.

109-a discussion hi lak tlak a awm lo, ka tih nachhan pawh ramhuai topic ah hian example ka han pe ang a. 

1. Ramhuai miin an hmuh hian an khawsik hluah ṭhin a, eng vang nge niang? 109 chuan ramhuai temperature hi a hniam ve hrim hrim ah a ngai deuh a. Anih loh vek chuan ramhuai miin a hmuh laia a adrenaline rush kha a hmuh tawh loh hnuah a rilru leh taksa in a zo lo a ni thei.

2. Ramhuai in min hran khum laiin lo muhil ta ila, a hrang tho ang em? 109 chuan if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? a ti.

3. Ramhuaiin min hran khum lai kha lo hre lo ta ila, kan khua a sik tho ang em? 109 chuan kan ngaihven theih hun an nghah ve mai a ngaih hmel, kan ti.

4. Ramhuai te hi an hranna hmun pangai pelin an hrang thei em? 109 chuan bureaucratic posting ang deuh hian kal theih chin an nei in a ring deuh a. Ramhuai hi tlansan theih chen a awm ve a ni mai thei. An hran khum berte hi an pem bo daih hian an jurisdiction pawn lamah an umzui ngai lem vak lo.

5. Ramhuai indo ah Reiek an chak loh avangin kum tin Tlawng hnenah Reiek Huai ten Human Tribute an pe ṭhin tih hi lei leh van indo nen a in zawm em, bâk a tel na kha? 109 hian kan hre thawi deuh a. Chungleng leh Hnuaileng indo zawk ani a, bâk tel na chu. Lei leh Van indo chu tlemin a Catholic rim nam deuh, Lucifera leh Michaela te lam chan. Pearly Gates-ah Petera awm vang maia Pialral sentry-ah Paula a awm ve emaw ti kan awm ve lo hlauh; Pawla leh Paula lam dan in ang miau hek, an dem vak theih hran lo. Helam chu kan sawi thui ta lo. Kan hre vak lo. 

6. Ramhuai ho tan hian chakai hi an ar ve ami? 109 chuan Tlingi leh Ngama te story ah mi nung ram leh mitthi khua thil te a inverse vak kha a hre kar a. Chakai chhit ho pawh khawsik ta vak te an awm ṭhin bawk nen. An ar a ni ber, chu kan ti ngam lo na in, water spirits ho ran bik te chu an ni ve mai thei, kan ti. Lasi hovin sazuk leh sanghal te an ran bik ang deuh hian. Chakai hi ramhuai ho ar a nih chuan ar tak tak hi chu ramhuai tan chuan T-Rex an ni mai thei bawk. 

7. Ramhuai man te hi an rimchhe kher zel. Hei hi 109 chuan ṭul kan ti vak lo. Hmanah Pasighat ah ka pa post laiin Arunachal ho ramhuai hlau lutuk in khanghu hmun hi ramhuai a awm emaw an tia, an suat chiam tawh. A va ho tak. An ṭawp ve hrim hrim vangin thlarau sual hi an rimchhia ni mai thei a. Ramhuai neutral te chu an rim a chhe hran lo aniang. Lasi te pawh rimchhe vek se tumahin an zawl duh lo ang.

8. Mizo ten faifuk hian thli a ko, kan tih hi Arunachal ho chuan thim tawh hnua faifuk chuan ramhuai a ko, an ti thung a. Pasighat ah ka pa awm lai khan tumah thim hnuah an faifuk duh ngai lo, tih a sawi ṭhin. Chinese anime Mushishi ah khan Ginko khan hei hi a va tawng ve a. Ramhuai ko thei naupang a lo awm a, a faifuk khan ramhuai a ko a, a control thei a. Midang ngaihah chuan thli control thei angin a lang. 109 chuan kan thawnthu te NE dang leh China lam te nen lo inmil leh fu ṭhin hi a fascinating kan ti.

9. Motor, esp bus, accident na velah hian hrang an sawi hnem thei sia, engatinge leimin naah hian an sawi vak loh? 109 discussion hi a sensitive deuh a, hei chu redact mai ang. In lo zeldin chhunzawm ve atan.

