The Possimpible

Barney Stinson talks a lot of shit but The Possimpible makes sense to me because I’ve actually had people ask me to look for a needle in a haystack.

Funnily enough, I’ve found the needles too. Twice. 

And who are these people? Why, my own parents! Thank you for asking.

One day my mother sat me down and told me that back in the day when Electric Veng Aizawl had been called Tuitu Veng, she had attended Primary School there. In that school, she had a friend Partei. Partei’s father was a policeman. The memory she has of her is of Partei telling her that her family eats “double roti”. Whatever that was. In any case, Partei’s family decided to move to Champhai and they relocated.

Enter 2017 and me packing to move to Champhai to be Treasury Officer there. My mother said: look for her, look for my old friend. I said yes. She nodded. I was completely being sarcastic but she took the yes as a yes. And so every once in a while, she’d ask me if I’ve managed to find Partei. I always said no. But she never gave up. And then one day (I want to say 2019 or thereabouts) I actually randomly found her! I was talking with the father of a friend and he said his wife’s name was Partei. I got excited and asked him if she’d ever spent her childhood in Aizawl. He said: no, but her cousin Partei did. So I told him the story and he said it was possible that Cousin Partei was also Friend Partei!

And she was.

I told my mother about it and she came to visit me. I’d talked to Pi Partei before and she dropped in. Her house was actually walking distance from my house! She came by and they took a picture together and we ate dinner at Nu Partei’s house (Nu Partei, not Pi Partei by now) and everything. The funny part was that I had already known Nu Partei because she has a school in Champhai that my friends’ kids attended and also because of her son who I’d known for long because he was part of NGOs and we often met at meetings at the office. Small world!

My father got very excited over this result. And so he set me a task of his own. There was a man in Lianpui called Sangthuama. He said: find him, I want to meet him. This was easier. I had a name and an address. It turned out he was a model citizen, which I learned after I talked to the VCP of Lianpui. I had no idea it would be the correct Sangthuama however because Lianpui could have multiple Sangthuamas and whatever my dad knew of him was from a man who was once a guest in our house who didn’t even speak Mizo and who told him the name back in 1999. This was 2023. He could have moved out. He could have died. He could refuse to meet us.

In fact, since the VCP had told him the DLAO Champhai and an ex-IGP wanted to talk to him, he was on his guards. Rightly so, I suppose. He was highly cagey when we first got to his home and we asked him if he was who he was. But it was a friendly visit. We had a good chat. And when we left, he and his wife gave us sticky rice and zawngtah from their garden. That was nice of them.

Impossible? No, more like possimpible.

Speaking of guests, the pair of them have decided that in my next posting in Hnahthial, they want me to find a dead man’s family. They had never asked me to look for anyone in Aibawk but I guess I was home a lot during my Aibawk posting so probably they didn’t think much of it. Anyway, this Hnahthial man had died in Delhi and the family had once been guests in our house the night he died. My parents don’t know his name. Or any of his family’s. All they know is he was from Hnahthial. And that his mother had said he liked the taste of river crabs. So yes. Quite a challenge once more but let’s call it one of The Possimpibles.

Wish me luck.