The Book Dragon

My mother always bought me books I wanted to read. Mostly those were comic books and fairy tales when I was younger.

One time we were in a toy store and I was arguing with my mum and lowkey throwing a tantrum over a doll and a Karen nearby snapped at my mum saying if she kept indulging me, I’d never learn. I was getting really worked up but then my mum said, I never had a mother buy me things so I like to buy my kids what they like if I can. I have never thrown a tantrum over things I like for her to buy for me again. The comment was not even thrown at me but the memory is clear and unblemished even today.

Books were a different story altogether. My parents both have a holy respect for all books. Which was why before I had my own money, if I wanted a book, it is more accurate to say I demanded it of them rather than asked. I even had my dad stand in line with me in Lajpat Nagar for Harry Potter 4 when it came out. They didn’t care what we read as long as we read. Which was, again, how I was reading Mills & Boons romances aged eleven. That was not too bad because the stories were formulaic and I lost interest in a few years. What stuck was Dr Faustus that I read aged 10 or 11 and even today I feel like Mephistopheles is a real demonic name and I am very afraid of word contracts and how that can be bonding with the paranormal creatures. That book taught me not to sell my soul to the devil. Very creepy business. I facepalmed when I watched Jabez Stone do exactly that in Shortcut to Happiness, and even as I laughed at Brendan Fraser’s Elliot Richardson do the same in Bedazzled, I was thinking: ya, no, that’s dumb.

I digress. Books.

There have been few times when my mother was lowkey concerned over the material I was consuming. The first was J K Rowling’s Harry Potter series but when we discussed that, I said: I read about witches all the time, this isn’t any different. So she let it slide. The second was Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. That was understandable. People were protesting the book. Some had even burnt it. I remember a girl in my Christian school boarding emphatically declare: Dan Brown is going to hell. Back home, when my mother brought it up, I told her about the amazing historical nuggets that were in the book divorced of the fiction. She let it slide again. The third was Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. I said, this Satan is the Muslim one, not ours. She let it slide a third time.

We’ve not discussed banned books again post Satanic Verses. I don’t really know why. Maybe because by then, I was hardly home. And when I was home, I was not reading as many books as I used to. I’d discovered MTV, basically. Also, on the book front, we’d come to an understanding. I do an annual re-read of the Bible. As long as I do this, I think she has made her peace with my other consumption. As well, some of my books are in my kindle. And she doesn’t know their titles.

I don’t enjoy sharing my books with people because when it comes to books, I really am like a dragon hoarding her treasures. Not for nothing do I make thebookdragon my social media alias. There are books in my library (fondly named The Bookarium) in Leitan that I’ve haggled over, some I’ve fought strangers for, some I’ve broken my back hauling them all over Delhi for, and some I’ve straight out stolen. I jealously guard them. I don’t intend to share. There is even an author I refuse to share. I discovered this author quite by chance in a little forgotten nook in Defence Colony when U Rinpuii had asked Atu and I to return a book (it might have been a DVD) she had borrowed. Atu and I delight over it but this book series is between her, me and the books. Sometimes people ruin things when they find things out.

They really do.

Food

In my college days, I ate like a full grown man. Not a proper sit down rice meal, though. Anything but that and I was golden. 

I remember in U Rinpuii’s house, I’d eat a quarter of my weight in rice, sausage, alu and daal, with some chutney or the other. She taught me how to make sausages in a way I continue to this day. There has never been anyone who’s ever eaten it that didn’t like it. She also taught me how to make bastenga pork and though now I prefer it the Atula Way, that was where I first ate it. Always a cracker dish. Atula learned her way from her dad. And we enjoyed it so much one time we bought three kilos of pork and ate it all in one sitting with rice – her, me and Tenzin. Pigs we were.

Defence Colony where U Rinpuii lived was also where I ate Opera Pastry any time my pocket money allowed me to. Opera Pastry, for the uninitiated, is a six-layered (or seven?) cake that is too delicious to be allowed. That was Defence Bakery. Defence Bakery also had the best and moistest Blackforest cakes with proper cherries. There was also Angels In My Kitchen who had the best rainbow/red-velvet cake in existence. Cakes are funny business. I’ve noticed that people can decorate cake very well but only very few can make really good tasting cake. Maybe it’s the Instagram age we live in where image is more important but honestly, that is BS.

In Mizoram, Sangsangi of Champhai (now Higis Bake, Aizawl) makes amazing cheesecake and vanilla/blueberry cake. U Mary (of KT Bakery, Lunglei) makes divine snowballs and chocolate brownies. Cookie Jar in Aizawl makes incredible rum balls. There was the twisted sisters in Aizawl who made heavenly bombolinis with cream fillings; why did they stop?! Someone promised me “orgasmic” sandwiches in Aizawl; I’m yet to be convinced.