10. Kawnpui dai ramhuai/hrang hi an sawi nasa a, 109 chuan fiah a chakawm kan ti a. Mahse fiah tih lemah, YouTubers ten zuk fiah se, video in capture se, en a chakawm. Kan u pakhat, tunah chuan pastor ni tawh phei chuan: Mahni chauha 2W a tlan chuan Kawnpui daia "Isua hming kan lamin ramhuai an tlanchhia" tih lo in tar hian min thlamuan aiin min ti ralkhel zawk, a ti. 109 agrees.

H/No 109 WKN ngei maiah khan zan khat chu Member1 khan zanreiah online games a khel lauh lauh a. Chutih laiin Member2 in chempuiin sazu lian mangkheng, rattrap ban ang chi a tang, bengchheng lutuk kha phun bul bul chungin a lo vawhlum. Member1 khan earphone aṭangin sazu ṭê thawm leh mihring phun thawm leh vaw chawrh chawrh ri kha a hre riai ruai a, midang an mu vekin a hre sia, a hlau deuh a, a va en thlithlai mai ngam chiah lo deuh a. Member2 lah khan a chem a silfai a, a mu leh mai bawk a. Member1 in a enkual ngam meuh chuan light a in off vek, mi zawng zawng an mu leh tawh. A computer a shut down a, a khum ah “rei deuh ka ṭawngṭai ringawt,” a ti. 

Chu bak chu ramhuai experience kan nei tam vak lo. 

(Dik tak chuan a zawna zawng reng ta chuan kan ngah a, mahse ngaihbel tur story ho hi a ziktluak vak ngai lo a. Mi bula han sawi tur khawpa ngaihnawm kan la tawng lo. Tawng lo mah ila pawi kan ti vak lo.)

August Friends

It is good to have friends. That will be an understatement that I will not try to expand on too much because being friendless is the worst, and one can never truly capture the absolute blessing that is having a friend.

There are adjective friends. The ones that require a little description, a little qualifier – school friend, college friend, work friend, church friend, you get the idea. They’re not bad friends. They’re not lesser friends. They’re just incidental friends, you could say.

Sometimes incidental friends lose their adjectives over the course of time or an ever-growing closeness. They become simply friends. Over time, they become family-adjacent. In Mizo society, especially for women, they can become family in the event of a wedding by them partaking of brideprice. In Hindu society, rakhi.

It is easy as adults to develop frenemies. Part-time friends but also part-time enemies. It is just something that happens. Childhood friendships tend to be quite pure, mostly because there is not a lot of things children can do for each other. But as adults, especially with regards to work and even general living, you swallow up your pride and prejudice and just make nice even with people you don’t like. Transactional friends, you might say. A wise person has a lot of friends, true, but that particular brand of wisdom might not be very comforting in the end if they never developed or nurtured the non-transactional friendships along the way of acquiring more powerful friends.

There are bad friends. Of course there are. Your mum probably warned you about them. You might be them. Still friends, but not very good ones. They’ll judge you. They’ll betray you. They will always one-up you. You know those friends, right? Whatever the situation, they have it better or worse than you, or they at least know someone else who's got it better or worse than you. The friends that are determined to convince you they live Life superlative to you. They won’t show up for you. Trying times will always show you who they are. A wise person will not keep grudges in public but will always remember exactly when these friends did not rise to the occasion. You probably also will know when you were a bad friend. If you care to admit to it.

August friends, on the other hand. Ah, bless them. The very best of the lot. August because we’re too old to be BFFs. It is surprisingly not the length of friendship that define their worth. Although they do say if you’ve been friends for more than ten years, you’re probably just going to stay friends for life. The friendship version of the seven-year itch, if you will. There are friends – and one will never have too many of them – that will be the kind of friends poetry is written about. It’s not about a person being a Saint. It’s more about how they make you feel. We all need that person that will never judge us, that person who has seen the absolute worst of us, and still choose to see the absolute best of us instead. Life is hard. Friends make it easier. I choose August to describe them because of them being that grand, and also because in India, we celebrate friendship day in August. Kind of fitting.

Also, about the ten years, if you’ve been friends with someone for more than ten years and if those ten years cover college, you’re probably too far deep to cut ties anymore. They probably know too much at that point. But whether you’ve been friends for two summers or two decades does not really matter. When you click, you click. Everybody needs that person who will accept you as you are, warts and all. The kind of friends who will be your friend not because of who you are, but even in spite of who you are.

