By David Buhril
Very recently two serious incidents occurred in the Capital city that involves us- people from the North East. One, a media professional from Nagaland was prohibited from entering a public lounge bar, Urban Pind, on their expat night just because she was from the North East. Secondly, a research scholar from Manipur who is on the verge of submitting his doctorate thesis was caught red handed with his bloody hands while he was trying to make a good dish out of the dog that he and his friends killed in his hostel room in Jawaharlal Nehru University.
There are two excuses of both the incidents. While the authorities of the lounge bar said that the media professional did not “have the right profile” to enter the public place, on the other hand the one who knows what makes a good ambrosia said that he killed the dog in “self defence.” The research scholar was imposed with a fine of Rs.2000 and evicted from his hostel. If he had killed a chicken or fish in the same venue he could have shared whatever he makes out of it to his non-veg flat mates who otherwise have provoked animal rights after the incident. I don’t know if it was Columbus who said that a dog is man’s best friend. But it has made all the difference. A difference that makes you and me or us incorrigibly different.
Well, it is not wrong to re-examine oneself after witnessing the reaction of the others. However, the reaction of the others would be too far from blinding us or change our taste bud. There was once when it was the West and the rest of the world. Today, after decolonization and the antique Non-Aligned period in India, the geography, history and culture of the North East and more importantly everything about the people of the region is yet to fit suitably inside the radar of the rest of India. We have seen enough to realise that our survival as human being will depend on the ability of people who think differently of us to accept whatever difference we exhibited and inherited anywhere. We cannot change to surrender ourselves to suitably gel inside anyone’s standard of acceptance. We have become a case of separate reality, which the celebrated democratic system has validated as we failed to prove the number game that defines democracy. However, with the recent developments that has become almost a routine affair for us in India’s cow belt that is waking up to globalization, sushi, and the new world order it would do our democracy better if there could be an understanding of the cultures and diversity that is still invisible to them. I could grow tired exulting blissfully in seeing naïve audiences.
I could see no reason in observing the regiment of empowered generations, of proclaimed intellectuals and activist, who are blind to the draconian law (AFSPA) that validates the killing of man by another armed man that is still imposed by the Government of India in India’s North East, but are cynically contemptuous about the food culture and the features of the people of the region. While that speaks a lot about the confused people who are rearranging their reason and ignorance after the British left them to run the country with new frontiers, I cannot help myself but say that India is no stranger to racism. For the new nation whose birth is still unfinished, we are a witness to the mapping of the billion people on the basis of race and everything that matters to them. It amazed me when people could bear the brunt of Delhi’s heat to walk with big and loud pamphlets in support of dogs and cats, but could never wake up to the harsh reality of the trampled people in fringe geography who are living without realizing their fundamental rights. Animal rights seem to weigh heavier than human rights, which is unfortunate.
What I have learned is that I could grow tired of tolerating disrespectful introspection into my own cultural domain. I could be insulted too. It goes beyond Urban Pind or the dog. If this is how people who have been confined within an imagined single national culture reacts, I don’t find a safe space for our continuity as equal human being. When we know we cannot rewrite our history with dal makhan or roti or biryani messed up with lassi and smeared with a good overdose of gulab jamun, it is no surprise that the others are shocked with our taste bud and food culture. But our tolerance, which is yet to be Gandhianised, find it difficult to tolerate further when our taste bud is called “dirty” if not “filthy”, “uncivilized” and the girls and women are categorized as “cheap”, “easy”, and an object of “Rs.20 orgasm.” There are more label to our features and colour – “chinky”, “bahadur”, “Chinese”, “Nepali”, etc. I know there is a big difference, which is inevitable. But it should not act as the soft ground for negating our existence as human being.
Today we have become victims of our cultural consequences when we choose not. We ought to ask if we should continue to allow us to be victimized. Our social pattern and behaviour, and everything about us are attached to a big question that is left to be answered by everyone outside us. Are we witnessing neo-apartheid? The designed curriculum about the triviality of race differences did not seem to seep inside the self proclaimed learned intellectuals as it raised its ugly head anytime when the ground suits them. It is clear that racism still remains a widespread fact of many people’s lives.
I sometimes wonder how racial logic and racial frames of reference are articulated and deployed when our emerging cultures are seen as having sub-human qualities by the supposed dominant national culture in generating and legitimizing beliefs, values and behaviour. Well, we know for sure that it need not be ordain by anyone to get popular acceptance. Instead the challenge of our celebrated democracy is how to overcome the limitations of multiculturalism and anti racism that has become the new threat.
