Fresher’s and recollections - II

Back in 1997, when we were fresher’s, party, dancing, Coke and Pepsi was a very in-thing in South Delhi. Back then, our Delhi's geography was somehow confined to North and South. Today it has extended to East, West, Gurgaon and Noida.Our reporter, after a weeklong vacation in South, would narrate to us minute details of endless birthdays. Some birthdays were created. I still remember, some birthdays got due attention and extension. Unconsciously it delivers them to another weekend. Then to the years-end.The brief beauty passed away with the wisp of the night without any inheritance for the next day. For the freshers' community in a new place, it created a resort to shed our baggage of longings and build new attachment. On our part, we would listen with rapt attention and retreat with overblown imaginations over a cup of milk tea. For a change, milk was readily and easily available in Delhi that made tea-making a faithful affair. It was the cheapest indulgence we could afford with a king-size spirit on our shoestring budget.

In North, the party affair hardly happens unless Stephen C Hmar’s birthday recycles to add him more years to his age. That happened once when I was in my second year. I remember, the dancing was wild, uncultured and rustic. But we enjoyed them in our own way. For the majority of us, it was our first attempt that exhibited awkwardness. There was no finesse to our moves. There was no magic touch to our dancing. It was as if the fresh murdered street dog has run over us before we bite its flesh. It usually ended with overflowing sweat and all the wrong moves. The beautiful thing was that we discover to laugh at ourselves. To hide them from any mortal's sight, the light would be switch off. Then we make our move like hungry spirits over sick techno music that blare out of borrowed tape and cassettes. Techno music was also the in-thing then in Delhi, which I hated so much. But if Bryan Adams was there in our party, he would say that they happened to him as the best days of his life. If not, it happened to us like that. After all the crazy moves, we would resort to a safe corner to watch Daniel Shakum and Reuben Thangsanglor dancing. They were good. There was a sense of comfort and beauty in their dancing. They saved us. They would say that they could dance better if there were girls around. I did not doubt that. I still do not. On my part, to save myself from unnecessarily multiplying the wrong move that’s already abundant, I would volunteer to do all the cooking and serving. But still then, there was always that pulling, which I staunchly resisted with much uncomfort. I know that was not polite at all. But i dread the dancing so much. North was, then, like a Tarzan’s cave. There was hardly any long hair for the Tarzan’s tribe. That scarcity in North made South look like the land of Eves. Beautiful than Eden.

Since day one, homesickness was like a mole in the skin to everyone of us. It would not leave. It could not be left behind too. Like the sweat. Like the prickly heat and all those endless seasonal irritation. There was nothing more faithful than them to have greeted us.Except for everything, the feeling was not strange. The familiarity rather made one at home than sick. However, I realized that it acted to be very creative.

As time passed by, we found our dear reporter from Muolzapui Run getting hooked to the sub-culture or Marxs' "superstructure" rooted in New Delhi's Hmar youth society. After the fresher's meet was the chain of birthdays. That was then followed by the unquestioned song practices under the Thralai Pawl banner. Song competitions. Traditional dance practice for Sikpui Ruoi. All those time-buyers we never question in the guise of "nationalism", "blood", "history" and "culture". If not we dare not. Suddenly that would consume precious time to transport us to December at the gate of the year's exit. If the "thralai" did not explain it was then in the name of "tlawmngaina." The opium were too holy to be questioned. Too imposing. We cultivated them in vain imagination and assumption without much return. Those hallucination years. And we embrace them like free manna to feed the blind quest. The manna turned stale as time passed by. Many returned like wounded, beaten soldiers. Many returned without deriving salvation from the expensive quest. Did we learn? If not, do we have enough to give selflessly? Do we have enough to give endlessly? Should we give endlessly?