Good friends are heaven. Everything about religion is something we take on in Faith. We believe it to be True. If it turns out we were wrong, well, oops! But even then, if we had friends along the way, I guess we have had Heaven all along.

Dumde After A Hard Day’s Work

Arunachal’s Pasighat by the R Siang was where I last saw dumde, until last month in R Tuipui at dusk. There’s just something magical about fireflies. I loved Ray in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog and even now still listen to his heartfelt rendition of Evangeline once in a while. Ridiculous romantic Cajun bug in love with the evening star. Again, there’s just something magical about fireflies.

Fireflies tend to transport you to a world of imagination and fairy tales. If not, they are - at the very least - pretty to look at. And I fear their population is dwindling. Apparently, artificial lights and climate change has negatively affected their mating rituals and breeding cycles. However in India, there was significant increase in their population after 2021. Maybe the Covid human hibernation really did work wonders for firefly population. 

Sci-fi sometimes say humans are pests on Planet Earth. Sometimes, you have to wonder if there is some truth in that harsh observation. Even now, the rise in AI is apparently causing significant strain on the environment. From my rudimentary understanding, we are generating dumb Ghibli pictures and fart jokes at the cost of fresh water, it seems. AI, itself not being truly sentient, is also learning shit from its own self and running the risk of developing something like a digital Hapsburg Jaw over time. I’m guessing we are not getting Vision anytime in the future. Or more likely, if sentience is truly gained by AI, I suspect we get Ultron and The Terminator before we get Vision. Shivers.

In any case, without factoring anything religious at all, how good are humans to Nature? Just some food for thought. 

Anyway, back to dumde. I had been having a series of tough weeks, when one random afternoon, a friend randomly burst out into how we should go line fishing! I dropped everything in office, got permission from ma’am, put a little jacket on my Beagle pup, and off we went to Tuipui. My puppy had the time of his little life and even almost drowned. He was much better disciplined after the Tuipui baptism but even so, his energy burst was such that I found out I never need to carry him anywhere because he had so much energy. Boundless. He dragged me along. Mavena was definitely wary of the river water later, even on the boat. He really does not learn. This was his 3rd time full immersion, but maybe his little puppy brain does not understand that the blue swimming pool and the brownish-yellow river in full swing in July both contain water that could drown him. Tiny idiot.

I didn’t lose him because he got dragged out – thankfully! – so I have amazing memories from the expedition. It is so hard to care about government machineries, land revenue and settlement exercises, and democratic processes of election, when the rain is beating down on your tiny balu-boat, your clothes are drenched your shoes are wet and there’s mud on your hair, but your heart is light, and there’s warm fire down your throat. I recommend. 

And, after the rain stopped and we got back to shore, there were fireflies along the river bank, dancing in their own flight plans, little bio-luminescent glows that light up your eyes, if not your road. 

Sometimes I think we stop defining "work" as only when you get literal mud on your clothes. Some of our best, meaningful, and tough works that move the economy along are done in the confines of AC rooms between people who are balding from the stress of it all. And burping up acid, not to mention. 

These people need mud on their clothes too every once in a while, from roaming the river bank, laughing into the empty air and the big sky above. Caught in a downpour. Happy mud. These are simply joys that village life offers you. I never want to be dependent on it for a living. I would starve. But every once in a while, when office gets to be too much, the sound of a mighty river, against the backdrop of majestic Green that is home to myriad lives, is the only thing that effectively calms you immediately.

Our fishing expedition? We got (I think) four tiny fishes the size of my fingers each. But like Pasalṭha Biaka says, it is the number that counts. No one ever comments on how tall or fat or ugly anyone is when they take Census. They just count heads. So yes, we caught four fishes. And I went home with memories of pretty dumde as night fell and my fat little Beagle, tired and content, fell asleep in my arms. Pretty decent haul!

Mizo Thu Leh Hla

Buaina hi a thuah hnih thuah thum chuan rilru hi thil dang daihah a pakai hlauh duh a.

Tunah pawh exam leh I-day leh audit leh staff leh office 3 enkawl buai lai tak hian ka rilru ah chuan Mizo thu leh hla dangdai zia hi a ri thum dawt dawt tlat ta a ni.