In college, I ate so much momos from Lajpat Nagar’s Central Market. My dose was usually 12 to 16 fat chicken momos for one sitting, usually with chow and fruit beer. I was also a humongous fan of LSR Residence Hall’s peeli daal/kaale chana lunch; I’d fight for that. Keema Samosa from LSR Café too. Ooh. If you’re ever in Jama Masjid, please try chicken biryani the way it’s been prepared since history book days; thank you Kavya for introducing me to it, you beautiful soul. I’m yet to tire of Mc Donald’s Filet-o-fish. In University, I was addicted to Crispy Dry Lamb and chilli potato combo lunch from JNU’s Keichha’s. In these years, I’d frequented the Tibetan Colony Majnu Ka Tila for dinner for which my usual order was: 2 honey garlic ginger lemon teas, 1 plate chilly chicken chowmein, 1 or 2 plates fried gyuma, and 1 bowl of mokthuk/thenthuk optional. I also went to Srinagar one time and ate fire roasted lamb slices wrapped in rumali roti with radish pickles. Heaven will have food like that. I am so sure.

I have never eaten so much in my life as those five years in higher educational institutions. At one point, at a dinner party I was invited to, someone remarked that inviting me and my friends was like inviting a bunch of men for dinner. We never stopped eating, although we snapped at him saying we were mortified. I spent close to 80% of my pocket money on food. The rest on cheap transportation and chor bazar books. Good thing LSR and JNU prided themselves on low budget fashion. I wouldn’t have made it otherwise.

I was never fat during all these. Curves I had none. People always marveled at it. I blame it on the death-defying journeys to all these eateries because Delhi is an amazingly unsafe city. If you ever ride the Tivra Mudrika, for example, you flirt with death quite literally. The bus wants to see people die. I started going everywhere with SAKs. Buy a Victorinox one; it’s the best. I also blame NSO and Aerobics. LSR wouldn’t let you graduate unless you filled in requisite hours for either NSO, NSS or NCC. Mamu and I first chose NSS but the bitch of a woman i/c of NSS never credited us our hours. So we switched to NSO and the only thing we could realistically do was Aerobics. Which was how every single weekday morning at 7, we were at a little gym enclosure, kicking it to the beat of Get Down by the Backstreet Boys, usually. For one entire hour. The weekend after the first full week, our legs did not work. Aerobics is an amazingly full-bodied workout. The muscle overwork and fatigue resulted in magnificent cramps. I fell off my bed, walked like a cowboy after a full week’s horse ride, and descended stairs like a giraffe trying to drink water. I still prefer it to yoga, the fake ass posing drama. I think yoga is fake, except for maybe the cat-cow pose; I think that helps.

These days, I have about maybe 10% of my former appetite. I think maybe I burnt myself out. It might be from years of living alone I just sort of gave up. I still have binging tendencies. At one point, I ate so much Nabati cheese wafers that the wholesaler I bought it from asked me: How do you sell so much? I couldn’t bear to tell her I ate it all myself. I also ate sunflower seeds like the world was running out on them; they’re not good for your poop. At one point recently, I consumed those pre-cooked, vacuum-packed, oily, chilly-flaked, MSG slathered sausages all day whole day. I can’t even look at them right now. I think that’s what happens to me: I overeat.

These days, I just nod and say: ya, I don’t eat much. People don’t usually believe I once was a walking human garbage disposal anyway. I think also that maybe once you get introduced to really good food, Not Entirely Really Good Food just does not cut it. Which is not to say that I refuse food when it is bad. I think it bad manners to not eat something that was served to me. If I finish a dish or not, whether it is food I like or not, I try to consume at least a few bites, just to show respect to the hands that prepared it. That’s just being a half-decent human, IMO; not much, at all.

I’ve been cooking for the whole day today for a nurse’s meeting is why I’m writing this long ass piece. Such depth.

Fat Pigs on a Farm

On my way out to enjoy a little R&R on a random Saturday at 5 in the morning, I passed by a host of women gearing up for the Inrinni Zing Bazaar. 

I was up early because I wanted to enjoy a cup of dark, bitter coffee in a rustic old steel mug, with hot water from my brand new vacuum bottle, on a hilltop, just staring out at God’s good earth before humans wake up and spoil the day again. And, of course, take pictures that might end up on Instagram.

The women were up because they needed to make a living. 

