thujak sa

thujak sa fanadi kuire eina hairakpa

adum na hinganu...
napana nattu nganabire
luhonglani nang nattra
nacha pok thok ani
LIC yaorani aduga sikhrani

Adura nangi punshi nangna pamliba
chahi cha kayagi mamang dagi
adum hinglaga lak laba miyoiba mapokni
nang hingdrasu yare..sihkroba houjik
malem se lumnanbani
Nachadudi eina pokpirasu yai
natudusu ei na lousinba yai
kari kaige

paisa gi wakhalda taibang se mayai kare
nangum ba kayagi wakhal na eigumbase segaire
hingna hingna
eigi apambasu nangi taibang na kupkhre
ware eidi tattana fongdokpada
ei nangumba natte, ei eihakni
ei miyoibani, paisa yaodrasu nungaiba yai
nang nadi noklamgani
adubu nangsu siramdaidadi
hingol koirakhini nang na apamba thirakhini
kapna kapna sigani nangsu thujak!

laina saoni

numita yachang ngakpada
angang na kappa laina saowee
sagosen numitni ngasidi
khujin kakkanu laina saoni
kana leitaba yaore naru kokedo
ngaosannanu lai na saoni

Nama na thina touba machani nangdi
emung mawa lourunu
Nupa thina touba nupini nangdi
nupa tummi ngeida hatokk uh
Mina ushitpidaba nupani nangdi
namai khumaga lumfu tou

Oidaba ngangba yam hei nangdi
coat amuba litlaga lawyer sao
Kadar yamna hei nangdi
kurta litsillu politician sao
upaileitaba paisa paidaba nangdi
nongmei paiyu ,,,Apangba

hey pangdaba!

Pangdaba eigi thamoi dagi thoraklli
leppa leitana esing chaibigum
anouba seireng kaya
parag khangani nangna ei kayam pangdage

yamsu yamhankhre
puba thangba ngamdre
wahei singna jagoi sarare
makhogi khonthok na lal hourare
ahinggi achikpa wakhal gi tamyada

leigadra khalli eigum ba ama
asuk wajaba
hoi! pangdadana warini

Kanadabu lithoksige
warigum eigi seirengi machangse
leikha boina makhai piringei
kolom na siki piringei oiradi fei
eramgadabani eisu penna
emagi fanek fiji dagi paisa hurallaga
boi leiraga...
ngasidi hurabasu kire
kappinaba yammle
warak pinabana mafam khangdre

tolli pangdaba eise
chari makhei aramba kokte
pandaba eigi pendaba singsina
meigi ching ollakpa tare
pokhairaklabadi
nangsu chongni ee
eisu hinghouroi

Sahitya Nemba Seireng

Sahitya nemba eina
dolan awangba da tumba pakchagadra
koi houdaba eina
topaz blade leibada dukandar na nokadra
seireng eba eina
ahing ama ningthi na tumabada aram kokadra
kolom ta paiba, ngarita metpa
eigi khutna nongmei paiba yagadra

Kadaino eigi punshi gi mamal
khaningde mamal eina sikhrakanda
khabar gi lammai da ebiganu eigi mamal
pibiyu eina hingli ei ngeida
haibiyu eihak ningkha tamle
emana pokpadagi lairik tamlakle
parure aningba apamba kadaibu kouwee
ubadi ude
angamba athouba amasu ama su leite eigi emangda
latchage khalli amadi
khanjei mahak pu yenglallaga penge
einamak touba ngamdrabasu
magumba amadi lei haina
adubu huranba ngaktani
masanasu khangjei

matam amdadi huranba mamai khumlammi
houjik ti eikhooina oina khumlle
huranba yamsillakle
masibura moina globalisation hairisi
masibura eikhoina lairik ta tamlakliba

Burn- Yahouro

I was reading yesterday's newspaper which i bought from new Delhi train station. But my mind has already reached the congested and moist Bus station of Guwahati. the train was as usual late. we had crossed already the Kamakhya temple later i was peeping through the windows to have a glance of Mighty Brahmaputra and its slimmy coconut trees. Before the train crossed the river, i could hear a heavy voice shouting, "Anyone from Imphal, there is a Bus at 9 PM!"
despite his heavy voice, he turned out to be a small 5 feet man with dark skin, he must be of forty i guessed. He could speak all sort of languages. I kept mum, not hinting anything to him. so he just passed away my compartment with his voice fading away like the evening faded away to the darkness of night.