School ka chhuahsan hnu hian uniform hak leh ka tum tawh lo a. Nge, school kal chhung zawng uniform ha mawi ve thei ngai hek lo i. School Schedule hi ngaihven leh ka tum tawh reng reng lo bawk. A chang chuan School ni lovin classmate te hi chu ngaih ve det chang chu a awm ve thin a. A changin zirtirtute leh zirlai te pawh ngaihtuah chhuah chang a awm ve a. ICSE High School ah “Mizo Thu Leh Hla” tih kha tunlai tak chu ka rilru ah a rawn lang a. ICSE ah chuan Mizo tih lovin Lushai tihin subject hming an dah bawk. GK nih chu ow.

Mizo thu leh hla hi an grammar a dang a, a ṭawng hrim hrim pawh hi a dang in ka hria. Mizo ṭawnga tluangtlam pangai taka sawi theih hi a un leh ulh thei ang berin sawi ila, Mizo hla chu a ni deuh ber. A awihawm leh awihawm loh pawh hi a lo pawimawh ber lo. Mizo hla ah chuan lelte kiu ril rel in lung a ti leng a, Mizo thu ah chuan thereng hram ri chuan lu a ti na. A mawi lo. A bengchheng.

A chang leh Thu leh Hla danglamna chu ṭawng letling ila, a fel der. Hla a Siar chu Thu ah chuan Arsi, chutiangin Kulva chu Vakul. A chang leh a thlum belh zeuh. Thu a Mumang chu Hla ah chuan Tawnmang, Silaimu chu Ngenmu. A chang chuan enge hla phuah tu hian a sawi tum ni ang aw tih rum rum theih khawpin thumal a dang. Ramhnuai hi Lentu tih in hre bik ami?

Thu khuh ṭhin hnam, a nihna ang taka thil sawi mai lo mi kan nihna hi kan Hla ah hian a lang lehzual ṭhin. Ṭah pawha ṭap satliah lo, luaithlipui nul thin kan ni a mom! A loh theih loh. Hnuk te lai lai a ulh. Hnuk sawi takah chuan, Thu leh Hla chu sawi loh, Hla tel miah lo pawhin hnuk ulh leh a chat kar te hi a hla lutuk reng reng a ni.

Thlado kunga chawnpui par tir hnam kan ni bawk a, Lungtat pawh kan par tir ang. A dik vek zel mai. Pial te hi enge a nih reng reng min hrilh thei in awm em? Ka nu hi Pialtu a ni a, Piallei, Pialtlep, Pialral te kan tia, a thluk a in ang chiah lo na in inzawmna te an nei em, pial ṭeuh ṭheuh? 

Ṭawng lehlin te hi Mizo ṭawngah hian a har ṭalh reng a ni. Hman deuha internet a ṭhat lehzual hma, Cable TV kan la en ṭhin lai khan, movie 1 an dub ah “Ke ti tliak rawh!” an ti mauh mai a. Ka ner nghal nawk. Ka en reng lai anih vang khan a sapṭawng ah chuan “Break a leg!” an ti ang tih a hriat theih nghal a. A nih ang anga lehlin chuan a dik, a sapṭawng phrase ṭobul chhui pawhin a dik deuh ruak, mahse a context ah chuan a dik ta hlawl lo. AVBT. Vur tla a ni lo, frost a ni a, dai khal tih tur, tiha sapṭawng in ti thiam lutuk ho pawh khan khawi laiah nge dai tla in hmuh tawh ngai in sawi theih hma chu vur kha tlak tir ve tho rawh u. Context a pawimawh. Champhai ka post lai aṭanga ka hne tawh. AVBTQ.

A reng reng in, buaina hi a thuah thum thuah li chang hian mi ṭhahnemngai zawk chuan mi pali panga ni thei ila, an ti ṭhin. Kei chu pali panga a insem sawm a, buaina chinfel ai chuan Samdala School of Thought subscribe ta sa sa, buaina zawk kha tlem daih se ka ti ve tlat!

Buai nuam u!

To Soothe A Savage Beast

Elvis, Dolly Parton, Sixpence None The Richer. What three things do they have in common? They’re American, I know them from MTV and they all have gospel albums.

Unthinkable, the second and third bits, in the Mizoram music scene. There are Gospel Songs and Love Songs. Gospel Singers and Worldly Singers. Never the twain shall meet.

Used to be, I’d hoped. I’d begun hearing talks of genres and music tastes, no longer a simple division between lyrical content. But I hear people who are Born Again are now changing their tune once more. ‘I will only sing gospel now because I am made new’. Ah well. The times. The more they change, the more things remain exactly the same.

