One of my bestest friends is a 'half-breed'. Her Facebook status reads: "Vai chhuah loh tur ania, chhuah chi bawk si lo, Mizo chhuah loh tur ti ve ta se, engtin nge ka awm ang le?" She has lived here all her life, she considers herself a Mizo, but in situations such as these, she can't go outside her house with the same assurance as we 'pure' Mizos.
We have been socially conditioned to hate Vais. Even small kids learn to chant "Vai chhia, vai chhia". We automatically distrust them, and why? Because it was a Vai autocrat who sent a Vai army to ravage our land and rape our women in 1966. I will not go into the political and social ramifications of that event. Much has been said by far better speakers and more knowledgeable people than I.
Yes, the wound has not healed. We will not forget what was done to us. A lot of innocent people suffered, but does that give us the right to inflict suffering on innocent people too?
I have seen a lot of Mizo 'Christian' guys infused with the spirit of 'Vai velh chakna'. The most recent one was when a camera followed a group of Mizo men chasing a Vai who had done nothing wrong except being born the same race as an a-hole who raped a Mizo child. The Vai guy raced up to the roof of a building, looked down at the sheer drop, glanced back at the Mizo men after him... and the camera panned out. I don't know what happened next.
My guy and I went out once when a old Vai man bumped into us. He apologized so profusely and with such a distressed look on his face. It was just an accidental bump, for Heaven's sake! But then again, we could have been radical Vai-haters, ready to hit them just for a small bump, just for a small glance, just for being.
One of my friends used to have a boyfriend who was in the MZP. He boasted about extorting money from Vai shop-owners, and we got into a heated argument where by the end, he called me a "Vai-lover". My half-breed friend's dad also owns a shop, and he too had to 'donate' money to the MZP a few times. Had he refused, there was the probablity that the MZP would have issued a statement saying that the shop owner had been very rude to his Mizo customers and they would have trashed the place. When long socks were in fashion, my friend's dad sold them for 25 rupees, at the same price for which he bought them. And Mizo 'Christian' shop owners sold those same socks for Rs. 150.
We say we are afraid of being over-run by Vais. But its a fact that we cannot do without them. The last time trouble of this sort happened, the government granary in Tanhril almost became empty because there was no one to unload the goods. Where then are all those strong, Mizo youths who cry that there are no jobs? And where are they when Vais build the pandals for their YMA and KTP/TKP conferences?
I'm not saying that I'm completely unbiased towards Vais. Getting rid of so many years worth of social conditioning is not easy. But I think it's time to move on. Forgiveness does not mean condoning what the other person did. Its more about letting go of the bitterness that is holding you back from moving forward.
I can't help thinking of the Japanese in this context. Despite what they suffered during WWII, they have moved on. They never forgot what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but instead of letting it hold them back, they used the tragedy as an impetus to move forward. Why can't we Mizos do the same?
Things are getting better. I remember as a child, when a Mizo girl was raped and murdered by a Vai, Vai-owned shops were trashed and looted and demolished by an angry mob. Incidents of that kind are mercifully absent now, but if a Vai were to venture out, or open their shops right now, there would be a heavy backlash.
I have digressed so far from what I originally intended to write about. Maybe I'll get back to my original topic some other time. For now, I have to call my 'half-breed' friend. Here's hoping that no men in white robes would come to plant a burning cross in our yard for being a "vai-lover".
30 comments:
maaaaaadee....love u n ur writings!! muah2!! :))
ni don reng sinnn, ka voi 2 feature na che, jamie ai pon i chang sang xok, lo va insawitheih khum kherlo la :D biru hrih rawh, karleh ah boruak zia nga, kan chhuak ho hah2 don nia, mueeehhh!
ziak ţha.
i'm also a Vai lover...epic. absolutely brilliant epic entertainer...Steve Vai... and this post is a few notes short of epic :D...
dont digress. i'd love to read about aliens...
I agree I agree :-) mahseeeeee.... Vai ramah pawh "chinky" min hmusit ve tho. Mizo mipa aiin Vai mipa in "hmusit deuhin" mi chhaih/khawih an hrat zawk, an "H" bawk si.. putar thleng thlengin, ka ten ania (ti deuh duah teh ang).Khawlaiah kal ila, min lo khawih chhen an tum a, a safe lo si... Mizo chuan zir tur chu kan la ngah lutuk, duh aiin kan taima lo bawk. Khawpuia cheng thalai te kan taima lo. Hruaitu tha leh enkawltu tha kan neih phawt chuan, we will prosper!!
