The Titanic

First of all, what a news! It was so unexpected to hear about a Titanic related death in 2023. Who would have ever conceived that a hundred plus years after the Titanic sank (so famously they made a movie out of it!), the same Titanic, sitting in the bottom of the ocean, would still lure and cause the death of humans? Not me, for sure.

But here we are. The allure of the Titanic has clearly not abated. Possibly enhanced, to be honest. Perhaps precisely because of how unattainable it still is. To this day. The romance is not dead.

In June 2023, twenty-six years after the second movie on the Titanic, and a hundred and eleven years after the actual Titanic sank, the Titanic claimed five more lives. Rich lives. Again. Well, wealthy, at any rate.

The saddest part about this tragedy was that this time round, people just aren’t mourning the deaths as much as they are shaking their heads even as they do mourn the loss of life. How very unfortunate. How extremely suffocating and frightening their last moments would have been. How incredibly disastrous this voyage. But also... how very avoidable!

I think a lot of people are feeling a sense of schadenfreude about the immensely wealthy folks and the daring they have with the money they possess. It’s coming off like them trying to feel alive because they just have so much money. I mean none of us know which way and how life is going to fuck us up, but this just seems like one of those situations which people can only get into because they have so much money and it just comes off as sad but... well, there is a but.

I think many times, the very moneyed folks are so used to buying what they want that it becomes second nature to them, that they start to reason that things can’t be that bad or can’t hurt them that much because money will bail them out. It’s like how Trevor Noah’s mum said she never gets sick so she pulled out her insurance and then she got shot and he’s like: well, mum, guess what you didn’t think of? Bullets.

I saw memes about how immigrants lives are lost at sea and people only think, well we need to tighten security, but when five millionaires’ lives are at stake, the world watches it. George Orwell continues to be right: some animals are more equal than others. There are the macabre humorous reflections like: those that refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

For my part, I think The Titanic is cursed. WBU?

Sunday School Musings

Police Kohhran was the name of our church growing up. One of the kids in our church was embarrassed by it so she’d tell people she was Catholic. For the simple reason that she was not seen in either a Baptist or Presbyterian Church and had no current experience to speak of. I can’t blame her. Police Church is not a real church at all.

In Luangmual, Lunglei, we followed a more Baptist tradition. In Mualvum, Kolasib, it was more Presbyterian. But the underlying feature was that if the Commandant was a regular church-goer, he was more than likely to be Chairman of the church as well.

I honestly thought I was beyond this whole makeshift worship system by the time we moved to Aizawl and we attended proper Sunday Schools in Armed Veng Presbyterian Church. It was not bad either. I actually really enjoyed the Vocational Bible Schools, if not the actual services as much. Then my parents shipped me off to boarding. So I spent three years attending Sabbath Schools at SDA Inter College Roorkee, and the next two years attending Methodist church with Mount Carmel, Anand Niketan. I didn’t attend much church in college. I attended a few during Uni and again, this time, it was back to a Fellowship with the Delhi Mizo Inkhawm.

I don’t attend church very religiously so I was hoping to do that when I started working. But it turned out it was a cultivated ethic. And I discovered that I didn’t have much of it. I didn’t attend much church beyond Sunday Schools even when I started living on my own. Besides, for the past few years, the closest church to me had been Keifangtlang Presby. Church and while it is a proper church, it is a very small church and 90% of the members were people I worked with at office. There was no escape from nothing. So I never really enjoyed it. Not the fault of the church. Just my own issues. But it was ever present.

I mean – honestly. Think about it. The entire congregation usually stagnated at 25 (give or take a few) persons. The full strength was 41 adult members in Sunday School when I left in May. Even the tithe rarely amounted to five hundred rupees in a single service. Contrast that to Leitan Presby. Church which I attend now; it has about 794 (give or take a few) adult members in Sunday School and the tithe climbs up to 19-21K in a single service. There is no comparison that is fair. So I won’t make it. But believe me – there is comfort in numbers. And ease in anonymity.

In Mizo we say to follow the path with more footfall. I wonder how true that holds for church as well.

Gypsy Horns

1:30AM is not the time for Gypsy horns to blare and never stop. Which is what happened last Friday night. Woke me up like the feckin’ end of the world.

