My misfits :)

Its ironic, really. 
One comes from Lunglei and I am sure you know trotrally all troo well what has been said about those coming from those parts. That they are small-minded, they get married too young (!) and they are wannabe Aizawlians. 


Then one's a hybrid. They're supposed to be two-faced, small-minded and disloyal.


Then there's the "nuthlawi". Supposed to be a cougar that breaks in boys and then breaks their heart and homes.


And there's the UPC. Small-minded (too!), rigid, with looooong unstyled hair.


My best friends are those that society has casted into one stereotype or the other. Nopes, its not a conscious choice :D  Ive often heard what people say about my friends and find them ridiculous. However it does make me think, if birds of a feather flock together, what about me? Am I the odd bird out? Or do I fit a stereotype too and people are talking about me and Im blissfully unaware as usual and my friends are protecting me again? 


Lunglei-wallah makes fun of the way she is stereotyped. Small-minded? No, just principled. Marriage centric? I wish! Its past time for her to get married. Wannabe- Aizawlian?- If there's one thing I know about her, she isnt a wannabe anything. She IS herself.


Then Vainu :D Small-minded? Hah! She's a little bit too tolerant. Two-faced? If she is, then I want her faces. Disloyal? Far far too trusting for her own good. 


Nuthlawi. The 'cougar' on the prowl. Sometimes I want to give her a big hug because I know so well that she so is not. It doesn't matter that she has had just that one boyfriend, the one who made her a nuthlawi. That nuthlawi status will forever label her as a fallen woman.


UPC. Long haired- yes, but very well-styled. Rigid and small minded?- Probably has the kindest heart of anyone I know. Had a steady boyfriend whose friends rag him mercilessly for having a looong-haired UPC girlfriend. They've broken up since, though they still burn for each other.  


My misfits make it easy to forget how hurtful it could be for them sometimes. They make politically incorrect jokes about themselves- their way of thumbing their noses at those who stereotype them without knowing who they really are. Lunglei-wallah has us in splits about trotrally Lunglei jokes. Vainu will say, "Vai velh tur, ka pa hi lo beng r'u". And nuthlawi will say things like, "Ka lo ti ang. Nuthlawi alawm ka nih, ka zahtheihloh kha". And UPC smiles beningly whenever religious discussions come up and someone will always, ALWAYS say something bad about UPCs. 
And despite their problems, whenever I wail, "Im loonely", they call, suggest we meet up, and proceed to make me laugh my blues away. 


So this is a tribute to my four social misfits. I don't need no Friendship Day to tell you I love you all and that Im proud of you for not letting the narrow-minded bigots get  you down
But Lunglei wallah told me to write a friendship day post and Im a good friend too. So here it is, luv. Hope it makes you smile and get you all puffed up. 

Goodbyes

While rummaging through my old boxes of letters and mementos I came across my "Memory Book". Not content with mere autograph books, in our hostel, the outgoing students have this habit of circulating a thick notebook among the girls. There we'd write whatever springs to mind, and like all goodbye notes, the notebooks were usually filled with memories of good times, promises to keep in touch, addresses, funny photos, pressed flowers, ticket stubs and pages ripped out from comic books.


I re-read the pages written by my old hostel mates. Sometimes life plays its cruel little tricks on you and present you with extraordinary people with whom you inevitably have to say goodbye to. Because we had practical exams, we were one of the last to leave and I had the unenviable task of seeing off my friends as they left one by one. I remember standing on the platform as they peeped out their bus windows and we extracted last minute promises to keep in touch. And as their buses pulled away, I'd half-run after them and we'd shout, "Take care!!! Call me! I miss you already!!"


I think it's always hardest for the ones left behind. I also came across a short letter written by Ben, an old school mate who died a few years back. He wrote that at 21, it was nearly time for him to find a bride. Last month was the anniversary of the death of my guy's dad. One of his friends wrote a short dedication to him in his magazine which went something like : "I thought you and I would take the night bus home together. But you went ahead and took the morning ride without me, and you left me here".


Goodbyes are such a huge part of life and no matter how many times one faces them, it never really becomes easy. Death is probably the biggest farewell of all. We think we and our loved ones would depart together on that night bus as the sun sets on the evening of our lives. But so many of us have to depart so suddenly and those left behind can only watch them leave and miss them already.


In our Mizo mythology, dead souls drink "Lungloh tui" (waters of unloneliness?) and inhale the scent of the "Hawilopar" (The no-turning-back flower :D ). My translation sucks. There is one more stage they have to pass through but I've forgotten what it is. But basically, dead souls can't enter Pialral (Mizo Valhalla, Paradise, what have you) until they have forgotten those they have left behind. I suppose it would make life a lot easier if we could forget all those that we have had to say goodbye to. Still, I'd rather have the memories with the pain, than to forget what it was like with them, even to forgo the pain of loss.


And it hurts more when the one you lost is someone whom you want to have in your life forever. The first person who wrote in my "Memory Book" was a Naga girl called Naro whom I used to call my "soul sister". She wrote that she would forever picture me as "Cheery-faced Kuku with optimism in her skin, search in her eyes and words in her head". I dont know how much of the girl she once knew still remains in me, but I too forever will remember her as "the girl lying amongst crushed daisies in her Green, crying her mascara tears". Yeah. Memories. We leave behind a part of us forever.


