Maputila

Maputila, the tiny Pumpkin, the cutest pumpkin ever. Tiny, mini, miniature, and all yellow. 

And no, Maputila is a name I made up just because.   

(Image credit:www.crafthubs.com)

  

That Just-Perfect Angle: The Age of Images and Old Age

This piece is both a catharsis and an idle reflection: the former for the steaming orgy of grand delusions, and the latter for my fascination in things that comprise the former.

Circa 2005, The Morung Express: My first real mobile phone was a Sony Ericsson z700i. The device had a magical facility to it called 'camera.' The word "selfie" hadn't even reached the world then. The word 'Selfie' is believed first used or first used on the Internet by an Australian man Nathan Hope in 2002. The enterprising man posted an image of his hideously busted lips following a happy introduction to beer.

The word 'selfie' would invade our lives 6-7 years since. Anyhow, my colleague Sorei Mahong and I took what we know today in context as a selfie. Or a Twofie, whichever fits your butter.

Selfie: That first-person view of one’s self, fearfully doctored by profoundly embellished notions of goodness. Selfie: That intimate declaration of acceptance lovingly pacified by confident assurances of perfection–or the denial of imperfection.

Selfie: That just-perfect angle that balances the truth of every man as an island with the angry falsity that he’s the centre of the universe.

Selfie: A person’s deeply intimate meeting with own fantasies, when he looks into his own eyes.

Today, selfies and the art associated with them are anything but a novelty. They are virtually everywhere—delightful to the point of mild euphoria, ubiquitous to the point of noticeable fault, and tiresome to the point of overt insult.

I'd been thinking about that movement of hedonism and was talking with Momma about it the other day. The conversation stirred up this question:

One day I'll run out of youth, taut skin, and romance and fire, and reasons to make love with selfies. I'd have become old, wrinkly, and wearied.

Be assured that I'm not vetting our love—by delusion or by fact—for images. Therefore, let me be clear that I’m not denouncing our obsession with appearance. In fact, as awkward, ordinary, and insufferable as my face is (I have a small but successful acne business on it too!), I occasionally dip into a selfie or two too. A brisk calculation just might crunch a number of around 4-5 selfies to my credit since 2005!

Simply, this note is merely an attempt to express a contemplation to explain the difference that can be between

• Beauty as a fond reference that causes remembrance in people

Example: 'Naro was the queen of Facebook likes when she was young. Now at 40, she already looks like the behind of an asparagus gone gloriously wrong'

And

• Beauty as a token of legacy that causes fond remembrances in people.

Example: 'Naro was much loved in college because of her humility and compassionate work for the people. She is that beautiful even at 90!'

One day, we will fade into age—old, wrinkly, and wearied. We will have run out of good looks, youth, and out of selfies. How then would people remember you as: a beautiful person, or a person who was once beautiful? What they come to think of you will be beyond your control.

More importantly, how do you wish to determine the image people would remember you by? That is something you have control over. How? Simple: You can start with looking at people with the same eyes of beauty that you look at yourself.

And you’ll find that just-perfect angle. That just-perfect angle that will shape the face of your heart and life—and shape the eyes of people who look at you and your life. That just-perfect angle.

An Open Letter to cancerFighter, Braveheart Lamtsala Sangtam

Dear Lamtsa, 

I wish for a kinder circumstance, and for better words to come, and come even easier to say to you. There was a minute that I was writing these sentiments as a private mail to you after reading your status-update on Facebook. 

Then, there came this thought: perhaps offering this letter in the open would somehow carry the winds of your story to the people, friends and strangers alike; narrate to them a piece of your tale of courage, and plant lessons of faith wherever they fall, on arid creag beds and rich loam alike. 

Those wonderful lessons to serve to instruct our feeble lives with your warrior's self: she whose name was forged in the furnace to burn blessed meanings into our minds and hearts. 

Lessons from you about what it truely means to fight real battles, learn what it means to grin genuine grins in the face of a terrible, terrifyingly blind adversary, and learn what it means to be a true conqueror whose struggle opened eyes. 

Lessons from your fire through which each of us would grow to learn better about love, life, and other blessed mysteries so that they would come to burn fiercely throughout our lives—offering warmth in times of harsh cold and shining down comforting light in times of darkness. 

Lips and hearts in Nagaland and beyond are praying for you in acts, in faith, and in acts of faith. And here I am too as if worthiness clothes me. As inadequate as my person is, allow me to say these words to you: Knowing the kind of life and filth that I live, you should be the one praying for me that I would come to have the glorious faith you burn on, the bottomless strength you carry, and the melting cheer of indomitable hope that you shine out. 

Seeing the depth of goodness,  the strength and God in you, our hearts are broken in a new, wonderful and beautiful ways. Please then, break our hearts further! Please then, shatter them into a thousand pieces until we become beautiful again!

Frailty and failing are my person, and I feed on transgression and wear weakness for clothes. Even the slightest upheaval in my life troubles my knees and leaves my arms weak. 

But you, look at you. Look at you. I should be seeking your prayers instead—to live the way you live, to stand and fight the way you fight and grip God with the strength you grip Him—and how! 