I find us severely reduced when our culture is no longer seen as the language of our identity and existence, but is seen as a separated reality if not differentiated reality, which again may be constitutionally scheduled like another endangered inheritance. We are confronting a challenge to our inherited structural and cultural marginalization. This is a period of transition. We should not allow preconceived notions and understanding to freeze under a select temperature to make us deficiently thriving. There should be significant changes to understand our history, culture, identity and interest. I have painfully and silently watch enough. Everyone, here and there, are victims and witness to the abuse of who we are. Everyone has experienced discrimination. It’s just that we tolerate them in silence. It is time we understand the extent to which oppositional practices have driven the assumed interest of our numbered democracy that is aided by the numb and blind but dominant state led strategies that have also attempted to respond to that defined collective when our little presence gets cornered in India’s north east. Oh! thank you silence. I know about the Urban Pind and the dog, but it is just another Indian urban pinch.
(New Delhi, July 20, 2008)
Courtesy: Delhi Thurawn
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July 21st, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Kan uisa duh zet hi zawng, zahna hlir zahna hlir. What do you say when you read about something like that, what do you tell your friends?
The media professional incident was entirely different, nobody thought it was fair, and at least among the people that I know, everyone admitted to being ashamed of their ‘mainland-Indian counterparts’ and how our entire system needs to be changed!
Zahthlak, thesis meuh ziak ve tawh a, room ah lehnghal ui lo talh! Tribal kan nih vang hian ‘tribal’ deuh a nun reng tur emaw an ti mawni…
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July 21st, 2008 at 1:48 pm
1. Dog meat: When you are in Rome, do not eat, let alone kill dog. It is a no-no in any part of India. Only in the far east, people eat dogmeat. Even there, strict laws about abattoirs and other hygenic laws about killing animals for meat previail. If you insist in eating dog meat, forget about living in North India.
2. Entry rules to Nightclubs: These are no place for respectable men and women to go. They are crawling with call girls, drug addicts and the like. Dress code prevail. Single males are normally not welcomed. I am not surprised if a Northeastner was refused entry. Chinense men have been going through these type of discrirmination in the West for years.
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July 21st, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Uisa hi cu duh viau mah ila mi ui vo thlu tur m cuan k eat lo a, delhi velah ei tur phei cuan k mol lo.
Tun hnaiah aizawlah animal activist an awm ta nual a uisa ei leh ramsa ei hi an soisel nasat pol tak a ni om e. Heng ho hi vegetarian an ni m cu k hrelo. Chakai te sanghate hi thang k tia k ei duhlo mahse k soisel ve lem lo. Ramsa te hi pathianin kn ei tur atana a dah a nia, soisak a lo diriamte leh mahni eikhp aia tam lo tih hlum tur eroh a dik lo, tih hi k gaihdan a ni tlat.
Ran theuh2 enge thliar vak a gaih, ar te, vok te, bong te poh an talh a. Ui a nih avang a talh loh tur ei loh tur tihte cu k gaihdan a nilo. Keini ai a ringtu tha s.korea ah uisa te zong a tamin an hlut teh e an tih cu!
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July 21st, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Mizo te hi Usa ualau taka ei hnam kan ni lo a, Zu in mi leh Uisa tih a ni deuh bik thina, tunlai hian inthlahrunng miah lo a uisa ei an tam ta khop mai. Uisa hi chu eilo thei hram i la a tha a sin mo le. Vai ho zing ah chuan vawksa ka ei ka ti duh miah lo, sangha leh Arsa chuah ka ei thin ka ti zaih zel.
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July 21st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
sa hrim hrim hi a siam dan a zirin a tuiin a tui lo thei…..
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July 21st, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Ui sa chu ka ei a, sa dang aia a tuina ka hmuchhuak chuang lo. Dik tak chuan Uisa ang hian sa dang hi sawngbawl ta ila tui lo tak tak chu a awmin ka ring lo.. te ka tia
Mualphopui khawp khawpa lo chaka lo talh vel chu a mualpho thlak ngawt mai..
