Another Town, Another World

Comedy often gets lost in translation. So truly, I pity the people who won’t get the whip dry comedy of Pu Biaka as he talks about his hunting prowess. One hour straight of never cracking up as he drawls in this low, measured voice, recounting his many extraordinary experiences in the game? Transcendental experience.

I mean how in the world does someone talk about if all the monkeys I’ve killed came back to life, they’d fill up the football stadium for the World Cup finale and then top it off with but I don’t really consider monkey as game? Hilarious. Or, I don’t have much experience fishing but I guess the biggest fish I caught was the catfish I shared with 300 people and when it rained, we propped its mouth up and took shelter in the cave of the mouth? Hi-fucking-larious.

Of course, people seem to know him best for the wildly beautiful Lasi – nymphs, maybe, I don’t know; or elvenfolk in the manner of LOTR and not Harry Potter – he has supposedly known. Biblically. I’ve heard of many people who claim to have Lasi lovers but I’ve never heard of a Lasi college! Also I’ve never heard of castes of Lasi. That wit was blazing sharp.

In another world, another town, he could be famous. He could really cash in on this. When I met him, he told me people have indeed suggested he take up comedy as a vocation. That he could possibly earn decent money from this routine.

I agree. I think he has great potential. I am a fan of dry comedy. Always have been. My favourite authors have been known for their razor-sharp wit. Douglas Adams, Bill Bryson, KC, JK Rowling, Terry Pritchard, Neil Gaiman, Andrew Kaufman, Marian Keyes, Mindy Kaling, Jug Suraiya, Richard Ayoade, Khushwant Singh… all amazingly witty. I don’t know how rich they all are but going by how I have had access to them before the explosion of social media, I think they have a pretty penny each to their names. Assuming fame and fortune go hand in hand. And I’m guessing they do. To a certain point, at least.

This is a problem with living in a shitty economy. I know a senior in my service who would be aces as a CEO of a big-ass company but they’re not because we’re in Mizoram and as Mizoram economy goes, being MCS is stable, secure, decently-paid, powerful enough, in short, dream job. I’ve often thought about how it would be grand to do something else but in this economy, what I have is good. Which sucks. Because I think sometimes that if I were in a richer economy, I’d be trying out for something else than government service. I’m not saying I’d excel, but I’d try out. In Mizoram, it’s harder to be brave, career-wise. Especially when you know you lack tenacity.

Moving on.

There are Mizo people who are so witty they amaze me. I often watch youtube clips of Mastea (a current favourite) and earlier Mapuia (Zephyr/FTH, I guess), and earlier still listened to Thangkura and Leikhi Miss. Comedy changes with time. The people and material do, too. However, these people are usually of a different make than Pu Biaka, though. While a grand variety of the best of Mizo comedy is slap-stick or at least physical, Pu Biaka’s brand is bone dry, sedate and yet, this world-building he does on the spot is truly the mark of a sparkling wit, and proves he’s not just a dazzling wordsmith. For that, I’d marvelled and extolled. This was why while I have no real drive to meet any of the professional comedians, I’d wanted to meet Pu Biaka in person. I’d wanted to shake his hand, let him know his wit was appreciated. I’d wanted to sit and have tea with him and chat with him, listen to him chat in person. And thankfully, I did get to shake his hand and take a picture with him.

Which is a good story in itself! The day I got transferred to Hnahthial and I realized Pu Biaka was a resident of Hnahthial district and not far from the town at all, I was very excited. I made plans to locate and meet him. I eagerly waited for the first weekend so I could go look for him. I was fully prepared to use my office as a means to get to him. Which I did. I got the name and number of the village council leaders and asked around. Interestingly, his house was right across the village council president’s. And even though the monsoon road was not ideal for a weekend joyride (there were three major landslides and at one location, half the road have caved in), I went. He was not home.

I tried again the following weekend. He was again not home. But the third time I pestered the village council people over his whereabouts, they could locate him. But in the middle of nowhere on a jungle road. He was caked in mud, from cheeks to boots, I might add. Very fitting manner to meet a Great Hunter, I should have known.

They say you should not meet your heroes. Because they disappoint. Not Pu Biaka. That meeting was not disappointing. At all.

Hmanlai Film Dangdai: A Commentary

I consider it unnecessary for a story to have meaning. This is why I love anecdotes and random narration as much as full-fledged chronicles. In fact, I have never particularly enjoyed ‘moral of the story’ type tales. I like for morals and romances to be incidental to stories, not have them be central, overarching, all-encompassing themes. As in life. Most of life indeed is random and chance-like. This is why I have not been a big fan of Mizo literature overmuch, much less Mizo films. 

Then came Hmanlai Film Dangdai. Anyone who has ever watched HFD would know how very random the narration is and how arbitrary the picture has been captured. There is seemingly no rhyme or reason to the film, just the story and how it is told however it has to be told. Whatever the plot demands, the cast provides, reason be damned.

It is comedy gold reminiscent of Monty Python. I doubt I could give them a higher compliment than that. They also often answer real world queries in their films off-handedly, like how people thought the protagonist's name was Cheu-a but he was actually Tleu-a, as though that was an in-world misnomer. Never shying off of any topic, even mostly taboo topics like sex, HFD presents slices of life in a way that is novel to Mizo films in short bursts.