After i walked out of the station I met the chap again, finally i asked him where is the Bus, He asked "Going to Imphal?"
He took me to the bus station where i booked my ticket for the last bus which would be at 10pm. he too got his share of money from the Bus counter for bringing a customer.
I sat at waiting shed blowing away the smoke of my last cigarette. i heard the guys next to me saying the bus wont leave tonite, as a bandh was called at Senapati, i asked the strangers what was the reason for calling the bandh. Later i found out , a Manipuri civil servant from imphal had been brutally killed by NSCN (IM). At the same time it struck me that, "what was i escaping from?" I was escaping from Delhi and its cruelest month ,April , nothing was happening there, life got fucked, no money, no honey, all i felt was myself evaporating away to sweat and anger, i didnt know too why i was so angry.

So i started looking around for a hotel after i confirmed about the timings of the bus, i met the guy again sitting in front of a pan shop, i enquired him about nearby hotels. and He took me to one of the cheapest hotels. And the last thing i asked him was where could i get a bottle rum, he said `wait i will bring it to your room', So i waited for him in the room #23, which is at first floor, after fifteen minutes he came with a bottle of old monk, i requested him to give me company so he was sitting and drinking with me., slowly he opened up himself with every peg he threw in his little throat.

His name was Shanti, i told him mine is Akhu and he asked me what do i do and all sort of things, i said i write poetry, he was curious about whether my poems were published or not, it was a surprise to me, how a guy like him bothered about publishing poetry.

He told me he was into a press some years back. He was married and had a life.
but it seemed it was quite a bore. He recalled me "do you remember the 1984 general election?" I said " no.."

He started his story " I was once a worker in this daily news service "Yahouro"
you might have not heard of it, it was stopped as its office was burnt down long ago.
I enjoyed the work in the beginning, but later their dirty politics made me mad.
You know! i was the guy who rode that printing machine in the deep of the night for the morning newspaper. And those times were the times where the rebel started getting involved in everything. As you know, what is happening now is what they have started during those days.

Thoiba was a guy who worked with me whole night. we were paid 1500rs per month. And my wife was never happy with it. I was married for three years,
first six month was romantic, you must have known such thing if you are married. what made me and my wife sick of each other was our childless life. i was told by a doctor that i am infertile, May be that news brought the silence to my wife, even when we were having sex, she wouldn't look at me, she stayed still like she was knitting or just sitting. she never looked at me. i got frustrated with my life, My parents were died long ago and i had a brother who later shifted to Cachar, last i heard of him was he was opening a pan shop in Cachar. i know he must be doing good. he was always flexible, and to survive with a full grown tummy one needs to be fucking flexible.

What made me more sick was my job apart from my personal problem,
Sometimes I and Thoiba were asked not to print the news as ordered by our boss and we knew he was too ordered by some rebel or some big politicians.
We were the one who sat and gazed whole night at the printing machine, sometimes we played card , sometimes we talked of our lives. Sometimes i wrote diary whole night, and I knew my wife read every page of it. That made her more sick of me, as i mentioned explicitly how i had sex with her like i was some poet obsessed with sex, you know ! like those poets.

But that night of 1984 general election was something which led me later here in this place. the next days people would be reading news of so many important things. they would read about the politicians promising to bring harmony and peace. some said to solve unemployment issues, some said every house hold will be provided water and electricity. And from the side of the rebel they tried to expose the dirt in our society covering their own misdeeds.
That night would be the greatest night of my life as we were going to print the most important news of that times. there were more other important news which i don't wanna tell you.
That night ,Thoiba and I entered the room after we were advised how the front page should look , what should be the head lines and blah blah.
the printing machine seemed like something to me which gonna shoot everything it doesn't want. Thoiba seemed uninterested with that great night and the great news of our times. So i asked him to go home and sleep with his wife and have the best digging of the night. he asked me not to inform the boss about his absence in the room.

