While just lying inside my small cottage I dream to see through the freedom Khwairakpam Chauba expressed in his poems. Sometime I went around the "Kanchi gi leikol" planted by Lamabam Kamal in his Madhavi novel. I spent so many sleepless nights with his Urirei when her lover Biren left her without anyone to listen and mend her heart burning like those restless fire in the far sites of the hill. Dream was so huge and vast I felt like catching and hunting those fighter jets making noise in the sky and destroy them to bring my mother land her lost peace, after she was evaded by her enemy called "namesake civilization"; as anticipated a future which lost a human value and loss of human existence and dignity by R.K Surendrajit in his peom "Sabhyata gi Phum".
The poem "Meitei Chanu" by Lamabam Kamal has awaken the people of Manipur from their deep slumber and call to realize the importance of their own language and script after the great Bengali Giant Santi das Goshai brunt the sacred book of Meities "Puya" into ashes. How beautiful it would be if our own language is like a beautiful garland of colorful flowers, spreading its scents throughout the world. Today we express our own feelings through a borrowed language. I can't even recognize the scripts of my own language. What is civilization and what is development when we are even depended for the language we speak and communicate? When the British came to India to make its colonized state what have they done at the first place was spreading the English language in every nook and corner of India by introducing English as a subject in institutions. No wonder if we all realize someday that we are still colonized people and still depended on Bengali scripts to express our thoughts and writings.
Reading Hijam Angahal's Khamba Thoibi made me agitated instead of being nurtured by the love story of Khamba and Thoibi, the Hero and Heroine of the true love story, though it is believed to be a myth. Instead of condemning the culture of untouchability introduced in our society after the Hindu religion conquered the then King and elites of Manipur, we are still happy to address and take it as an honour to call Khamba as "Shree Shree Khamba". What a sad moment it was for me, though I mend my broken heart with a poem dedicated to the famous writer, regretting him for a making this beautiful myth just an image of religious epic. No words of “Moirang Parva (Meitei version of musical opera)” have ever indicated Khamba dominating Thoibi or his sister Khamnu as subordinate because of their gender. Rather Thoibi enjoyed her freedom to choose to live in exile for her lover and sacrifice the princess title despite being a daughter of then King Khagemba. Does it show that our people are more liberated rather than caged with the religious believe, subordinate system and untouchability among the communities introduce after the invasion by the Hindu religion.
People in Manipur are believed to be nature prayers unlike the idol worshipers like Hindu, from ages and once in a year there is a celebration of such God's of nature and called as "lai harouba (festival of nature God)". Suring the “Lai Harouba” all the girls and women groom themselves, adored with the "leihou leirel (special type of flowers making a bunch to decorate in a women’s hair style)" and trying to attract the man they love or Liked. They dance together in front of the God with their dance moves and by joining hands with their counterparts. It was another platform for them to meet each other and express each other's love as depicted in Moirang Parva about the beautiful dance of Meitei Lovers Khamba and Thoibi in the courtyard of the God Thangjing . Love was never an offensive word and sex was never treated as sin in Manipuri society just like it is treated today in the present sacrosanct society blinded by religion.
Every Manipuri dream to fall in love just like Khamba-Thoibi, Henjuna-Laikhurembi, Tonu Laijinglembi-Kadeng Thangjahanba and Meinu Pemcha but where are we now? But where is the "Ningol-Ka" and where do we have freedom to meet our lover and play "likkol (a game of lovers played in the old times)" in the full moon night?
Toady no one wants to buy a Manipuri book which cost Rs. 50 bucks written by not so famous writer in home. The poetry books of Khawirakpam Chauba were already eaten half by the rats when I found the old copy lying in an old bag in my house. I pity for those writers who spent so many sleepless night for people like us. Can anybody imagine how many nights the Poet Kamal must have sacrifice while writing his novel “Madhavi”? Have anyone dream about the beauty of Urirei and Madhavi making garland in "Kanchi Leikol (in the garden of Kanchi)"?
Where have we lost? No one knows it. We are living with lost identity and dreaming for a false path where we don't care about our language, literature, folklore but never fail to read the great America story, the country which didn't even recognize the existence of Manipur. No one bother to think to spend Rs. 200 for English novel and we are proud if we can't read and write our language. No Cinderella live in Manipur, no Harry Porter hasn't driven his broom in the magic sky of Manipur.
Is it the time for us to sit and think which path we are choosing. Literature is taught in the schools and colleges just to bore the students, social sciences are introduced in the school and colleges for the students with low marks. Literature is not something to be taught but something to make feel. Social sciences are not just about theory of code of conduct but something to be adapted and change as the society walk ahead. But on contrary all professional analyst of society just to love filling the newspaper space with foreign theory which cannot be adopted in a place lived by people with different looks, language, food habit and climate....!!
