Manipur, My Home

Home at a faraway land


Home for me have always been where I am at the moment.
Blame it to me years of living away from home, my parents' home.
I have been on my own for 16 years now.
A child becomes a man in 16 years; I was already a Man 16 years back at the young age of 11.

I never wished I was born elsewhere. I never wished I was born someone else. I am easily proud. It is more to do with my upbringing and my positive attitude, I believe. I am fiercely proud of Who I am, where I belong to, where I work, Where I have studied etc etc. I am particularly proud about my roots. Back at Manipur.

The motive behind this bloglet. The Northeast in general and Manipur in particular have quite often been an enigma. I can’t but get amused when rickshawwalas, kirana walas and other lesser educated, and lesser fortunate people confuse us with the Chinese or Japanese at best and Nepalese at worse. But when an educated man does so and it happen more often than comfortable, it is quite very hurting. It happen less with me, more so because I am quite unlike what people think of a typical Chinky. With due respect to the Nepalese, (I have immense respect for them and they have helped the Indian army and the British army in winning a battle more than once and we mix pretty well Nepalese back home) but I said worse not because it offends me when someone confuse me with a Nepalese, but because it is slightly discomforting when you are looked at with a little disdain and with a sneer when you are thought of as a Nepali, and when you are told, ”yahaa bahut nepali kaam karte hein”. Sad but true. But that’s not the topic. Oh! Again leave it aside. But I have come across people who really want to know about the North east. I thought I would give that chance to my blog readers, because they would never have googled otherwise.

People of the northeast are alienated, both by their own doings as well by the Non-NE Indians. I believe in “It takes two to tango, it takes two to Clap”. So whatever alienation is there is mutual. Maybe I shall write about it, maybe not.

Let me tell you about Manipur. It is a beautiful state in the North eastern corner of India mired in political turmoil. Of course only the common men suffer. People of power enjoy it. People of intellect run away to make a living elsewhere.

But Manipur as I remember it is a beautiful state. Land of jewels, we call it “sana leibak”, land of gold. We still wear 99.9 % pure gold ornaments even if they are soft. We make them thick so it won’t bend, but we won’t mix and tamper with the beauty of the yellow metal. Pt Jawaharlal Nehru. Known for his aesthetic sense, saw Manipur and fall in love with it calling it Switzerland of the east. Some radicals say, it was just to fool us or to be politically correct appease us.

Manipur is some parts Hills and some parts plains, or valley. Mostly tribes live in the Hills and the so called Meeteis or the main stream Manipuri live in the valley. Of course there are frictions between the mainstreams valley people and the minority Hill people. Like I keep saying, Manipur is a little India, with its own set of discriminations and racism and class war and war between haves and have nots and what not. Lets leave politics out of the blog for sometime. But of course, the hill people and valley people have been living together for hundreds of years now. We were quite happy before politics came eh. But hey, more about the beauty. You see, I can’t but help to scream out loud at what ails the Manipur, the Sana Leibak, the land of gold.

So, some hills surround the state. It is actually seven ranges of hills, simple put you have to cross 7 ranges of mountains to reach the valley of Manipur. To those who thought Manipur was only hills, well majority live in the valley. Valley is plains, and it is very beautiful. Its like a Bowl, I wonder why no one termed it as some bowl. Golden bowl, or killing bowl to be more apt. the hills are rich with minerals and we are famous for our juicy and extremely sweet Pineapples. And of course bamboos. Bamboos enough to make enough papers to meet the demands of the Indian paper market. And no we are not doing anything to harm the environment by cutting down bamboos. Bamboos are a strange plant, it is actually a grass and it need to be harvested every some time to let the next crop grow. Since the hills are inaccessible, I don’t blame the govt. because infrastructure is bad everywhere in India, the bamboos are burned every years causing more ecological imbalance than actually cutting them down.

So Manipur is surrounded by Hills like a bowl, how pretty a sight it would be. It is, and to look at the blue mountains, yes the mountains are blue but no there are no snowfall in MANIPUR. The Siroy Lily is famous for its beauty, and blooms only in a particular region called Ukhrul in Manipur. It blooms in the mountains and people go every year on hiking expeditions to watch the Siroy Lily bloom.

The Lily

Manipur is also famous for the Pung Cholom, where people dances with drums hung horizontally across their stomach. Well, Manipur has a very rich culture which are manifested in the Pung Cholom and Ras Leela. Polo, or horseback hockey was first played by the Meeteis. It was made famous by the British, thanks to them.


Pung Cholom




But how many people know, how many Indians know that Manipur gave Polo to the world. How many Indians Know that The First Tricolour of a Free India was flown by the INA in Manipur. People don’t want to know, and why must we beat the drums. I shall post more later…

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