So i alone owned the night and i alone was gonna ride the machine.
I tore all the news that had given to us, i chewed it, i shat on it, i burnt it.
But I printed a news, a story of a frustrated guy who seek no attention from this world, who died everyday in his diary with his 1500rs per month salary, who cried every time he saw his wife and childless womb.
I printed the news with all my most poetic words, i was a poet that night, i was so happy to know that i will be read, i will be heard, even if my wife didn't look at me while our copulation.
So at dawn i left the room and walked the empty streets of imphal as if i was the highway man who robbed the kings and the queens and made love with the princess.

Next evening they took me to the riverside and beaten me black and blue. And they were no police. I knew the police too would come for me. So i hide away from them and that night again i went to the place and burnt down the office of the daily news "Yahouro." I knew the Machine too must have got burnt.
And the next morning i took a bus to Guwahati and landed up to this place. From that moment i have embraced this land with my heart. This place has given me the love i deserved. I heard my wife got married to a rickshaw puller and had two baby, i was happy to hear about it, i was unkind leaving her all alone. But i knew she was strong enough to take care of herself.
Now i can have sex with smiles with many sex workers, they love me, they say i am as energetic as virgin. "


Shanti's story ended here and he left the room with his drunken eyes and steps.
Next evening i took the bus and wondered the whole way about Shanti's story whether it was all a lie. Next morning I reached Imphal, the moment i step down
from the bus i saw the newspaper "Yahouro"
and the headline flashed as " Here we come at your service after 25years"
I smiled and walked the road to home as I believed i was the master of my own .

imphal talkies n the howlers in Rolling stone Magazine of August 2008 Issue

Literature for the Ignored Lives

In Manipur we have witnessed all forms of protest, from burning down the Assembly Hall to naked Emas (mothers) screaming and shouting “Indian Army! Rape Us, Kill Us” in front of Kangla Gate with the banner “Indian Army! Rape Us” against the rape and killing of Thangjam Manorama. Every day a father or son doesn’t return home and the next day you will find ladies in white sitting in every corner protesting. This has become a familiar scene and people get used to seeing it. This is the norm of protest in Manipur.
However, there is a different and - in my opinion- more effective form of protest are hidden in our literature. Going back to history, one can say that Hijam Irabot's poems were one of earliest protest poems in the history of Manipuri literature. Irabot is referred to as a “Working Class Poet” because his poems and songs reflect peasants' struggle against feudal lords of his times. The below lines are taken from his poem “Oh Peasants”:

The fields echoed with
The sweet songs of artless life
The broken, old and the stagnant past
With a hope of a classless society
Get up farmers, do stand up
And fight the battle
Oh You Farmers
Oh You Peasants


His poems are often sung in folk tunes. In fact, his poems have reached our generation orally in manner akin to transmission of folk tales and songs. One of his best poems is “Another 12th December” in which he addressed the womenfolk to wake up for another Women War (Nupi Lal). The sad thing is most of Irabot’s poems are forgotten. There is a huge majority of our emerging GenX youth would not even know or remember his contribution in the struggle to free Manipur from British rule. The reason for this is not the ignorance of our youths. It is mainly due to the fact that such things are not even mentioned in entire Indian history or literature. Theatre personality Pranab Mukherjee told me in a friendly conversation that the North-East History in Indian School History textbook covers only three page and out of it Manipur has three sentences. The History text prescribed for students studying in Manipur have a small section on Manipur. However, Hijam Irabot, one the most important person in determining the young state after Independence is denied a place in such texts.