The dialogue is hardly ever stinted, although you can tell it has been thoroughly worked on because the punch line nearly always lands. The delivery by the actors is on point and sounds more natural than the majority of Mizo films; the conversations have a relaxed, between-friends sort of a vibe that is very often missing in Mizo cinema.

However, it was the costume that captured my attention first and foremost because there was a relaxation in it that was hilariously inconsistent. You’d have characters dressed in ‘proper’ ‘old-timey’ Mizo clothes and barefooted. Then you could erratically have one of those wear proper modern shoes. How? No explanation. Even more unpredictably, a character, most notably Hauchhumi, would appear in proper modern clothes – in her red flannel shirt, black jeans and shoes – with no clarification.

The characters themselves are another ambiguous ballgame. Sometimes they talk about characters from folktales like they were neighbours or at least living in the same time as them. Sometimes they casually go to the side of the road and enter ‘the deep forest’ and call out a Lasi who has magical powers and bestows upon the humans boons. These magical creatures exist side by side with them with zero impact on the humans unless they actively interact with them which is such a matter-of-fact story-telling which I deeply appreciate. They even whip out smartphones and if I remember correctly, talk about folktale characters being part of group chats or something similar. Possibly Japanese-esque in this regard. Or in the vein of retelling of stories where fairy tale creatures are in the modern world. Like Once Upon A Time, perhaps. 

I like the demonstration of relationship between the characters as well and how easy their bonds are accepted without making anything into a complicated love triangle. We all have those friends. We know them. We understand them easily enough. Of course, since there is only one major male character, he is often paired as the love interest of many of them ladies without it ever coming off as complex and intricate. They’re truly literally just playing parts. And simply playing off of each other as friends, like we do in real life. I cannot express just how deeply I respect this.

I have enjoyed many Mizo films. I have done my part watching the cringe fests with interest, even rented their CDs/DVDs from movie rentals. I can recite a few Mizo film dialogues with my sister. I sometimes howl with laughter over some comedy acts. Also over non-comedy acts too, in all honesty. YouTube is a relatively new venture and there are a ton of acts there that are refreshing. Not all of them films though. Not all of them brilliant.

One of the biggest problems I have with Mizo films is with direction and editing. There are simply too many unnecessary, empty screen times and scenes that drag out longer than they need to. Add to that moralizing and forced dialogues. HFD is novel again in that they do not waste screen time and utilize mostly all their scenes, often covering with overlaid voice-overs or dialogues. I truly admire this. It cannot be easy.

In the end, a good movie is about how well it tells a story and how engagingly it tells it. A good HD camera or good casting alone cannot be enough. HFD is good at it. I am a fan.

When Memories Turn To Stories

A few years ago, a middle-aged man I know was travelling to Lunglei from further south. It was the sort of day that was so hot it was loud. Sweat beading and running down the skin, evaporating and making the skin stick to random bits of clothes and dust from god-knows-where kind of a day.

He is not a tall man, possibly standing at 5 feet at a generous estimate. But otherwise, has a lot of reserve strength from having engaged in heavy physical work his whole life. Although he was unwell at the time, a cancer warrior, undergoing treatment.

The first thing he noticed when they seated themselves in the Maxicab – a Sumo, of course – was that he was the only male passenger. He remarked to his wife that he hoped they would have a good ride because if anything should happen, he was useless in dire straits right now and everyone else looked less than Xena in terms of crisis management.

Unfortunately (for him; fortunately for me, because I got a good story out of it; the Germans call this schadenfreude), the Sumo got a flat tire. The driver was this crappy, skinny young man who had forgotten to bring with him a spare tire. The only thing he had with him was a hand pump. He looked at the manual machine and the huge Sumo tire and calculated just how much effort it would take. He was already angry at the future he knew was coming, as surely and as inevitable as tax and/or death.

Just as The Man had feared, he was useless in an exigency at the moment. And the rest of the passengers were women, damsels in distress, in other words. So The Driver had no other choice but to get down to business and manually pump the humongous flat tire of the impressive Sumo. Sweat ran freely down his body like rivulets in the peak of monsoon. Heat rose in him and threatened to consume him like 3PM on a North India peak summer.

Everyone was quiet.

Then finally he proclaimed the tire adequately fixed till they could reach the nearest town. Unable to straighten up all at once, and exhausted from all the pumping, he decided to ask someone to check if the tire was sufficiently air-filled. Just a good thump on the rubber would be enough; he just could not muster the strength himself to do it justice. He looked at the only man in the assembly and rasped: One hit!

The Man knew he was addressing him but he not only was no driver but he had no understanding of tire dynamics. Possibly the only thing he knew was tires are round and filled with air but beyond that? Zero. What could “one hit” mean?

Hesitantly, he walked over to the bent, wheezing man and thumped him solidly on his back!

Dear Reader, imagine the face of The Driver at this moment: tired, angry, hot, sweaty, sticky, alone, bone-weary… and presently assaulted by the one person he would have thought from his gender alone (save for the cancer, of course) was supposed to have helped him pump the damned tire.

And the face of The Man who, immediately upon pummelling his Saviour, realised with sudden, impossible clarity that he had meant: Hit. The. Tire. To. Check. If. It. Was. Filled.

I always laugh at the memory. I hope you enjoyed the story, too.