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July 21st, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Ui leh sangha danglamna hrehrang lo chu leh. Manipuri pa chu a chawh ka ti ngawt mai, amah chawp chawp khan vawthlu ve se ani tur ania. China tak ngial pawn ramdang ho zah der vangin Beijing restaurant ah uisa an khap hmiah tawh, at least temporarily. Tin South Korea kristian rinnga ngheh zia lah hi mizoram abikin Presbyterian ho hian an sawi uar. South Korea ah a mi tam ber 50% deuh thaw khian pathian pawh an ring lemlo a, sakhua pawh an nei lemlo tih te hi hre ve mai mai ila.
Tin, Uisa ei hi mizo culture anihna pawh ka hre lo e. A eilo hi mizo zingah kan tam zawk ka ring.
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July 21st, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Mi hnam dan leh ngaihhlut zawng, an thil serh leh sang, awm an tih leh awm lo an tih, an rama kan cheng duh a nih chuan kan pawisak a dik ber. Mizo kan nih chhuanga an hriat leh tura ui sa ei leh an sakhuana sawisel sak te hi thil fin thlak a ni hauh lo. Duh leh mahni stateah chuan duh tawkin ei rawh se.
Mahse zirlai nih lai hi chuan pawisak teh chiam hi a awm lo thin a, hnam dang dan leh hrai zahsak te phei kha chu kan ngaipawimawh lo lehzual. Kan hostel awm laia Saraswati murty hnute kan khawihsak te kha chu han insual buai na loh chi kha a lo ni lo, thi lovin kan chhuaka kan vannei ka ti leh hnahnawh khawp mai, thina.
Sawi mai maiah chuan, Mizo ai hian kan Naga thiante hian uisa chu an rawp zawkin ka hria, ui note te hi chu ei enah kan en ngai lo kha a nia, kan room thenawm ami naga te kha chuan ‘chutney ah’ an tia, an talh hreh chuang der lo. A pawimawh ber chu ‘Insumtheihna’ neih a ni, chak zawng apiang leh tui tih zawng apiang khawi hmunah pawh ei duak duak hreh miah lo khawpa kan insum thei lo anih chuan kan tal buai ting mai dawn ani.
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July 21st, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Where’d my other comment go?
Anyway, David – I wanted to say nice article. Aside the dog meat issue, I would agree with you. I hate the way people are going to extremes to save animals and trees and ever risk their lives and that of other human beings to save one whale, while their own fellow human beings are dropping from hunger and poverty! Our priorities are all skewed up…
Like they say in this one song –
‘We’re sung to sleep by philosophies
That save the trees and kill the children’
Legalising abortion and making chopping down a tree a grave offense. How weird is that?1
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July 21st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
huiss, typos typos –
*even risk their lives…*
*‘We’re sung to sleep by philosophies
That say ‘Save the trees and kill the children’’*
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July 21st, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Ka ngaihtuah fo thin chu mihring zinga a tamzawk hian thil kan tihsual emaw kan tihdikloh chang hian ‘ka thiam lo a ni’ tih hi atlangpuiin kan hreh em em theuh niin ka hria(keipawh ka bang chuang lo).
Kan rilru chhungrila thiam kan intih miahloh chang pawhin,mah reng reng se kan la ti talh duh tho a. Midang hmuha tlawm zawka tan emaw/thiamlo zawk nih hi kan duh lo tlangpui niin a lang. Kan tihdikloh hi chu thiam takin,a dam thei ang berin inhrilh ngam ila,engkima kan intan/induat lutuk chuan naupang duat sual,tahbelh tak,mi zawng zawng mil loh kan ni ang tih pawh a hlauhawm alawm le………
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July 21st, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Vaingalsin ho hi a….
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July 21st, 2008 at 10:11 pm
he khawvel hi buai huai eeeeeeeeee
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July 21st, 2008 at 10:17 pm
a va rawp thlak ve, zah thlak deuh hlek ani e
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July 22nd, 2008 at 12:40 am
hehe, an hre fuh mai mai a nih hi.. a ni lo pawh midang talh an tam ang. Keini pawh kan awm laiin kan talh ve fo alawm. Fimkhur erawh a tha. Talh loh theih a him ber Phaiah chuan. Ei duh zawng te hi a inang lo va. Sakawr sa te hi ram thenkhatah chuan an ei nasa viau. Mizote erawh chuan kan ei meuhlo niin ka hria.