I remember on the way to Mualvum one evening, before the year 2000 (so basically primitive), my dad’s then-driver Pa Hmaa, a man with an incredible sense of humour, boasted jokingly over how everything in his Gypsy made noise all the time save for the horn.

As though offended, all hell broke loose at that precise moment sort of like a punctuation, or a stage cue, and the horn blared and wouldn’t stop. He got out of the Gypsy and searched under his seat. Meanwhile, all of us had our hands cover our ears, silently pleading with the Universe to just stop the cacophony. Pa Hmaa fished out a machete and opened the hood. We heard a dull thud and the horn went quiet. I still don’t know the exact wire for the horn in my car or in a Gypsy. How remiss of me. I should maybe learn this.

Cars are wonderful inventions. I don’t know much about them and even less about the fancy ones. I was driving one time and the accelerator just stopped pumping. I had always feared that the brakes would just refuse to work and I would die; it is a recurring fear, to be honest. But I had never imagined a situation where the accelerator would not work. I somehow managed to find someone to help and he realised the wire had popped off. He reattached it and tightened the screw and the car was alright again. So now I know the wire attached to the accelerator; I still don’t know the one attached to the horn.

Which is what I supposed happened last week. I believe someone was trying to hotwire our neighbour’s Gypsy in the dead of the night. But they somehow touched upon the horn one and not the accelerator one. And then there was pain.

1:30AM is very quiet, you guys. And if a gd Maruti Suzuki Gypsy horn just starts blaring out without a single pause, it drives you half insane! And in the hills, with our nice acoustics, it is hard to figure out where from it originates. Of course, we have two Gypsies in our immediate locality – the white government one with me and the red one belonging to our neighbour. My first thought was the sound was a Gypsy horn! Because dear lawd, it has been years upon years since the police one Pa Hmaa drove blared out, but I realise you don’t forget such a blessedly ugly sound! It’s just there in the recess of your brain. Or something. And that one had been during the day. This was the dead of the night and yet no mercy. The only question was whether it was my Gypsy or not. I fumbled around in the house looking for the key. But the caterwauling stopped. So I returned to bed.

A silent night is a blessed night, my friends. I’m not even kidding.

Us Vs. Them

I woke up this morning with the thought that we ought to learn the concept of standing up for other people. We need to open our heads to the idea that that is possible – standing up for people who aren’t us. It is a faulty approach if we have to have to identify with someone before we entertain the thought of standing up for them. I believe this is where we fall short of empathy. Or even display outright vitriol. The ‘they’re not like me, hence my hands are tied, there’s nothing I can do’ mentality. The ‘they’re not like me, hence I must oppose them’ mentality.

People should not need to be one of Us for Us to stand up for Them. It is not a zero sum game. Or even an either/or situation. It is simply about being human.

JK Rowling’s Kingsley Shacklebolt said of the Wizard Nazi situation where some wizards were talking about prioritizing pureblood wizards first: “I would say it’s one short step from ‘Wizards first’ to ‘Purebloods first’, and then to ‘Death Eaters’. We are all human, aren’t we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.”

Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving. I have admired this line since I first read it. Told from a different perspective, it is the same as the poetic-prose by the Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller:

“They came first for the Communists,

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,

and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me,

and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

If we can only stand up for those we have common grounds with, our humanity needs to be re-examined. People could be vastly different from us and I should still be able to support them and show solidarity with them.

In Jesus’ words: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” (Matthew 5:47; NIV)

2003 Hnu Lama Ka Mizo Article Hmasa Ber

Treasury a ka thawh ve thin lai chuan thla tawp leh a dawt thla tir, Bill siam leh remfel chhung, hian mahni hming hi kan han hre chiang ber, ka ti thin. Hmanlai Champhai phel hma (tuna Khawzawl leh Saitual thenkhat an in lak hran hma) kha kan bial a ni pawp mai a, office a tlem vak bik lo bawk ani. Hming hi kan sign nawn ngat ngat mai a. Mahni hming, ni, thla leh kum hi thla tin kan by-heart ngawih ngawih mai ani. Mary Mount kan kal laia imposition min pek te pawh a ang deuh.

