Spooky

White people have their October. Us we got August and September – spooky months. Now the calendar reads Thlazing and Mim Kut Thla, but when I was growing up, August and September were taught to us as Thitin Thla and Mim Kut Thla. I don’t know what Thlazing means but the word sounds spooky still.

As for Thi Tin Thla, it just means the month when the Dead departs our world. I’ve always thought it was spooky. Apparently there is this whole ritualistic journey the dead follows before they leave the land of the living. In fact, there’s a whole ritual also of climbing all over the furniture before they leave the house. If the Old Mizo religion is right, I am so going to be lost when I die. I am endlessly directionally-challenged.

In fact I was griping about this the other day. My mother who should know by now that I can get lost on my way home from work still insists on giving me directions in terms of cardinal points. Go west, turn east, she’ll say. What do I know of these? Not even my moral compass point due North. I can make sense of Left and Right, after consulting my Internal GPS for about 5 seconds. I have no head for directions. I am hopeless. If my departed spirit has to do the ritualistic climbing over furniture and heading for Rih Dil, I am so going to be a Lost Soul.

Which is OK. I have people I’d like to haunt.

My parents did not tell us about Old Mizo beliefs very much. They fed us on Christianity. Anything I’ve learned about other religions have been on my own or because of Sociology. Which is good because as a kid who was terrified yet curious about anything paranormal, with an overactive imagination, I’d never have slept for two continuous months in a year. Months when spirits are active? Months when the spirits depart? Months that are consecrated to spirits? Ya, no, thanks.

Unexpectedly, after having spent a lot of years in North India, I’ve become very blasé about spirts and the paranormal. The interest remains, though. Firmly so, I might add. I still devour any literature and art on the mythological and paranormal. But it’s now nothing more than a curiosity. I am far too scared of human beings at this point to be scared of ghosts overmuch. Which is not to say I’d like to meet a spirit. I’ll go to my grave happy never having met or sensed one in any way whatsoever. But there simply are too many concrete real-life people to fear without adding unseen beings to the list.

There’s just three more points I’d like to meet before I sign off.

One, Swifties have August but thankfully, I was not in a frame of mind this August to feel the song.

Two, the Idiot Nation has When September Ends and while it is a beautiful song, I hope to not need to feel this song either this September.

Three, as long as we do the Memory Day thing for dead relatives on 31st December which does not really have a bearing on Christianity, I’d like it very much if we used August/September for this instead. Like how Mexican Christians have co-opted the Day of the Dead in Catholicism which has nothing to do with Christianity at all but everything to do with their heritage and culture. There’s so much going on at the end of the year with Christmas services and this Commemoration service and New Year’s services, then after a few months Good Friday and Easter services. And then silence. We just wait for Christmas again. It might be nice to embroider our culture into our new religion and have a nice Commemoration Service in the months that are sacred to Mizo anyway, no matter how Christian we become. 

Thla Serh, after all. Spooky.