Mi pawi sawi miah lo "vai" lo huat ve ringawt hi chu tunlai ah an uar tawh lo, rilru zau apiangin Hnam dang kawm ngaih nachang an hria..
@Blind: Thank yew! Steve Vai-tha chi maw? hehe.. Maybe will talk about aliens some other time, se its all been done and said by far better people than me. Methinks am just being repetitive.
@Mims: Ni eee... Mizo ho chuan zirtur kan la ngah, esp when it comes to taimakna leh tumruhna.
Se ka lo vei ve mai2 thin chu, hnam dang kawm chungchangah hian... Mizo mipa n hmeichhia kan inkawm hian kan innel a, inkuah bawrh2, hmelhriat em em lo pawh titi pui borh2 thin kan nia, Mizo leh Mizo inkarah chuan a pawilo, Mizo nih tinuam tu ani bawka.
Mahse, hnam dang hi tlangpui chuan male-female friendship velah hian an conservative zawka, Mizo hmeichhe tam takin Mizo mipa an kawm dan ang hian an Vai thianpa te an kawm a, kan culture hrethiam lo tan chuan lak kawi chu a awl ve thin ang te ka tia. Kawm tur chu ania lom, se cultural gap kha ngaichang chu a ngai ve tho thin. keini'n 'friendly' anga kan ngaih kha anni chuan 'easy' hmel an ti daih thei tlat.
Me is very tlak teh duah!
Mizorama vai awm ho ka lo ngaihtuah lutuk a kei pawh. Rapist hi chu e, vawhlum mahse pawi ka ti lo. Pawisawilo chunga kut an thlak thrin erawh hi chu a dik lo khawp mai.
.. reading the comment up there.. just like to add about the chinky thing.. putting in my thoughts here... hope you dont mind.. little off topic..
weekends i often go to watch football.. my favourite team has a player from Korea..a "meng zim" chinky? person.... and almost everytime this player is zoomed in on the tele.. my football mates [Mizos] laugh at his chinky feature... IRONIC?
of course one could argue that he's 'extra narrow eyed'.. but the average Korean has eyes slanting just like him..
*the derogatory use of the word chink has often been used to describe the perceived narrow eyes of a person of East Asian descent.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chink
... and yes Steve Vai chu ţha lutuk.. Sap a nia :)
@Lucy: Rapists chu, eng hnam mi pawh, vuak hrep vek mai tur. chuan a pilh laiah acid tah tur. And thats just for starters :D went out today, saw some Vais around, and no one gave em a second glance...well..actually, I did, but because I was pleased that they refused to cower in fear for a crime they did not commit.
@Blind: Comment rawh, Pawilo reng2. I think hate just begets hate. The bullied will also find someone else to bully. The derogatory use of 'chinky' is kinda similar to the use of the term "nigger"...Blacks ho tih dan ang hian 'cool' term ah chhuah ve thei hlauh ila.. But maybe, things are looking up. Kan Mizo thalai tam tak hian sap pachal aiin niggas' and 'thug life' leh Koreans ho hi an copy tawh zawka. "Wazzup yo, my chinky?" :D
i guess in times like these, as when a young Mizo girl gets raped by a Vai, perhaps it could be easy to forget, for most people back home, though not all - that half-Mizos share the same history as they do, that its a part of every half-mizo's past and that their parents and grandparents fought against and grieved over what the government did to their people - as much as anybody.
tis an even sadder thing that pure vais who've lived their lives out there hardly even speak about this, it is as though they've resigned themselves to it, and god knows they were mad to follow our mothers into our state and for what? to marry them, to have largely "Mizo" children, to live as outsiders for the rest of their lives, in a society as cocooned and xenophobic as ours, and to have your wife and children condemned for it to top it all! and these very often are people closest to us - our classmates, our teachers, and for some, our own fathers. these are the people who have borne discrimination at its ugliest – silently, with dignity and without complaint.
sorry for the long comment..but here's my note of appreciation: the fact that there are more and more people like you who're perceptive enough to understand, and are making efforts to make others understand, what people experience on both sides of the divide, people like you who care enough to blog about the exploitation of innocent Vais be it on any emotional, physical and/or economic level – which still goes on and is in no way justified. you do your friends proud - of your sensitivity and your intelligence. and it does feel really good..like cool honey on a scorched tongue :) cheers! to you and your 'cocktail' friend..from a fellow cocktail and ol' school chum ;)
@Peer Gynt: Wow! Great comment. And you've credited me with more perception than I actually do have :D Thank you!