MCS ka nih hnu chuan mahni hming hne hlawi khawpa sign chu LAD a hna thawh tur a awmin ka tawng ve leh thung. VC 100 teh meuh nei tan chuan a awm ve reng. Aizawl DLAO in Ngopa tlangdunga Saitual VC 13 min laksak hma phei chuan 113 kan nei thin kha ani a. Phek hmasa ber leh a tawp chu a in ang fu, mahse a laihawl vel hi chu a chang leh keu kan, a chang leh kawisawi fe fe hi chu a tam ve thin. Paper stack hi staff tu emaw in a keu chhuah leh vek a ngai ngei ngei. Naupang homework ti tha duh lo ang deuh hian sign hmaih palh lai hi min keu chhuah sak a, kan in sign tir leh nge nge thin. Hriat chhuah mai loh phei chuan AERO anga ka Hearing na ah emaw, ka magistrate duty na ah emaw, khaw pawna bawkte va khawh ang deuh thawa thlaler SDC room ah emaw Scooter in min rawn zawng kual leh ngat ngat zel. A va buaithlak!

Ka'n sawi chiam nachhan chu kut ziak hi ka lo harsat tawh khawp a. Laptop ka neih hma chuan Diary bu ka nei thin a. Nitin deuh thaw ka ziak ngat ngat a, register bu 3 hi thawnthu tawi leh poetry ka ziak khat tawh bawk a. Ka poem 1 hi ka u in a lo ru a, Selesih Vety College ah competition atan a lo submit a, lawmman te a dawn phah bawk a. Tun thleng hian ka u hian a lawmman dawn hi min la share lo. Amahin a ei zo vek aniang. Mahse engemaw lai khan ka kutziak thlapa register mawi deuh deuh ka neih te hi ka ti bo a, ka ui tawp thei lo.

Laptop ka neih hnu erawh chuan typing hi nuam ka lo ti khawp a, kut hian engmah hi ka ziak peih ta lo. Ka hawrawp pawh a chhe sawt ngang mai. Manganthlak!

Dictation lah hi ka thiam pek lo a. Office ah Hriattirna emaw Lehkha emaw kan han draft dawn a, ka kut hian ka ká aiin ka rilru a hre zawk ni chek tur ania, boruakah ka phuah thiam mang der lo. DC Champhai ah chuan an hre fu ang a, draft hi ka type pawp a, staff ten an lo chul mam mawi leh mai thin. Mizo a lehkha ziah te hi a lo har angreng a. Formal lehkha phei chu tawngkam hian daih loh chin a lo nei a, a daih dan te hi a chang chuan a lo kual kawi nasa a, saptawng a tawi te a ziah theih te hi term thenkhat sawi fiah pahin thui fe fe kan kual leh hrep zel. Dr Naveen Aggarwal kan DC a nih thin laiin tum khat chu ka tawng let rawh aw, a tia. Science & Technology lam sawi a tum a, photosynthesis tih atang khan sir, chutiang word kan tawngah a awm lo, kan ti kha ania. A thusawi tu aiin a tawng lettu kan tawng hnem zawk ve ziah. A harsa ani.

2003 ah ICSE Board ah Class X ka exam a. An la ti reng em ka hre lo a, Mizo subject kha ICSE ah chuan Lushai tih kha a ni thin a. Ka exam tum pawh chuan Hindi aiah Lushai paper ka la a. Zirtirtu pawh ka nei chuang lo, mahse Pipu Lenlai tih leh Mizo Grammar bu leh Mizo Thu Leh Hla tih kha kan zirlaibu te an ni a. Mahni in kan zir ve pawp mai a. Grammar kan exam ni hian tuna ka ziak ang tho, Mizo leh English pawlh mawlh mawlh hian article ka ziak a. Kan invigilator sap leh vai thlahpawlh, pa te tak te, harhvang zet hian a rukin, “I English word hman ho kha Lushai in thlak vek thei la chu mark i hmu hnem ngawt ang” min rawn ti a. A ni dawn tak e, ka ti a. Ka han thlak tak tak mai chu ka paper ah khan “phone” tih pawh a awm lo, “biakhlatna” ni deuh tawp mai ani. Result a lo chhuah pawhin Lushai paper ah mark 100 ah 92 ka hmu; thiam ka in ti vet vet hle. Ka nui bawk. Mark 2 chauhin kum 2 ngawt class X syllabus min zir puitu zirtirtu 2 ka neihna English aiin ka hmu tlem. Ka intithei hle ani.