We were not the same.

I started to think then what I think often about: how all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. And how sometimes I am less equal than others but dear lord, how often was I so much more equal than yet more others.

I never wish to be defined solely by the circumstances of my birth and I also do not wish to be limited by it. However, I have always been acutely aware of how privileged I am. In contrast with others, even more so. 

In my line of work, I often dine with people for whom a lakh is pocket change. But I also often have tea with people for whom a thousand bucks is good money. It is interesting to navigate between the two and try to think of ways to solve all their problems. The only conclusion I have come to is this: there is no one size fits all solution. To every single application of Law, and even societal mores, there are exceptions. You cannot treat the outliers as the norm and try to change the entire system because often the system does work (except for them) but it would be a great disservice if you forced them to the same standards as everyone else.

In Political Sociology, we often say a hungry man knows no politics. I think it is an adaptation of some remnant Reaganomics from the 80s. I find it incredibly succinct. You can’t judge people from the comfort of a concrete building, safe from the elements and a comfortable few lakhs parked in the family accounts. Even the idea of how corrupt and unethical people are that they are easily bought by politicians for a small sum. But I have started to wonder whether or not this speaks more favourably of people who would take a mere 2000 bucks from party workers on Election Day, then go to anonymous voting compartments and decide that their words actually mean something. Unethical, yes, but it is a strange real world variant of principles. Twisted and bent, but principles nonetheless.

Therein lies the issue. Real world problems often cannot be tackled from ivory towers of theories and ideals in real time, no matter how well they do abstract it given some space and distance. People in the real world, be it policy makers or executives or ground beneficiaries often have to make non-choices. Choices between rocks and hard places, devils and deep blue seas, Sophie’s Choices, whatever you wish to call them. 

It would be irresponsible to believe that a strict moral code and adherence to it are all that people need for society to function. Even morals are biased to our lived experiences. How do you negotiate that? Things that seem so good on paper sometimes fall completely flat on ground. Pencil pushers would never understand how fieldwork works, in the same way ground workers cannot see the forest for being engaged with the trees. It is where we are planted where we get to specialize in topics. Perhaps an evening out of workers or at the very least, a commune of the two are necessary for a programme to work. Not accusatory snide comments thrown at the other for not knowing things.

The funny part is (well, not funny ha-ha, funny like hmmm) is that all these things are just burgeoning stereotype solidification. Clique formation, maybe. Created evil, you could even say. When you place someone in a more comfortable situation, very often because they suck up to you, they start to thrive. As they are wont to, unless they are complete wankers. In Mizo society, they may start dressing better, maybe use Minglish, raise their living standards, consume brands, develop an increasingly impressive social circle from hobnobbing that comes with being placed in optimum company, become “Mi Thil Ti Thei”… and then the same people who first indulged them start to be convinced they are more than they are, and start sycophanting to them. Vicious road.

We are to bloom where we are planted, we always say. But sometimes the soil we are given is sparse. And we can’t live on weeds and expect to be as fat as people living on sweet, sticky, multi-coloured maize. It is an unfair competition. We shouldn’t expect it of us to be on par with some other people, and in turn not expect others to be on par with us. There’s a really nice Mizo proverb that says even a boulder can’t stand unless propped up by pebbles. Maybe sometimes we are boulders, maybe sometimes we are pebbles. It is what it is.

I suppose in the end, what is really important is how much we contribute to this extra equality to pigs. In other words, how big a pig we are. No?

Stupid Heroes.

Pa Zokhuma drove with a zozial. The Jeep was an old blue piece of junk and not designed for comfort even in its heyday. An 8-seater, with the back seats arranged perpendicular to the front seats but parallel to each other, it was perfect for transporting policemen on duty, or schoolkids. Maximum seating capacity for a vehicle of its size.

There were about eight of us kids of police officers of the 2nd Bn. MAP complex in Luangmual, Lunglei who attended Sacred Heart School at Venglai. A long ride, even for now, with better cars and better roads. It’s alright though because I’m pretty sure when we’re old, we’ll tell kids we “journeyed” to school every day, as an illustration of our perseverance and dedication to education and whatnot.

The zo zial, though. Pa Zokhuma was the designated driver for transporting school kids. He was always smoking. And he smoked the rolled up local tobacco. The zo zial would rest nonchalantly between his fingers, pad of palms lazily resting on the steering wheel. He would also chew paan that stained his mouth and every once in a while, he would spit out red gunk on the road. He didn’t even need to roll down a window or open the door. Police Jeeps don’t need safety doors. 

