As the years pass, ASB is beginning to look more and more like a mini India - with students from all over the country enriching the campus with their culture and their enthusiasm. This time's spotlight is on Davison (MBA 2006-2008) who hails from Manipur in the beautiful North-east. A musician and a gentleman, Davison brings alive with great sensitivity what it was to grow up in Manipur.
A Small Glimpse of my Childhood
My childhood days are not extraordinary or anything inspiring. They were as ordinary as anyone’s. The only difference that it may make to the readers could be that I grew up in one of the easternmost part of India, Manipur. As said and as everyone knows India is a land of diversity and the farther two places are the more diverse they are. Well, after traveling and being in a few different places I do believe that India is a land of diversity. Children all over the country, in some way or the other, have grown up in different cultures.
I spent all my childhood days in Imphal only and that also at my home and neighborhoods. We are four kids in all and our parents love us so much that they never sent us to any boarding schools or any relative’s, which nowadays have become a common picture. They were busy but still they managed to look after all of us with care.
Well, I was a naughty kid (proof: I broke my left leg and then my right arm when I was some eight or nine years old. I broke my leg while I was chasing someone and I don’t remember how I broke my arm but I did break it). The first time when I started learning to ride a cycle, I went inside the canal beside the road twice. Luckily during that time, the canals were just dug up earth and it was grasses and mud only and I was safe except that all my body was covered with mud. If a kid does the same thing today, he or she would probably end up with some broken body parts as concrete drains have been built to expand the width of the road. And this expansion of road or simply ‘development’ led to the contraction of the canal and subsequently the capacity of water it can hold also. So during rainy season the water from the drain also uses the road! And when the raining is hard and long, the river overflows. Though our locality is not near the banks, it is situated in a low lying area and is one among the few places which get flooded very soon. During this time, most of the children come out in the streets where water flows knee deep. And some people come out with fish nets also.
There are some ponds around which were used for rearing fish and this time around, it’s the owner’s loss and the public’s gain. We used to catch fish using nets. I and my younger brother used to do that even if our parents prohibited it. Dad used to scold us but Mom admired our catches. Fishing is an interesting sport. When the water subsided, everything comes to normal except that the fishing excitement remains. So what we did to fulfill those excitements was to catch fish from the ponds without the knowledge of the owner, because of the simple reason that if the owner knows, we would never be allowed. There is a big pond just at the backyard of our house. Of course it doesn’t belong to us. We used to cast our net after dark and get it back before dawn. It brings a smile on your face when you have a good catch. Well this practice ended when once we caught a big snake! It must have been a cobra and cobras are highly poisonous. Cobras were quite common then. Now many houses have come up and the land prices have gone up and all those greens are disappearing. After all, its development and we are supposed to be happy with it.
One good time for the kids was during “Yaoshang” or Holi as it is known. During that time, we used to pluck cabbage from other household kitchen gardens at dawn. In fact, it is a tradition. Well, this one is also without the owner’s knowledge. It is common for households to have kitchen gardens if they have some spare land. After this dacoity, we would collect firewood and in the evening everyone would contribute something or the other and we would fry the cabbage in an open ground. It tastes really good when we cook together and eat together.
During Holi children go from house to house and ask for some offerings which usually come in the form of coins. We called it “Nakatheng neeba” and the one who gives the “Nakatheng” would ask the kids for some blessings and the children would give their blessings like “Let your family be ever happy”, “Let everyone be healthy”, etc. One boasts if he/she gets a good collection.
Localities, or ‘Leikais’ as we called in Manipuri, also organize sporting events and entertainment programmes in ‘Yaoshang’ mainly for the children. There are athletics, indoor games, fine arts, fancy dress, song competitions, quizzes, and many more. As a kid, I was not very much interested in athletic games especially races because nobody ever willed to run behind me! Anyway I took part in other events. Once I dressed up and acted as an old woman in the fancy dress competition and I got the second prize. But the consequence was that many people started teasing me by calling ‘Hanubi’ or old woman next day onwards. Next year, I acted as a bodyguard of a VIP: no grave consequence.
An interesting event during ‘Yaoshang’ is the ‘Thabal Chongba’ or simply moonlight dance which goes on for the entire five evenings of ‘Yaoshang’. As kids, we don’t have anything to do in this because this event is for the young people especially in the 16-25 years of age. Girls of a locality will organize a ‘Thabal’ or a moonlight dance in the evening at the locality ground where the place is brightly lit up. They will come out well made up and dressed in traditional attires. The dance starts with the girls hand in hand in a circular form with the music in the background. The interesting part is that guys from other places would come and can select girls to dance with. When the “Men can join” announcement is made, guys rush in to get the girls of their choice and dance with them hand in hand. It’s a great entertainment to watch all this. I also did my part by visiting a lot of places and I really enjoyed (of course, not as a kid).