Ti em em kha chuan Mizo article ziah leh chu ka tum tawh lo thung. Awmzia awm vakin ka hre lo. A kawi un mai mai a, ziaktu tan luhaithlak, chhiartu tan ninawm bawk. Kan hriatthiam tlan thumal te hi chu Mizo ah hian seng lut chak zawk ila kan felfai zawk hian ka ring. Tawng Hman Uar leh Tawng Hman Dik hi fundamentalist firfiak ho zia ang deuha zawhte thingkung lawn pawh thlak tum an sawi anga treat chi ni pawhin ka hre lo. Mizo Tawng hi a dam reng a, a vul zel tur anih chuan a than chhoh a, a inthlak danglam ve reng a ngai ani. Mihring pawh kan puitlin ve zel a ngai tho. Tui meuh pawh luanna a neih loh chuan a thiin a uih thin.

Nge maw, rawng tih pawh hi Bengali tawng a ni lo maw? Thumal tam tak hi chu kan seng lut a, thil thar a ni lo. Istiri, iskut, tel, bucket, saucer, rose, biscuit (biskut)... A thumal kan neih miau loh chu hawh mai tur. Tumahin an ui chuang lo. Hinglish an tih ang deuh hian Minglish (Mizo-English hybrid) hi thangtharte chuan kan hmang vek tawh tho anih hi. Ni lo’m ni?

Getaway Car by Taylor Swift, an Appreciation

One, Taylor Swift has a way with words. Two, I love metaphors. So three, my favourite lyrics of hers is Getaway Car for its brilliant use of metaphors.

The entire song is a story told in pure metaphors. It doesn’t really matter to me if she wrote it for someone or with someone in mind or if it was just something she thought up, like Story-tellers do.

The metaphor is that of someone who pulls off something like a double con. She commits a crime with someone with the intention of double-crossing him because she was already disenchanted with him. She then drove away with someone else in a getaway car, a Bonnie & Clyde story. Then she leaves Partner No. 2 the first chance she gets. To him, she quips: don’t pretend it was such a mystery, think about the place where you first met me. She tells him their partnership had never been meant to last because nothing good ever started on a getaway car.

It is a dramatic telling of a romance that was never a love story. She wanted a reason to leave her current boyfriend but didn’t really have any, and was probably too cowardly to break up with him. She was looking for an out when she met someone somewhere. She broke trust with her boyfriend and got together with this new exciting boy, cheating on her boyfriend and running away with Boy No.2 in a mad daze, a heady romance even as her boyfriend was left hurting. But things that begin with hurting someone that badly has a way of not working out. Karma, maybe. So she left Boy No.2 again and tells him: we were never meant to be, remember how it was we first started out? Us traitors never win.

The song is very self-aware and she never tries to rationalize her betrayal and cheating. Her new romance not working was just what she reaped for the shit she sowed. There is no self-pity. There is just some serious “it is what it is” acceptance and a whole lot of embracing a “well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences to my actions playing out” deal.

She did know it from the first Old Fashioned that this new romance was cursed. They never had a shotgun shot in the dark, driving around in a getaway car.

Of Prepaid SIM and Recharge Cards

My mother conversationally told me this morning that last Thursday, she could not call anyone because she didn’t have enough balance. For a few seconds, I didn’t comprehend. So I asked for clarification. And she casually explained that she recharges her SIM card by 2000 rupees with a one year validity. But that recently, she’d used up her minutes so all her system was off.