Still, life does offer us its compensations. I remember feeling sulky and weepy on the bus home because Naro had an exam and couldn't drop me off. And on that same bus too was a girl whom I vaguely knew and she too was surreptitiously wiping her goodbye tears. That girl eventually turned out to become another soul sister, my BFF. So yeah, life does go on, people come and go, leaving their indelible yet permanent mark on us. And one day I'll point to my laugh lines and tell my grandkids, "so and so put these lines here on my face". Yep, my face will become a map of those that I've loved and laughed with and said goodbye to.
And life remains one big circle of hellos and goodbyes. And so it goes...

I miss my best friend

That first taste of freedom in college where we would arrive by 9:30, and leave at 4, regardless of whether we have a class or not. Just sitting on the pavement because we didn’t want to go home. The phone calls to each other when we get back home. Saturdays when I would trek up to her house, and Sundays when she would come to mine. Lying to our parents so that we can take a trip to Shillong. Lying for each other, period.

That silent walk back home when we both had new boyfriends at the same time. The goofy grins on both our faces. The way she tried to make me cry when I broke up with mine because she insisted that one should always cry at break-ups. Me helplessly watching her silent tears when she had her first heart break. Laughing at her ex-boyfriend’s love letter to her. Walking from Sikulpuikawn to Zarkawt at 6 in the evening, just so she can catch a glimpse of her crush. Keeping the first of many secrets that would bind us together irrevocably.

Laughing at her when a bus conductor kicked her ass from a moving bus. She laughing at me when I fell face down in front of a crowd of eve-teasing taxi drivers. It was not that we were unsympathetic towards each other. The thing was, between us, we managed to turn the tragic and the embarrassing into something to laugh about.

She had these attacks where she would be short of breath, and sometimes she would pass out. There were so many times she would pass out on the streets and I had to leave her there to search for help. The one time I choked on Kuhva and couldn’t breathe, and there were no houses nearby, she didn’t know what to do, so she crawled on the street with me. That time when she had an attack in the examination hall, and the teachers gave her lemon tea, and knowing my penchant for them, she let me drink it all up.. Ahh, friendship.

When I finally had my first heart break, I went to her place. We bought what we thought was grape wine, but it turned out to be this vile black concoction that blackened our teeth and gave us diarrhea. I went there to cry but had never laughed so much in my life. The greatest anomaly about her is that she hates music! So she probably wouldn’t see that it’s such an honour for her that I’m even thinking of her while OD-ing on John Mayer.

That time she tried to teach me how to drive the scooty and the way we both screamed when the scooty insisted on trying to run off the road. I gave up on it, and became her official back-seat driver. Driving on the University roads singing at the top of our voices. Driving through heavy rains because we thought wet hair was sexy… Nah, we just loved driving in the rain. Violating traffic rules together and turning on the charm when we were reprimanded.

Copying off each other’s papers during tests. Frantic signals when one of us got stuck on a class presentation. Our friendly academic competitions, where we both came out winners. Her guide sent her to this God-forsaken place where there is no internet and phone calls are dodgy. So I won’t be able to see her for about two months. I miss her. But I won’t tell her that because she would gloat. We’re very unsentimental towards each other. A pat on the back for us signifies a thousand affectionate words. Not that I need to tell her that I miss her anyway, because she already knows that I do.....

Prejudice!

are we scary?

thats me n my research mates.

a comment we come across occasionally when we mention that we're lit. students is:

"ohh, so u're one of those man-hating feminists, huh?"

one time, i and one of my frens boarded the crowded univ bus, n this guy we dont even know starts saying, "you lit. girls believe in equality of the sexes, so we wont give up our seats for you". scary 'us' were too scared to comment and resigned ourselves to standing for the whole 30 minutes or so bumpy ride. and when we kept quiet, jerk guy called us 'stuck-up' ('inla mai2). fortunately, guys like these are the exception, and two sweet guys gave us their seats. and of course, we reciprocated nicely with big smiles n thank yous and carried their bags n books for them. and it didnt hurt either when we learnt later that jerk guy had gotten two back papers in his last exam :))

when my sister reveals that she's a psychology major, she's given this wary look and is either asked "what am i thinking now?' or "what does my dream mean?". then they call her scary because she can 'read minds' and 'no one would be able to lie to her'.

something i've noticed is, for a majority of the guys out there, a woman's desirability is inversely proportional to the amount of education that she gets. many guys actually admit to being SCARED of a well-educated woman. and its worse when you're an English lit student. we get tagged with radical feminism, and on top of that, they tell me that more than half of the women who teach English end up as 'strict' spinsters or 'bitter' divorcees. well, i want to teach English lit, so according to this theory, i have a good chance of ending up 'strict' or 'bitter'...and alone!

a 'wise woman', according to most people, is one who manages to manipulate a man into following her orders while managing to appear coy and submissive. i dont know, this reminds me of that poem about the spider and the fly....i dont think i can respect a man i can manipulate. i'd rather ask politely for what i want, and if that makes me a feminist, then so be it.

ok, ive now vented alll my spleen and hopefully, can now concentrate on my paper. and if it gets accepted and i get my degree... well, here's to scaring a few more guys :)