Don't know how I can improve on your comment. Thing is, we 'pure' Mizos have not had the personal experiences you cocktails had, so we can't really know how you would feel- the biases, the snide remarks, the alienation.
And it makes my blood boil when they denounce women who marry Vais, and then treat as celebs the women who marry Saps, even to the extent of featuring them in some magazines.Hell, if we are gonna be xenophobic, at least lets be consistent about it!
We get so angry when the whole NE gets a bad name because of the misdemeanours of a few people. And yet, we are doing the same thing, tarring all Vais with the same brush because of what a few of them have done.
And as mentioned, I have to say I'm not completely unbiased either. I do sometimes tend to regard Vais warily. But we, and not just I, are slowly developing a broader view. As recently as five years back,no Vai would have dared to venture out for at least a week. Now, just 3 days after the incident, I saw in Khatla, the place where 'IT' happened, a few Vai girls, and no one bothered them.
Take heart. The courage of those who dared to choose love over racial differences, of those who dared to live among people who mistrust them, is slowly coming to fruition. Its gonna take time though, but hopefully, it will happen.
BTW, old school chum? I know EVERYONE in St.Paul's (if thats the school ur'e referring to)who went there roughly the same years as I did, even if they're not from my batch. So, why the moniker? :D
Didn't know there was yet another child-rape lately. I remembered how my folks loved B.C.Dey & Sons, and how they had to leave our state cos' some "vai" killed a Mizo in Silchar. I sometimes wonder what our definition of "VAI" is anyway? The meaning may have been lost in the short history of our Race. Is it the people who are not Mizos, or those who do not live in Mizoram, or those who do not speak the language, or simply darker-skinned Indians.. etc etc? We are indeed a shallow-breed aren't we?
The Khasi's have a word "DKHAR" which is kinda similar, and they do have the same issues as we do. It's sad that we cannot live without stereotyping other people we hate.. and love(Read "SAP"!) at the drop of a hat.
AND: Its never NIGGER, its NIGGA! The difference is the "RRRR" sound which they hate to the death! Watch Eddie Griffin's "Freedom of Speech!", my Chink!
thanks. and thumbs up to you.
by old school mate i'd meant the cocktail's lol...you were a batch senior and i do know you by acquaintance :) and ayie was a beloved senior at college - just ask her which half breed psych. junior troubled her the most and she'll be happy to tell ya...thas all 'm letting on for now. heh ;)
@blackest, i rem the B.C.Dey & Sons incident vividly. we were kids then..pretty unsettling it was.
@Black: Thanks for the info, chinky homie. The B.C.Dey incident was particularly shameful. Don't remember where I heard it from, but apparently, this woman was looting them like hell, and she hailed a taxi to carry her bounty home. And while she went back to take more stuffs, the taxi driver zoomed off with all her goods, hah! Serves her right :D
@Peer: Hah! Ka hria che! Zodini's friend, right? And you can sing too :D
lol who said anythang bout singin. am that other friend of zodin's who can't really sing..:D
@Peer: I remember admiring all the shiny glossy stuff they had on sale back then, and whenever we went shopping, we never missed stopping by. I guess it was one of the best shops there was, and maybe that was why people enjoyed ransacking the damn place.
I was a kid when those events occurred, but I still remember grown-ass adults bragging about how much they looted from shops owned by VAIS, "Serves them right..", they had said! I never understood what the whole fiasco was about but I wonder now who the real criminals were.
@Ku: Congrats! One more blogger you've managed to unravel the identity of! :P And imagining the idea of hiring a Taxi to loot a place, kinda reminds me of the chaos depicted in Hollywood movies before an impending apocalypse, like "Bruce Almighty".. etc!
