Ex-BDO Girl

Dear Reader, 

Of the life experiences I was exposed to during my tenure as BDO Aibawk, there were few things that have stood out that I want to share with you.

One, I used one gas cylinder for 13 months straight and it is still heavy. Once while I was in Champhai, one cylinder had lasted me 7 months and everyone who knew laughed at me for it. But this one lasted even longer.

Two, I participated in not one, not two but three elections while I held office; they took me away from office a bit longer than I’d have liked.

Three, we got two awards that I’m not sure how we got because we weren’t working towards any criteria. Perhaps a remnant of my predecessor’s. One was a little weird but we’ll take it. We got two.

Four, Cyclone Remal claimed five lives, several livestock, multiple houses and countless landslides, destroying crops and roads in its wake. If we were in pre-Christian days, we’d probably be sacrificing some large animal – a bovine or a swine probably – to appease some deity we didn’t know. I’d probably be heading the rituals. It really looked like Fury personified unleashed their anger on our hill range. Damn.

Five, in Samlukhai, I learned how to locate and check for aiawt, those bamboo thatched crab traps. Also found out in the process that it is illegal in Mizo customs to check someone’s aiawt. So don’t do as I did.

Six, again in Samlukhai, I learned how to identify and harvest bamboo shoots. This activity once more brought home to me how fortunate I am to be a salaried govt. employee because no way I am clever or strong or hard-working enough to survive on my skills and tenacity. I’d starve.

Seven, I learned how to make kurtai in Phulpui. This was very interesting because I had no idea how quickly and completely hmawngsawi turns into kurtai! If I may slip in a general advice here, if anyone asks you to make kurtai, turn up early. People work early to make kurtai!

Eight, I walked through the Sunflower fields of Sailam and my absolute faith in the majesty of sunflowers was redoubled.

Nine, I hoisted the National Flag twice in Aibawk. And received the salute in Sateek during Republic Day from the St Francis school contingents. That was a big deal. For me.

Ten, I attended Lo Zawh in Tachhip. That was a lot of fun.

Eleven, Sh. Kamlesh Pashwan, the Union Minister of State, Rural Development, Govt. of India was the last and most distinguished guest of the office during my tenure. He said the office and the area was really clean and tidy. He told me my staff was well-disciplined. He said our work was good. 

Twelve, I can’t remember the last time I’ve properly eaten roasted fresh butta with some syrupy sweet tea in the rain. I did that in the chayote gardens of Lamchhip. It was grand. 

Thirteen, some unseen being knocked on my door at 4AM one morning waking me up from my slumber. Spooky.

Fourteen, there were three births (all daughters) and two deaths (both men) among my staff during my tenure. Rather poignant.

Fifteen, a random man one day walked up to my quarters one day and asked me for glasses. As in spectacles. I was very confused. He said he’d lost his and asked if I had one for him. Quite aside from the optometrical issue, I remain confused if he was a bit mental or just drunk off his ass. This is quite aside from the fact too that he called me “ka pu”. Vanity took a nosedive! I was just happy I wasn’t wearing my glasses at the time or he might have asked me for it. And what could I have done? Give up the gift of sight? I don’t know.

Sixteen, come to think of it, I don’t know what it is about Aibawk RD Block but in the time I was here, I got deliberately called Sir, as in short for Officer by the VCP of Lungsei. This has both amused and delighted me and my staff. I don’t mind it. I rather like it. 

Seventeen, Aibawk has never had a female BDO so I guess there’s something there in as far as the gender confusion I faced.

Anyhoo. I joined office on May 26th, 2023 and left on August 12th, 2024. It was not a long stay. But it was a lot. Some good, some bad. As always, there are people who I have come to count as good friends, and perhaps even as non-blood family. There have also been people who have been excited and happy to see the back of me. It’s all right. I am warmed by the kind people who get outraged on my behalf. It’s like I always say: you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. You have to learn to appreciate the good and accept the bad. You just have to let the good outweigh the bad.

So Long, Aibawk. Till we meet again.

pH/PHED

While you guys were in church last Sunday, I learned a bit about our drinking water from Tlawng. Of course, after a nice, regular natural steam bath via R. Tlawng, they put me in a nice AC room and fed me tangy sweet fruit salad and I forgot my notebook there. Now this notebook cannot fall into the wrong hands. It contains state secrets. No, it doesn’t. I'm kidding. But it does contain a lot of what I've learned over the past few months. Esp w.r.t. RD. I learn by writing. That’s just how it goes. If I don’t write something down, chances are I will forget it. So I really can’t afford to lose the notebook.

Anyhoo. I nodded wisely and listened to talks about pH and alum... I'll even reproduce it for you!

1. Pump the water.

2. Control the sediment using alum. (I don’t remember the real chemical name; maybe ask a PHED officer if you want to know?)

3. Separate the water from the sediment; now the water is highly acidic

4. Control the pH level

5. Purify the water and make it safe for drinking

6. Supply it to homes

PHED is for health. It’s in the name: Public Health Engineering Department. But honestly, water distributor, amirite? No, I kid. There's a lot that goes into PHED – sanitation concerns being an easy top pick of PHED works. Provision of safe drinking water is, I suppose, technically, only a branch of their workload. Sometimes I think the rural population understands PHED better than the urban one but that might just be me.

Aside from all these lessons, I was impressed by the damage that water could cause. I’ve gone on a long soliloquy over water (check out an earlier blog here, very on-the-nose title, "Water") but I am nowhere close to being done with it. I checked the water level at the pump tower and I was easily submerged. I am a short girl, I reached my adult height of 5’2” aged 12. But even then, I think it is most impressive for water level to have climbed so high at the pumping stations that I could be buried under it. Even if I stood at 6’4” I would still have been fully immersed is how high the water level climbed. The pumping station at its ground level is already at 55ft from the river bed. The water really climbed up to the pumping tower and drowned the motors there at I think safely 10ft off from the tower floor. Scary.

So now PHED can’t pump/distribute the amount of water they once could. First off, that had never been enough, per capita. But now it’s only a fraction of what they once could. It seems so paradoxical that because there’s excess water, we are not getting enough water. The difference between flood water and safe water. It’s the same as an entire world covered in water but only 3% of it is fresh water and only 1.2% of it is accessible. Water planet and all that, but ya.

All of this got me thinking although that thinking got me nowhere. Until last night I was checking out IG reels and someone said: the p in pH doesn’t stand for anything! Or at least we don’t know. In 1909 when Søren Sørenson came up with a way to measure acidity, apparently he just said: we’ll use something called pH to measure acidity, 0 through 14, lower numbers more acidic, higher numbers more basic and the H in pH will stand for Hydrogen. End of lesson.

Apparently the top two hypotheses in the chemist world for the p in pH is potential or power. But we (they, I suppose) don’t know.

Maybe the p is silent in pH. As long as the P in PHED is not silent, we are good.