Apart from Hijam Irabot, contemporary poet, Thangjam Ibopishak is a radical poet who reveals stark realities of every aspect of the Manipuris. His poems are packed with irony, sarcasm and mockery, of real and tragic incidents. His poem “Bharat ki Nongmei Maru da Sijage” (I Want to Be Killed by an Indian Bullet) tells a tale of a usual incident (but an unusual incident to the rest of the world) in Manipur where husbands or sons are picked up from home by Indian Para Military forces as well as ‘Unidentified gunmen’, for whatever the reason is and shot to death. But in the poem the poet asks the killers to use Indian made bullet to kill him just because he loves India/Bharat very much. The poet here lampoons the fact that India has never made gun or bullet but India has used its power to control many states. The few lines below are taken from the poem:

Foreign made. All of them made in Germany, made in Russia, or made in China.
We don’t use guns made in India. Let alone good guns, India cannot even make plastic
flowers. When asked to make plastic flowers India can only produce toothbrushes.
I said: “That’s a good thing. Of what use are plastic flowers without any
fragrance?”
The leader said: “No one keeps toothbrushes in vases to do up a room. In life a
little embellishment has its part.”
“Whatever it may be, if you must shoot me please shoot me with a gun made in
India. I don’t want to die from a foreign bullet. You see, I love India very much.


The said poem was removed from a publication of poetry book published by India International Center because they thought it is anti-India. In the words of Tarun Bhartiya, “This poem”, “I Want to Be Killed by an Indian Bullet”, translated from Manipuri into English by Robin S. Ngangom, “was censored out of a recent India International Centre publication on the Northeast edited by Journalist/Development Expert/Mentor for the Region/World Bank Satellite Sanjoy Hazarika. I wonder (aloud) aren’t Acts like AFSPA 1958, POTA, etc. which the Indian government have imposed on so called ‘disturbed areas’ and the bullets fired under the provisions of such Acts are not anti-India?

Such “censors” and ‘marginalization’ of the Northeast in general and Manipur in particular is not an uncommon phenomenon. A recent and fitting example is the rejection of ‘the world’s most successful women boxer’, four times consecutive World Champion Mary Kom from Manipur for the award of the Khel Ratna twice (italics mine).
A four-time world champion, MC Mary Kom has never been considered worthy for Khel Ratna and disturbed by the apathy, the Manipuri - arguably world's most successful woman boxer - is asking what more she needs to do to get the country's highest sporting honour. ‘I have won the World Championship four times on the trot. (Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh) Dhoni gets a Khel Ratna for winning just one World Cup, I fail to understand why am I being ignored then. How can anybody expect an athlete to stay motivated if he or she is ignored like that?’…’Last year, when my name was recommended by the federation, I had been shortlisted along with Dhoni but (Arjuna awards selection committee chairman) Milkha Singh struck off my name saying that he did not know which sport I competed in. That hurt me terribly,’ she revealed.

I do not buy the story about Milkha Singh’s ignorance of Mary Kom or the sports she competed in. If indeed, that was the case, then he’s not fit to sit for any sort of selection, personal as well as professional, let alone the Arjuna Awards Committee. Coming back to poetry and Literature, the northeastern literature has been ignored completely. Our literature is left stranded amidst our great green mountains or dumped underneath the Mighty Brahmaputra River. One can only hope and ‘dream’ for a day when our literature would make a mark on the Indian literary landscape and get all attention that is due.
It might, however, remain a ‘distant dream’. In a country where Irom Sharmila has been fasting for eight years now (to repeal Armed Forces Special Power Act, 1958 from Manipur) does not make a sound to the Indian ears how would her poems be considered as Indian Literature. I presume, the ugly and dirty politics played by the State government and Indian government is that as long as we stick to romanticizing our literature and forget that we belong to the state where at every solid angle you look at you find the state police and Indian Army patrolling slinging Kalashnikovs in the name protecting us, we would be heard. In short, the microphone to speak will be given to the dumb only.
Jawaharlal Nehru called Manipur the “Jewel of India”. Manipur is still a ‘jewel’ for India but it is the jewel they wear on their toes. But we must emerge out of their toes to shine. We must create another literature for our ignored literature and lives. And In the glorious words of poet L Samarendra:
“ The bullet you fired
Out of your stupidity
Your anger
Burnt me
made me a dry leaf
Became one with the dust
But my spirit entered into the new plant
And I became a green leaf anew”

we can dream for a new star. The above lines are taken from the poem “ Africagee Wakhandagee Gee” (Thinking of Africa). The same poem inspired H. Kanhailal's play “Memoirs of Africa”