I am no musical maestro. What little I know of music is only enough to tell the difference between rap and country. Mostly. But in the past year, I have been on the road a lot. I have listened to collections of Mizo Music on Spotify in these trips and have made some observations I’d like to share. Do feel free to comment. But also be kind. Yours Truly does not take criticisms well, constructive or not.

What I noticed was that in the 00s when I was growing up, every Mizo music was either Gospel or Love. And the love song singers were considered worldly. No self-respecting Born Again Christian would sing love songs on TV or on stage. Genre did not matter. Lyrical content was it. Somehow it felt like a very peculiar but unnamed and specific sort of sin to listen to Mizo love songs. Like you were feeling things you should not be feeling.

So I started listening to English songs. MTV introduced me to all sorts of music. Henceforth there were gospel songs, love songs, English songs and Hindi songs. MTV also introduced me to the idea of genres. Which was how I discovered that I liked country music very much but was also a big fan of pop music. At the time, I recognized rock, R&B and rap but was not as big a fan. This was my realization that things were not just black and white. Growth!

It is strange but I think it’s the foreign-ness of it all but we could sing Spice Girls’ Two Become One and all the coital references in ballads. In English. Meanwhile in Mizo, even singing about missing a person felt like an anathema that would take you on a one-way path to hell. Perhaps it is the same reason why it is so easy to curse in English with all the worst words and genitalia yet in Mizo, the worst most people dare call anyone is a monkey-face; anyone who says the actual words for genitalia in Mizo is way too vulgar for polite society. Too intimate, you know.

At any rate, it remains that the Spotify collection was diverse and I adored it. It introduced me to all sorts of Mizo music. I realized that if you took out the lyrical content of it all, Mizo music came in all sorts of genre too. I might be wildly mistaken but I think we can categorise 90s Mizo “love songs” as mostly classic rock and country driven. Think of the era of Daduhi, Rebecca Saimawii, Albatross, and Dreamhunter… rock, right? I think there was a very strong western country and rock influences in both gospel and love songs in that era. Something about Shillong too there, I am sure.

I have to admit, the 90s had a really bad phase of experimenting with 90s American pop music. It made for really cringe novelty songs but I think it defined an era too, so I won’t name names but you know what I mean. Very definitely you know what I mean. We are all defined by the wider global entertainment world that envelops the current cultural era we grow up in. It is no wonder that 80s folks will always think less of today’s music. The love affair between Mizo language and classic rock was – mmhm – chef’s kiss!

However, the recent pop music scene in Mizo music with say, the twang of Gorkhali influence in H.O.M., or the Burmese influence in say Saiwannah, Mary Dawngi, Benjamin Sum etc. are extremely fascinating and I believe they have made Mizo music that much richer. The strange ways Triau Trackx has redefined Mizo lyrics has been interesting because in Mizo, prose and poetry have their own grammar. Triau Trackx has somehow defied those rules and reshaped Mizo lyrics forever. All the younger folks have come to bend Mizo prose into poetry and somehow found a way to make even rhyming schemes work. I am always delighted to listen to people like Youngfella, Mista Blow, Guru Gee, Kimkima, K Hminga etc. and listen to how they (in Avatar terms) word-bend.

What was simply “love songs” in the 80s, 90s and 00s have today become the art of singers, songwriters, rappers, crooners, cover artists, indie music… each with their own lovely places in the sun. Cool, isn’t it?

I don’t know music much so I appreciate the ones that create these various art pieces that speaks for the heart when us random folk can’t often express our own feelings and emotions. In the Japanese Studio Ghibli film Whispers of the Heart, they said that sometimes when an artist pours so much of their soul into their art, the resulting art itself gains some form of soul and sentience. I think that’s gorgeous. It’s also a bit like how Taylor Swift said of her music in her The Eras Tour that these songs are songs she’d written on some things she’d felt at certain moments of her life, but now they were out and no longer hers, that they belonged now to the people who claimed them because they felt what she’d written. Just lovely what can become when artists are allowed to grow. They tend to make the world a better place. Music has charms to soothe a savage beast, as they say.

I still do wish people would stop singing random gospel tracks in government functions. When in Rome... all that jazz. Another topic for another day.