Yet, if we seek the same grace and the faith that you have, it also means as much that our hearts stand with you—even if from a great distance we can only watch you fighting your soul-sapping fight. 

I cannot imagine what fortitude your loved ones, especially your parents, relatives, and your partner, Mhathung Odyuo, must be mustering every day. God bless their hearts. God bless their hearts. 

It is only so much we can say. It's only so much we can do. 

With embarrassment at my inadequacy and failings, and as if I were even a Christian by plain definition, I join the many true believers in Nagaland and beyond who are clawing at God for you. If the prayers of my faithless self even counts at all, even if my prayers flow from a mouth dripping with sin, please do know that your name is being spoken in my small prayers. 

Return in victory soon. 

God, life, healing, and every blessed mystery to you, Lamtsa. 

In Jesus Christ's wonderful name, Amen.

Why You Mustn't Grow Old, Ever

My darling beautiful momma is in her mid-60s now. Her walk and mien carry stories of toil; of age and frailty and strife that a vagarious world threw at her.

But you will never–indeed ever–know a person younger than my mom once you have met her: I know she'll love you and you'll love her.

For a person who’s now readying for the sunset years, mom still squirrels away anything that’s tiny, cute and colourful:

* Colourful little cell phone bags

* Anything pink and yellow
* Slippers with tiny yellow ribbons
* Toasters with teddy bears
* Colourful crockery
* Biscuit containers that have flowers on them

You’ll find her even carefully arranging tiny cars and dolls my nephews and nieces keep at our place for the weekends.

And yes, Mom loves–I mean deeply loves–football. Anyone from my family will tell you that there’s one 60+ years old deaconess in Nagaland who stays up till 2:30 AM watching European Premier League.

Momma, a 60+year old women leader with Dimapur Lotha Baptist Church, I tell you–I swear to you–also loves (I swear again)

* Van Helen
* Michelle Branch
* Whitney Huston
* Roxette 
* White Heart
* Petra
* Eric Johnson

I swear.

Her phone is filled mostly with classical and rock guitar instrumentals, Christian rockers Petra and classic hard rock Van Halen hits, besides the usual menu of hymns and worship songs. She listens to them literally every night. Just ask my brothers and sisters and nephews / nieces and cousins.

And yes, Mom has dreams to travel to Israel and Venice one day. She wants to take out a safari in Africa. She reads English literature to improve her English. She loves The Voice and So You Think You Can Dance.

She wants to take a course in tailoring. She loves running shoes and Sneakers although she can barely walk briskly. She wants to meet MP Neiphiu Rio and give him a message about what Jesus Christ wants Naga leaders to do.

October 1 is International Day for the Elderly.

But I tell you, the day is not to celebrate the accomplishment of age–it is to celebrate lives and life.

Mom has taught me a truth: age and beauty were never connected in any way.

Only when you have given up on your dreams, you will have lost your youth finally. Let’s never grow old.

I hope you never grow old, my friends. I hope your heart will never know age.

The day you let go of your dreams, will be the day you start to age.

Don't.

What it means to be truly advanced

(A reflection following a local tribal community in Nagaland banning the opinions of newspaper editor Monalisa Changkija)

It was in 2008. That small conversation is still vivid. I recall turning to my former colleague Longrangty Longchar and declaring to him, “Believe me, Longti, the first district in Nagaland to implement the 33% reservation of seat for women will be Mokokchung.”

I still chew my words and have yet to complete eating them.

Now, the Ao Senden – of all the organizations to ever represent a Naga plethora – would find itself yet again in our familiar bamboo groves. The groves from whence we naked savages emerged to find an air-plane. Monalisa Changkija was merely a piece of conscience.

Maybe – just maybe – we may have to forgive the little human foibles of our bucolic community leaderships for issuing diktats to cull pet dogs (and imposing exorbitant fines on owners who protest!).

And such small inhumanities, and go on with our lives.

Maybe – just maybe – all that we can do is simply to pull at the hem of our suits, and offer a piece of pretend mien that drips with uptown complacence. That political gesture just might diffuse any awkward askance at us, on our histories, and into our little pathological flaws. And insecurities.

Maybe – just maybe – a pinch of salt to accommodate our rusted minds; that our pompous interpretation of old history just might find new inspiration in this new age.

Maybe – just maybe –turning the cheek just might thwart any awkward assessment from superior minds about our society and how we face life and educated sensibilities.

Unfortunately, history does not decide the future. It is the present that feeds history. What feeds the present is how we use history. My father and his family were pioneers too – some of the Naga peoples’ first generation of high-ranking state officials, and educationists. And many other Naga families and communities were so too.

Unfortunately, that does not make me a pioneer.

Censuring intellectual freedom, free speech and freedom of conscience fits the taxonomy of inhumanity which only socialist blood-mongers such as China and North Korea are capable of. They bite just because they discovered they had teeth to bite with.

Education is only a tool, not the fruit. Our grandfathers were pioneers, not us. I tell you, to be truly civilized you must refuse to be slave to prejudice. 

You must honor humane intellectual traditions before you can be called advanced.

That, my friend, is what it means to be truly civilized.