We live in a world that perpetuates hard-to-bridge differences among race, creed and sets of ppl. It also sets a terrible precedent for generations to follow. Peacemakers are hard to come by what with all the ass-hats who's biggest problems seem to revolve around personal vendettas.
Me? I try not to care. But it does get to me sometimes. People aren't very good at the whole "live and let live" thing.
Either way, Happy Friday.
I feel like a super-sleuth :)
@Peer: Had a look at your blog, couldn't comment on your latest. So am telling you here, at least enable a "like" button there :)
@Blind: Telly lover. And yeah, 'serves them right' for having the misfortune to belong to a different race.
@Eve: This started off as kind of a Mizo-centric post, hence the many untranslated Mizo words. But then, issues of racism and prejudices are actually universal, though I guess you get the gist of what am trying to say here.
"Live and let live" seems an impossibility with everyone trying to be other people's conscience.
But hey, we're not gonna let the 'ass-hats' get us down, right, at least on Friday nights. Have a great weekend! :)
@ku2: thank you muchly! :)
So much of this is in your native language but most of what I understand is quite troubling.
I've heard beautiful things about Mizoram. I hope to visit very soon :)
@Peer: Welcome-ful!
@Republic of Chic: Hi, thanks for dropping in :)
Yeaaahhh.. sorry about the untranslated sentences. Will try to be more conscientious in future.
And hope you do visit Mizoram. It IS beautiful, though not without its fair share of problems. But we are working on it :)
Legally and officialy, it was a "rape" case...but the grapevine suggests it wasnt "forced"....but the poor girl, her life ruined forever, maybe her dad was too shocked (of course who wouldnt be...just 13...sick)
...and thanks for dropping by
my first visit here. brilliant piece. nice blog you have here. :)
Vai an um inchunga lawn chu ka khawngaih ta hle mai tun atan rih chuan..
He topic hi chu ziah tam leh sawi tam hi a ngai ni berin ka hria. Ka vei ltk. Good job. Ziak zel rawh!
@OPa: Legally and officially its always rape. But there is almost always something to suggest that the girl is partly to blame- she wore revealing clothes, she was out late at night, she was too friendly etc. Rape is a double curse.
@Ruolgnulworld: Thanks, both for the compliment and for dropping in :)
@Jerusha: Han sawi belh vak dan tur pawh ka thiam tawhlo. Tet te atanga kan inzirtir dan a diklo tawh a, kaihhnaih a ngah bawk si nen...hun a ngai ani. Kan zia chhoh beisei phawt teh ang
Sandman plugged your blog while commenting on mine. Your reflective piece is so needed for much self-reflection on the part of those who entitle themselves to define what/who Mizos are and do. Hope your piece gets disseminated widely.
am glad you've said what you have, *and in english. i strongly disagree with the 'let's not tell anyone else about it' attitude, especially when it comes to how we are as racist and xenophobic as indians and australians.
i've had race problems from *both sides. first i wasn't chinky enough, then i was too chinky, LOL. while i've finally chosen to 'belong' to the NE/mizo-ness, it is with the knowledge that there is much we need to do to heal.
about the mizo women experience of groping on the indian mainland...quite true. while this is no consolation, my 'indian' friends have had all of the same trouble. ALL age groups. possibly NE'ers are yet to develop the body language and sharp eyesight it takes to keep at least some of these bastards off. the general treatment of women in the indian mainland was a terrible shock when i first moved.
@Philo: Thanksss!! Just read yours, really informative.
@feddabonn:I agree. Racism is as prevalent here as in other places, and to pretend otherwise just puts us on an even lower scale.
And eve-teasing. Maybe all women should have compulsory karate lessons.
I came across your blog and rather not too late to join the comment train I hope. I object the use of the word 'half-breed' and consider it derogatory (I understand you don't mean it). Mixed race is the proper choice I believe. It is rather inevitable in this world that people belonging to various cultures will 'mix'. The world of tomorrow will be one that is uniquely mixed, unless as asteroid comes and wipe our ass from this planet that is.
Dear Anon, thanks for dropping in. And yes, the term 'half breed' IS derogatory, hence why Ive put it within quotation marks, heh.
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