Jeeps are amazingly unsafe vehicles! I never realized. In all these subsequent years of romanticizing the vehicle, it has never occurred to me that it was a really uncomfortable machine! I mean we considered the Gypsy as the “comfortable ride”. Even the Ambassador with its Sarkari lace curtains and deep seats that offer motion sickness as an accompaniment to the ride was considered nicer than the Jeep. It made so much noise. The acceleration was slow. The ride was rough and bumpy. The negotiation with curves felt unstable. Props to looks though. I still want to own one. 

We romanticize everything so easily once they turn to memories. Trevor Noah said we should do this in the reverse when it comes to people – praise them when they’re alive and talk trash after they die. He may have a point. What’s the point rhapsodizing over a dead man? Unless he has an active ghost you do not want to offend. Maybe that’s the reason. Who knows?

I romanticize the Jeep and the Gypsy. And even Google says you have to be an old man car lover to love either one. I don’t even enjoy driving either. Driving a Gypsy 30 kilometres from Aibawk to Leitan, especially with a detour to Armed Veng via Chite Rd., is no joke. A Maruti 800 admittedly is tougher on the arms but at least it’s a small tiny car and doesn’t make half the noise my Gypsy makes. And they’re roughly the same age.

My sister Feli romanticizes smoking on an open road, wrist dangling on the steering wheel with a cigarette in her hand. She had once rolled up classroom notes, burned one end and drove her plastic red car around the front yard, fire blazing in her hand, grin as wide as a Cheshire Cat's. Until one of the adults stopped her in great alarm. They never should have given her a lighter to begin with. That was on them. She hero-worshipped drivers. She started cars for them. She helped wash the vehicles. She only wanted to do what Pa Zokhuma did.

Neither one of us chews paan but I do overeat khajoor supari occasionally. And both of us enjoy resting our left hands on the gear stick. A lot of our passengers hate this seemingly relaxed posture. They think it's pretentious.

Things you admire as kids have a way of staying with you. Remember the days we chewed that damn red candy that stains everything from your teeth to your tongue to feckin’ cement?! And how wonderfully adult we felt. How stupid we were, wishing we were adults.

Today I just wish I were a cat.

Kill That Hope

Abandon hope, Dante’s Inferno tells the reader, when you enter hell. That this line should be one of the most (if not the most, altogether) recognizable line from medieval literature should tell us something, I believe.

Why are we supposed to abandon hope? Because hope sets us up. Hope pertains to something that hasn’t yet transpired. Hope is deceptive. Hope is inherently biased. Hope can lead us to boundless delusions and we may forever end up entertaining illusions.

It is dangerous to give people hope if you’re only going to take it away. Desperate people are dangerous. And you should not frustrate people in this day and age when we are all just a hair trigger away from turning into werewolves, even without the full moon. People are by and large disappointed with Life. If you’re not going to be able to deliver, don’t promise them things. We’ve all sort of accepted that we are rolling in the mud and we just shuffle along. But when someone gives us hope, we start to dream. Like pigs staring out at the stars from a pigpen, as it often happens. That’s when people abandon hope and become exactly who naysayers have always said they would be, the worst versions of themselves. It is an incredibly rigged system. And sometimes we are the ones who contribute to it. Maddening, no?

Of course, we don’t like to introspect, so we don’t realise it or accept these vexing thoughts of ourselves to ourselves. Even when our actions have fanned out to undeniable negative repercussions, we rationalize it and say we have done what we have for the greater good. The greater good. What a concept! So grandiose. And so deceptive. Anyone who’s ever read Harry Potter would understand how flawed this phrase is. In real life, any student of Political Science would instantly recognize this as a flaw in democracy. Who is the greater? A demographic majority? An elite majority? Who?

I don’t know, man. Maybe the call to abandon hope is apt today because maybe the world has already ended and we are in Inferno, without our realizing it. There are glitches in the Matrix, as us sci-fi nerds like to say. Every few days, there are new evidences of Mandela’s Effects. I was always so sure it was ‘Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear’, for example; apparently it has always been ‘Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear’; I refuse to believe this.

But I am stupid. And I remain thus. Like my sci-fi hero, The Doctor of Gallifrey, I am, and always will be, the optimist; the hoper of far-flung hopes, and the dreamer of improbable dreams. And when in the course of time, I have to choose between sacrificing/killing people for the greater good or being a coward, I hope I choose to be a coward.

Ka Pa Khuma, The Miller Of Miz(oram)?

The other day, I drove my mum and dad when they wanted to visit people. And dad said: Have you heard of Ka Pa Khuma? I said, yes I have and that I was surprised he had heard of it.