Fiamthu ti tak deuh; Mizo pakhat pawh hi France ah a zin a, a bazar a, Ui lem chuanna Sa(meat) hi uisa emaw tiin a lei teuh mai a, in ah chuan a han bai ta ngei a.. tui ti vaklo chuan a ei hram a, a hnuah Ui ei tur atana an siam sa lek kha a lo ni si a..hihihi
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July 22nd, 2008 at 5:49 am
vai tam takin…stray dog an nin tehreng nen…. non-veg dang ei nen hian a in an lohna ka hre lo.. hmanni lokah…. tur a hrai in truck ‘trip’ tam tak an that ani lom ni.. honestly i think it is blown out of proportion!
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July 22nd, 2008 at 11:17 am
ui harsa titakin kan vawthlu a, pui kan in ti ve em em a.
N.Delhi, hman kumah kuki hovin inchhungah Bawng an talh mawle!
Theuneu lo, mai mai lo… ngan tak a ni! lols
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July 22nd, 2008 at 11:47 am
Uisa chu a tui ti chuan tui an ti em alawm,tui ti suh u intih ngawt theih pawh ani chuang lo. Mahse awmna hmun leh hun azira in adjust thiam a ngai tih erawh kan sawi leh hram teh ang.
Mizorama thian zahoa ui talh chuan an ei chak a,an talh ani mai.Mahse Vai rama hostel(mahni room) a ui talh ringawt te chu ngaihtuah chian chuan thil dik leh tha ani thei dawn emawni le? Kan khaw pawna awm kan nih chuan kan awmnate culture leh an values hriatthiampuia inzahtawn a pawimawh hle. Alo talh tawh te kha chuan in lo talh ve tawh ani mai a,mahse midang tih atana encourage a,ho mai mai tih chi niin ka hre thei lo tih kan tarlang leh duah ani e.
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July 22nd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
kanidar leh irre sawi ka thlawp e. Uisa ei chak chuan mizoramah, hnamdang tuma tel ve loh naah ei mai tur. ei leh in lamah pawh ‘self control’ neih theih loh chuan engtingne thlemna dang a do theih ang. Ei chak viau pawn a hmun leh hunain a zir loh chuan ‘insumtheihna’ neih hram² mai tur.
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July 23rd, 2008 at 12:48 am
Ka hmelhriat pakhat ui talh hrat lutuk pawh a in luah neitupa in “vawksa, bawngsa, uisa..ei loh pawh hi i nei lo. Nakinah chuan keini pawh hi min la ei duh hial ang” a ti
Nia, rawp hle mah ila hnam dang zinga awm kan ni miau sia, insum hram hram hi a finthlak..
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July 23rd, 2008 at 9:28 am
Uisa hi ei loh vang vang chuan ei chakna hi a reh ve thei asin, hei kum 7 zet ka ei tawh lova, hmanni kan han chhuahchhoh khan ka u ten min talhsak a, ka ti hleithei der lo, hmeichhe ho ei atana an siam arsa kha ka duh daih zawk
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July 23rd, 2008 at 11:35 am
Uisa ai chuan Zawhte sa hi tui zawkin ka sia!
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July 23rd, 2008 at 11:48 am
Khawpui 1 a Engineer zirlai 1 pawh ui talh tur zawngin a chhuak a bawng a vawthlu daih!! Vawksa nih hi atia vai (Hindu) ho nen an eikhawm laih2 a, a tui zia hahip in an la sawi zui!!
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July 23rd, 2008 at 11:52 am
“hmeichhe ho ei atana an siam arsa kha ka duh daih zawk ”
keipawh hmeichhei ho atana siam, hmeichhe bula ei kha ak duh zawk
Tin taksa tana, tha, vawksa ni lo, red meat no lo, sea food te pawh a theih chuan ei zawk tur
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July 23rd, 2008 at 7:15 pm
@lulian, i thil sawi ‘keini pawh min la ei duh hial ang’ tih khi tak² mi. ka va han nui nasa tak….kan pa lah chuan misual.com hian a ti hlim ber mai che nih ni a ti tawp!!
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July 23rd, 2008 at 7:37 pm
@pi blaki : tak2 ni e..A inluah ah bath room 2 a awm a,pakhat zawkah a ui talh tur man sa a dah khawm thin..
a landlord a fel/zauh hmel khawp mai..
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July 23rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
@bmw
luliana thilsoi hi k hriat pui!! Kan hostel thlang a in an luahlai in nia…journalist ni thin a mahse tunah chuan thingtlangah School principal in om dai toh!!
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July 27th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
ÄÅÌÎÍÒÀÆ ÄÎÌÎÂ Â ÑÏÁ…
minny…
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