As children everywhere do, we used to play a lot. Leaving the common sports like football and cricket, there are some uncommon games we used to play. One of them was the one-on-one kick-fights. I guess it was an influence of the Chinese martial arts movies which were available in plenty. Two small kids about the same age and size will fight with each other and a judge will decide who the winner is. The judge would be an older fellow, probably a teenager, who takes his own enjoyment by coaxing kids to fight and compensate with a 25paise toffee. Well, I was a fighter and of course later become a judge. This kind of game doesn’t go on for long and ends up as soon as a parent come chasing with a stick in the hand.
Another game was the catapult encounter. There were open grounds with thick bushes where we would put up our ‘camps’ and try to hit the ‘enemies’ at the other camp with our catapults. We use some kind of tree fruit as the bullets and its size is about that of a grape. And some people used to wear helmets also and deliberately push up a head as the target to lure the opposite camp and when one stands up to shoot at it, another bullet from that camp would come in retaliation. This was one of the strategies of the game. This game usually ended up in sorrow when someone was hit hard on the skin and started sobbing.
One more game was like hide and seek but not exactly that. In this we would be divided into two groups, a small group of two or three and the rest in another group. Well, the members of the small group are the ‘robbers’ and the other the ‘police’. We made dummy guns from wood and bamboo for this game. Everyone had to carry one. The ‘robbers’ would run away and hide anywhere and then they would shout signaling to start tracking. The police will then make cautious moves to spot them and when one spots another from the other group he will shoot by making a sound of a shot and declare that the other is ‘dead’. In order to hide safely, some used to climb high on trees or even inside a pond. The game ends when all of one group is ‘killed’.
I don’t think any of these games are being played nowadays. Children today go less for outdoor games and more for indoor games. Their favourites are video games and Sony Play Stations. Well I don’t know whether they are missing what we had enjoyed or we had missed what they are getting now.
Manipur is a land of festivals. It is a boon for the kids, because in addition to the unexpected holidays we get through ‘bandhs’ and strikes, we get a lot of other holidays through the festivals, which are organized the whole year round in every part of the state. There is a place called “Moirang” which is about 40kms away from Imphal where there is a deity called “Thanging”. Here, a month long ceremony of worship is held every year during the month of May and June. Many people from different parts of the state come here for the blessings during this season. As children we persuaded our parent to take us there, not because of getting the blessings, but because of the many other entertaining events that take place there. The different kinds of traditional dances, the martial arts show and the indigenous wrestling which is known as “Mukna”, are some of the events which are worth watching. And of course, if we go to Moirang, it is very likely that we also go to a tourist spot called “Sendra”, a small hilly island in the middle of the Loktak Lake, one of the largest fresh water lakes in the country. The view from the top of Sendra is breathtaking, with a few other hills scattered on the surface of the water and many huts built on floating swamps. Many fishermen live in these huts which float along with the swamps. We would come back home happily after purchasing lots of lotus and fish.
We would also go to the “Shri Shri Govindaji Temple”, which is in fact the largest temple in Manipur, on the occasion of “Krishna Janmasthami”, a celebration considered auspicious over there. It is located in Imphal. As kids we like going there because there used to be a lot of stalls selling toys and sweets. We also get a chance to go to the “Hanuman Thakur” temple which is situated nearby. There are a lot of monkeys in this temple. We enjoyed feeding the monkeys with bananas and other things like pulses. Sometimes the monkeys throw away the food if they don’t like it, because these monkeys get good food daily from the devotees who come there as well as from the temple authority.
Another enjoyable day during the year is the “Cheiraoba” or the New Years’ Day, which usually falls during the month of April. A typical schedule for this day starts with the preparation of a lot of dishes, at least five. This is generally performed by the female members of the family. When the food is ready, first and foremost it is offered to God in a pretty stylish way! After this has been done, the food is exchanged with the neighbours. So in the end what happens is that some 20-30 dishes land up for lunch! What follows after a heavy lunch is a climb at the “Cheiraoching” or the pious hill; of course not immediately after lunch. There is a small temple on top of the hill. Hundreds of people come to climb the hill in late afternoon. We used to enjoy the climb every year.
Many other places of interests are also there but as a kid I was not lucky enough to visit all those places, especially the hill districts of Manipur. The towns of the hill districts are considered to be very scenic and beautiful, nothing less than what we call hill resorts. Anyway I covered a few of those when I was grown enough to go on my own. But still many more are left to be visited which I shall definitely do when I get a chance.
I feel that I’m indeed very lucky that there were not any hardships during my childhood. I got good schooling from a Missionary School and good food too. Many other children who were like me didn’t even get the chance to go to school because their parent couldn’t afford. I felt sorry for them but I couldn’t help. It is very true that every child wants to go to school. Even if the government provides compulsory education for children upto 14 years of age, in reality, at least in Manipur, many of the government primary schools did not even function at all. I guess the situation might be the same in many other parts of the country also. Until and unless education is provided to everyone high or low, we cannot be a developed nation. If efforts are made at the individual level, we could achieve hundred percent literacy in a few years. We just have to make small contributions on our parts, which of course shall not do us any harm.
Davison Thingbaijam
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