The sop

Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky
You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom
You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon
Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light
Well you wore out your welcome with random precision
Come on you raver, you seer of visions
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!
- (Shine On You Crazy Diamond- Pink Floyd)

The protracted simmer in Manipur has taken great toll on everyone. It affects the largest unconcerned lot. Today, it has multiplied the affected people where the situation has become a compulsion for a more collective concern. Are we living the burnt-out case? Or the blown-out? The situation has extended its arm so wide that even if one is not part of it, it has made one a part of it. A group of students who recently came to Delhi to pursue their studies said that the situation had made the new generations of Manipur “coward, timid and inferior.” The effect that the unabated unrest has on society is an undeniable reality. In the year 2006, the number of teenagers coming to Delhi from Manipur’s Churachandpur alone is quite alarming. Alarming because they did not come to study or work. However their reason for coming was more to escape the unfortunate climate of unrest, instability, violence, and its related threats. Delhi has become a sort of haven for those who could manage to escape. Many parents are just more than happy with the assurance that their children are safe in Delhi. It’s not Delhi alone. Most of India’s cities have become that. Ringo Pebam, a friend from Bangalore, shared about the disturbing way of life of the North East people. While the relative negativity of a city life has become a threat, the definition of “safe” or “safer” has to be widely debated. If not, many of, not only Churachandpur’s youth, but also of Manipur and other Northeast states are confronting degeneration from the edge of the capital city.

Zuchamo Yanthan, a friend from Nagaland, complained, more than often, of his “tiredness” of seeing girls from the North East in the company of blacks. A friend from Pune told me that our girls are “faithful beautiful toys” for the blacks. There is no denying that girls from the region are also doing the same with the ‘vai’ or ‘mayang’ from the rest of India. In some pubs and discos, the number of girls from North East is enough to make one feel at home. But the sight delivers a different picture where one is compelled to question, than bask in the home-likeness din of techno driven music and lightning-like flashes of multi-coloured rays. On the other hand, in the other growing public places in Delhi, girls and boys from the region are not allowed entry. The insult has become more than alarming or disturbing. Boys are not spared either. In many of Delhi’s rehab, boys from the region are not missing. In some places, they not only overpopulate but also rule and lord. Moreover, the growing places of employment have become centres of exploitation too. Girls are more vulnerable. But they are more tolerable. The imposing tag on our girls is defined by “cheap”, and boys are “hip” and prone to “anger and fighting.” These are not to be tossed with a hurrah! That is when the concern gnaws one day and night.

I explained to my friend about the relativity of change, despite the helplessness. Good and bad go together everywhere, I told him. If not they come together. Otherwise, they will still go together. But who are we to deserve and expect all the good things alone? That seems to explain. But I am far from happy to find solace in that explanation. Another friend from Nagaland, Khriezo Yhome, opines that if the present situation of unrest, violence, instability, unemployment, etc., persists in the North East, “Tomorrow, there will be a bigger race to move out of the region.”

The new population movement needs to be explained and understood in the context of the socio, economic and political situation of the region than merely shoving them under the guise of education, job or those beautiful upward mobility explanations. I tend to be optimistic and see the possibility of inter-culture, inter-racial or inter-colour marriage as the future of the new generations, of North East people too. However, that would be a leaping conclusion if the present trend continues. The practice is not going to deliver that “new generation.” The unconscious celebration only reminded me of Pink Floyd’s Shine on You Crazy Diamond. We have stepped into a grave time when father and mother bury sons and daughters. The reasons are an open book that we have not seriously read. The reality is that the changing time is gnawing into us. We have embraced the blind race of exporting our future to destinations far from home in the quest for momentary sigh. We do that at every cost with unquestioned lapse of reason too. Sacrificing our future, moral, values, dignity, integrity, and identity in the grope of that glitzy. How do we bargain? Meanwhile, militarisation is the latest development in the region. Small arms race is getting acute. The population of weakened immune system is soaring. Our rivers are targeted to be tapped. It’s not the school building alone that is burning. We need to find the relation of the growing alarm to convert them for the obligations of our family, society and government. Otherwise this is just the beginning of the sop.