Banamallika Choudhury

There are days when I feel like hiding under the bed and never coming out. Most inconveniently the bed is on the floor these days because of the monkey in the house. Today is one of those days. Facebook has that Pratidin Times ‘news report’ video to show me as soon as I wake up. I ignore it once. It keeps coming. Then I get a few phone calls. Reluctantly I open the video. I want to hide under my bed and never come out. What is it that bothers some people so much about what others are doing? What is this thing called culture that this super parochial hole of ‘Oxomia jati’ gets churned by so much? Why always only women? Who told you that women is a singular homogenous thing and you can make random general comments about them in media? The questions keep on coming back. I thought I had these answered couple of centuries ago. Or was it medieval period? I do not want to go to the details of what this reporter had to say about women wearing shorts these days on Guwahati streets....

I do not watch TV. To protect myself from knowing what is going on in the world. Ever since Imitha has taken to reading the morning newspaper, I have z class security from any kind of news. There is however no protection from mothers. Mine gives me several missed calls by the first half of one morning. I call back thinking the worst. Are you alright? – I ask anxiously. Her voice sounds tense. She tells me with urgency – Have you heard about Papon’s controversy? I sigh! She proceeds to fill me in with three controversies one after the other. Papon’s, Zubin’s and Zubilee’s. I beg my mother to not pass on worldly inanities to me. Who shall I tell then? – she demands. Talking about inanities, I have stopped watching Papon’s live shows for some years now because of it. He talks too much on stage and makes one wonder what he is on. I take it as a personal insult when he expresses random un-thought-through political opinions from the self-righteous moral height of the stage. Once he ...

So, the people of India have decided and the darkest fear of the progressive Indians has come true. Once again my facebook wall is busy busy busy. I hear so much despair that I actually dreamt being dragged by large machines of development (they looked somewhat like bulldozers).  People were running helter-skelter and I was being dragged away from a group of people for wearing shorts and being drunk. Strangely I was at an anti-dam protest and I kept on asking why I was being dragged. Is it because I was protesting or is it because I was wearing shorts? No one answered. Awake, I was confused. Was that dream a manifestation of the fear? Has this not happened already? Being from the North-East India, state oppression is something that I (and a whole lot of people) have learnt to live with. I was born in the middle of political crisis that led to a full blown armed conflict with state by the time I was a pre-teen. Growing up at gun points, restrictions on basic freedoms of speech ...

Last few months have been hectic in Assam. Apart from confirming my desire to live in South-East Asia valid, it has given us – me and some similar suffering souls - endless trouble. The good thing is humour is at ready hand. The bad thing is jokes are getting crueler as situation gets worse. Come June and come flood. Estimated 2 million affected. I had to walk through deep water pulling my pajamas up to indecent heights and reluctantly baring my Thai food fed midriff to complete strangers in day time at public places. Not good news for anyone. While we were busy figuring out relief work, a group of Indian experts on disaster insisted on visiting. They told us they can set standards of relief work for us. They ordered a meeting of all people who wants to do flood relief work and told us what happens to people during floods. They have seen that in Bihar it seems! In my father’s village I have seen people getting out of their home through the roof during the floods on a yearly basis...

This article was first published with the title This is Not Fair in Seven Sisters Post ( http://epaper.sevensisterspost.com/ ) in two parts on 19.07.12 and 20.07.12 The recent incident, of a mob attacking and molesting a girl coming out of a bar in Guwahati, Assam, has been occupying television prime time, drawing room conversations and facebook walls of the Assamese and Indian people with fervor. People have been voicing a range of concerns starting from the role of media, state of law and order in the state to questions of morality and the so called ‘modern’ or ‘western’ influence in our societies. In this particular 10 th July incident some of the popular reactions have been to demand that the police arrest the culprits immediately, and give them severe punishment which will be so exemplary that such incidents will not take place in the future. Also this typical reaction demanding punishment to the culprit is like a stock reaction people of India has for every incidence o...

World Environment Day came and went. My Facebook was full of messages and thoughts on the world’s environment and its condition. I spent it in Imphal, watching other people plant trees. I must admit, there was a point when I was wondering, looking at people clearing jungles, digging pits, carrying saplings, planting them – ‘I have not lifted a finger in this thing. Does this make me a complete idiot?’ My friends’ 10 year old daughter made me feel better. When I met her just after WED, she blurted – ‘You know Mamu Miss, they are so stupid, they asked us to carry chart paper to school on World Environment Day. It is going to do more damage to the environment na. Because you have to cut more trees to make the chart papers.’ ‘You must not call people stupid.’ – Her mother reminded her.  Her elder sister chimed in the stories. ‘You know Mamu Miss, we were asked to make posters. One boy from my class drew something and wrote  - How Are We Going to Save The Enviro...

I am in my favourite place of being again. For Manipur is not just a place where you live. Here you be, a part of things happening around you. Some inspiring and some unpleasant. And you laugh at everything.   I am here after what feels like a long time. In the meantime some economic blockade of the highway has happened. The congress won the last state elections completely. One sided. ‘No opposition?!’ I express my worries of basic western democratic understanding. ‘But many young people have won and 3 women MLAs too for the 1 st time’ - I am assured. Thing in Manipur is never one sided. The first meeting, I invite myself to, is the meeting of the Manipur Cycle Club – MCC as they like to call themselves. They are having their annual meeting and the elections for the new board. Ram my friend has already received domestic threats of divorce from his wife Nandini if he becomes the president. Going by the feel in the air, some lawyers might be able to make money if Nandini a...