When I studied in Mary Mount School, our teachers exposed us to certain extra-curricular activities like subscription to magazines which catered to North-east teenagers/youth, Christian youth, Indian youth etc. Aside from their own material and content, these magazines and comics taught us colloquial English that textbooks do not offer. The teachers even provided us the opportunity to make foreign friends via International Youth Service, what we called Pen Pals those days. These days, all of us are Screen-Mates, it seems like. Facebook Friends and IG Followers, all of us.
In the 00s, Snail Mail was still popular. We knew our addresses because we kept writing them on envelopes. We bought stamps in bulk. We bought paper and other stationeries scented by potpourri. We received them constantly too. These days, all the stamp buying I do is for office dak.
How things change!
We lived in Armed Veng in the days of IYS Pen Pals. Esther Leihang, M40 Armed Veng, Aizawl 796001 was the address I scribbled at the “If Undelivered, please return to” space at the flipside of the envelopes I’d mail to Europe and America. I don’t know if all the letters were delivered; if they were undelivered, none of them ever returned to me. However, mails addressed to that address did find their ways to me.
We talked about veng/locality names quite often in my friend circle. Sometimes I still think about them, especially when I move to a new town/village.
Take Electric Veng, for example. It is where I stay in Hnahthial. There is seemingly an Electric Veng in every slightly bigger town in Mizoram. Apt too because that would usually be the localities where the Power & Electric Dept. run their sub-offices.
Or Chanmari in almost every big town. That I figure would have been named for where people used to, you know, mar the chand. Hit the bullseye. Target practice places evolving to proper localities.
Or an ITI Veng which would develop quite naturally around any place that has an ITI institution. Like a College Veng in many places as well. Or even a Sikul Veng (for older schools, perhaps?).
My old locality as well. There are not that many Armed Vengs in Mizoram. I know of no other than the one in Aizawl. Armed Veng was named for the establishment of the 1st Batallion Mizoram Armed Police in the area. The Veng developed around it. Leitan, by contrast, appears to exist in other places as well, not just in Durtlang. Rock-cut areas for roads, you understand, literally lei tan.
This is the way many areas have developed – around an institution. Not just in Mizoram but even back in Delhi. INA Colony and Defence Colony come to mind.
It happens.
Hermon, is another common name. It is also the Lane where we currently live in, within Leitan Veng. In many places it is the name of the Veng itself. As in Hermon Veng. A bit more Biblical. There are few Vengs like that. Bethlehem Veng, for instance. Or Peniel Veng.
There are a few Republic Vengs here and there. I wonder where that is from. Also the few scattered Nursery Vengs. Is Nursery here for kids’ education or plants? I don’t really know.
In Mizoram, other less creative but natural occurring common place names for localities would be your Vengsang, Venglai, Vengthlang areas. That would be Upper Area, Middle Area and Lower Area – where the town expanded. Very natural. Very easy to understand. In this way, you’d also have your Ramthar and Ramhlun, Vengthar and Venghlun – new areas and old areas.
There are the Adjective variety as well. For instance, your many -kawn(s); you know, junctions. You’d have your Sikulpuikawn, Bungkawn, Bawngkawn, Serkawn, Ramrikawn – junctions named for identifying markers: Main School, Banyan (?), Cattle, Fruits, Border, what have you. There is a Kikawn in Lunglei; I have no idea what a Ki is.
For that matter, quite a few villages are named this way. After a brook, for example. Selesih and Kelsih come to mind. Brooks where mithuns and goats, respectively, drank? Maybe there are more -sih(s) I can’t remember presently.
There are also quite a few Zotlangs and Zonuams here and there. Go figure.
Addresses are quite interesting. It would be nice for a little Graduation thesis in Sociology. Maybe someone from MZU or College Level Sociology can pursue it for term paper and make a little Sociology of it. It should be interesting. Research on names of places. I’d read that.
Speaking of education again, schools have changed so much. I don’t even know the academic year anymore, leave alone syllabus. In all honesty, it has become harder for me to relate to teenagers today, my age finally catching up, as it must, as it happens to every well-adjusted human to their appropriate ages. I don’t know what ECA schools lay out for their kids. In the days of Facebook and Instagram, IYS Pen Pals are probably a thing of long ago. Snail Mail, as we called it. I had a few friends in Italy, USA and France. We’d send each other stickers, collected the stamps, exchanged pleasantries. At one point in college, I even reconnected to an old Italian friend in Orkut, though it did not last. We had become different people by then.
I appreciate what the school did for me and all I learned from the ECAs of the more literary bent, for introvert kids like me. I wonder if they still do it, one way or the other.