Let's stop making bored of people through literature and social sciences instead let’s try to change people's thinking and ultimately their life through our poetry, stories and the folklores.
The poem "Meitei Chanu" by Lamabam Kamal has awaken the people of Manipur from their deep slumber and call to realize the importance of their own language and script after the great Bengali Giant Santi das Goshai brunt the sacred book of Meities "Puya" into ashes. How beautiful it would be if our own language is like a beautiful garland of colorful flowers, spreading its scents throughout the world. Today we express our own feelings through a borrowed language. I can't even recognize the scripts of my own language. What is civilization and what is development when we are even depended for the language we speak and communicate? When the British came to India to make its colonized state what have they done at the first place was spreading the English language in every nook and corner of India by introducing English as a subject in institutions. No wonder if we all realize someday that we are still colonized people and still depended on Bengali scripts to express our thoughts and writings.
Reading Hijam Angahal's Khamba Thoibi made me agitated instead of being nurtured by the love story of Khamba and Thoibi, the Hero and Heroine of the true love story, though it is believed to be a myth. Instead of condemning the culture of untouchability introduced in our society after the Hindu religion conquered the then King and elites of Manipur, we are still happy to address and take it as an honour to call Khamba as "Shree Shree Khamba". What a sad moment it was for me, though I mend my broken heart with a poem dedicated to the famous writer, regretting him for a making this beautiful myth just an image of religious epic. No words of “Moirang Parva (Meitei version of musical opera)” have ever indicated Khamba dominating Thoibi or his sister Khamnu as subordinate because of their gender. Rather Thoibi enjoyed her freedom to choose to live in exile for her lover and sacrifice the princess title despite being a daughter of then King Khagemba. Does it show that our people are more liberated rather than caged with the religious believe, subordinate system and untouchability among the communities introduce after the invasion by the Hindu religion.
People in Manipur are believed to be nature prayers unlike the idol worshipers like Hindu, from ages and once in a year there is a celebration of such God's of nature and called as "lai harouba (festival of nature God)". Suring the “Lai Harouba” all the girls and women groom themselves, adored with the "leihou leirel (special type of flowers making a bunch to decorate in a women’s hair style)" and trying to attract the man they love or Liked. They dance together in front of the God with their dance moves and by joining hands with their counterparts. It was another platform for them to meet each other and express each other's love as depicted in Moirang Parva about the beautiful dance of Meitei Lovers Khamba and Thoibi in the courtyard of the God Thangjing . Love was never an offensive word and sex was never treated as sin in Manipuri society just like it is treated today in the present sacrosanct society blinded by religion.
Every Manipuri dream to fall in love just like Khamba-Thoibi, Henjuna-Laikhurembi, Tonu Laijinglembi-Kadeng Thangjahanba and Meinu Pemcha but where are we now? But where is the "Ningol-Ka" and where do we have freedom to meet our lover and play "likkol (a game of lovers played in the old times)" in the full moon night?
Toady no one wants to buy a Manipuri book which cost Rs. 50 bucks written by not so famous writer in home. The poetry books of Khawirakpam Chauba were already eaten half by the rats when I found the old copy lying in an old bag in my house. I pity for those writers who spent so many sleepless night for people like us. Can anybody imagine how many nights the Poet Kamal must have sacrifice while writing his novel “Madhavi”? Have anyone dream about the beauty of Urirei and Madhavi making garland in "Kanchi Leikol (in the garden of Kanchi)"?
Where have we lost? No one knows it. We are living with lost identity and dreaming for a false path where we don't care about our language, literature, folklore but never fail to read the great America story, the country which didn't even recognize the existence of Manipur. No one bother to think to spend Rs. 200 for English novel and we are proud if we can't read and write our language. No Cinderella live in Manipur, no Harry Porter hasn't driven his broom in the magic sky of Manipur.
Is it the time for us to sit and think which path we are choosing. Literature is taught in the schools and colleges just to bore the students, social sciences are introduced in the school and colleges for the students with low marks. Literature is not something to be taught but something to make feel. Social sciences are not just about theory of code of conduct but something to be adapted and change as the society walk ahead. But on contrary all professional analyst of society just to love filling the newspaper space with foreign theory which cannot be adopted in a place lived by people with different looks, language, food habit and climate....!!
Let's stop making bored of people through literature and social sciences instead let’s try to change people's thinking and ultimately their life through our poetry, stories and the folklores.