My parents aren’t always With It when it comes to pop culture references. There was a time they would both marvel at Rakhi Sawant and Lady Gaga. When we were really young, they and my uncle and aunt were really into Michael Jackson. Sometimes, they’d know people like Sylvester Stallone (strictly as Rambo), Arnold Schwarzenegger (again, strictly as the Terminator), some WWE superstars and a few other people who really break through their own niche and become mega-stars. Otherwise, even in Mizoram’s tiny celebrity scene, they don’t often know anyone. And any pop culture thing.

Like Ka Pa Khuma.

Dad said: It is a marvellous song and basically the Mizo version of The Miller Of The Dee.

I said: That’s actually very succinct. 

So we played the song and the pair of them listened and moved along to the rhythm in the backseat. When the song ended, they said: Ah, the song is too short, play it again.

Apparently they had requested this of my sisters when they had driven them to Vairengte the week prior. I guess they like the song. Also they met the singer in Vairengte so they thought she sang well, as well. There are not a lot of up and coming new artists they approve of, so this is novel.

However, my neighbour RPi has a different view of the song. According to her, it just promotes a laissez-faire attitude, which often translates to a lazy fair attitude. People should not be so breezy with their responsibilities and their accountabilities. Because the world? It be tough.

I have no huge stakes in the song. I think it is a lovely song. I am happy that new artists in Mizoram are writing songs that aren’t just about people breaking promises and being forever alone. It is a welcome break. And the music itself is new and different. I am forever singing praises of new talent. Do check out their song on YouTube; you won't regret it.

Meanwhile, our other neighbour Pa Mawia is convinced the song, as sung by Mary Dawngi, is called Ka Pa Dawnga.

What Are You Eating?

“Children don’t want puakzo, they want popcorn,” someone said and smirked.

To understand the joke, you need to know both Mizo and English. And also a general understanding of colonialism or at least a functional, practical comprehension of what White Man Culture has come to manifest as in an ex-colony. In JNU, whenever she’d encounter these little details in everyday life, one of my friends would sneer and say: Tchah, safed pujari. White worship, you could say.

It is a strange concept but very widely accepted. Anything white is better than anything tribal. Sometimes you can substitute white for Korean these days. But the basic foundation remains.

Puakzo is the Mizo word for popcorn, for those that don’t speak Mizo. And it is true about the joke. Children really don’t want puakzo. They want popcorn. Especially the kinds that come in brightly coloured paper bags. Or maybe microwaved in a fancy glass bowl. Or flavoured, although that’s more about taste than safed pujari.

But even as we give children grief over this, they’re not isolated. Children do have to learn this from somewhere. And that somewhere is the society at large and the family in specific. Mostly.

There is a good chance that among the people who think it beneath them to eat sa kawchhung/ pumpui because it is disgusting, that they might not feel the same about tripe. Very UK sounding dish. I’m sure I’ve read it mentioned in Harry Potter. Or by Enid Blyton, somewhere.

Or, say, pork rind. AKA chicaronnes, as I learned recently from Young Sheldon. It’s just your basic vawk vun kan puah. A very nice snack especially if you’re having a cold brew. Or in this same vein, chicken crisps – ar vun kan puah. And I don’t know how algorithms work but I’ve recently seen a lot of different pork trotters dishes recently, even in fancy restaurants; again, just your basic vawk ke.

I’m not judging, just exercising my sociological curiosity. Because you can’t tell people to value something and expect them to just obey you. Like how we hear this constant refrain that “tHe yOuTh” needs to start respecting Kut Hnathawktu and not just worship money and the moneyed. Simply on the basis of “Correct Heroes To Worship”. I very firmly believe that when we find a Kut Hnathawktu whose success has translated financially, “tHe yOuTh” will give him that respect. You can’t expect people to strive for poverty. It doesn’t work that way. People value who they value. It is what it is.

For now, we may not always value Thingsemim but we might like Hazelnuts. Ooh, side bar: I knew Thing Sia and Thingsemim separately and it was not until I went to (I want to say) Vanzau that it clicked that the latter was the seed of the former; felt amazingly stupid that day. It was in the name!

Or we might enjoy cinnamon sticks and not give much thought to Thakthing. Or be a Tea Lover but would resolutely describe ourselves as precisely in that term and not as a Thingpui Heh, although the Mizo term has a weirdly negative connotation related to greed so maybe that’s part of the deal. I don’t know. Maybe the foreign words are just that much cooler. And we want to be fancy. It’s just human.

And I know it’s already February but this is my first blog of the year, so Happy New Year 2024.