It took me back to a time when I had this number – 9891569852. It was Hutch, I think. I don’t know who has the number now. I don’t. It was my first mobile phone number. The SIM card of it rested in a sturdy perfect-for-a-horcrux (because nigh indestructible, of course) Nokia 3310. And then later in a Nokia 2100. Those were perfect vessels because I was in high school boarding at the time and was not allowed a phone hence oftentimes, the phone needed to dangle in a polybag outside toilets, perilously hanging off of ventilator locks and bolts. They could not afford to be delicate. And then for college, in a Nokia 3200 which Rose Tyler carried in Doctor Who 2005 reboot as well! Nokia 3200 could play music, was coloured and I could use my own photo as the back cover; made me feel cool as all hell.

Mid-college and a series of phone pranks with Mamu where I was scared straight and learned a particularly vehement Hindi curse word from a guy on the other line, I changed my number to a Vodafone one that I still use to this day. Never indulged in phone pranks again. Then later, I collected another Airtel number. Still have it. I once had a Jio number as well but no more.

Both my Vodafone and Airtel numbers are post-paid now. As a broke student in Delhi, I saw post-paid connections as luxury. U Rinpuii who was a doctor who had her own government living quarters in Defence Colony used to have a post-paid Reliance number; I’d thought she was so rich. Bourgie Broqé Adult Me has post-paid connections. So fancy!

My mother though. She still uses a pre-paid connection! HOW?! I didn’t even know pre-paid connections still existed. I asked her where they even sell scratch cards! My sister said no one sells cards anymore; she just has to pay through GPay. I said ok and nodded. Do you remember those scratch cards? Silver mat that turns to goo once you scratch it off with a coin revealing a number that you communicate to your service provider after some * and # and maybe like 191 or something… Also who uses coins anymore? Feck, the world has changed!

I used to have a Vodafone internet connection that comes prepaid in a dongle. Today I have WiFi at work and office. And the dongle I carry has my Digital Signature that is accepted by banks and the Treasury instead of really slow internet.

I can hear Karen Carpenter in my head cooing: So much has changed…

Photoromances: Kiss and Darling?

Luigi Alfieri was the handsomest of the lot, hands down. But the others were not half bad! I mean think of Marina Santi, Maurizio Vecchi, Gordon Gray, Andrea Wayne, Chris Olsen, Sonia de Gaudenz, Anna West, Alberto di Stefano, Bruno Minniti, Ombretta Piccioli, Ornella, Susie Sudlow, Dan Green, Richard Dennis…

It occurs to me as either unobservant or ignorant (I can only hope it was not bigoted of me, fingers crossed!) but I had once blindly assumed they were American. I don’t know how that happened because come on, read the names! Blatantly Italian, most of them! And their faces and features were deliciously Italian as well. Not to mention that the English was crap and cringe. Although I suppose I didn’t much give importance to the actual literature because at the time, I was reading a lot of graphic novels and comics and most of these are more concerned with colloquialism than grammar, more focused on vernacular and dialogue than in deliverance of great prose.

Plus, with Photoromance, it was mostly about how good they looked, no? On that score, they did deliver.

I still love big hairs on women mostly because of them. I mean come on, think Ornella! Or curls – think Anna West. Or sheer black stockings and slim cut jeans – think Ombretta Piccioli. Or well-placed jewelry – think Marina Santi. Or huge thick jackets with woolen collars on men – a lot of the men wore those. Maybe Italy is cold.

The language though, oh dear lord the language. So cringe as to actually make you squirm, but I plowed through them all. And today, it is a source of ready laughter to be found in memories for me and my sisters. Islands in the Sea of Love, Angel Without Wings, My Mirror is a Lonely Place – oh feck, those were bad. And the taglines – “A Haunted Love: his love saved her mind… and her life”, “Love Under Blue Skies: he couldn’t love her – but she could – and did – and how she did – love him”… I mean, that last one is a mouthful and a half!

It mattered not. Because they were beautiful people. Drop dead gorgeous, most of them. I first read them from my cousin-in-law U TPi’s collection in Kulikawn. After school was over in Mary Mount but St.Paul’s had not yet let their students out so we had to wait for my sister. That or wait anyway for my younger sister who often got detention.

I enjoyed them. And today, the stories and pictures remain gently buried in memories to be dug out at choice moments. While my no-longer-re-read private copies rest in a cubicle in my bookshelf in my little Bookarium, only a few steps away from my bed.