The people of Manipur-II

I will make this episode short.
Another interesting aspect of manipur is that, the women are more empowered than most other races. But unlike the confusion and misconception by some, manipur society is not a matriarchal one, unlike the Khasis of Meghalaya. But, Yes It is true that Women takes active part in Social and moral policing and, of course Business. When I say Business, it is the small trade of mini retailing like vegetable and fish vending and traditional cloths. They operate in markets commonly known as keithel. A women dominated keithel is called Ema keithel (Also called Khwairamband Bazaar around 1580), Ema for mother since the trade is done my mostly elder Women. The vegetable and Rice mandi is also controlled by women in a loosely held system. Bigger business is, of course, mostly in the hands of marwari traders. In fact Ema-keithel is petty famous, perhaps a one of its kind and there have been write ups and photo documentaries on the same. Gold and Jewel trade is also most done by women.



Women have also played major roles in the politics of Manipur. Not that there have been many many politicians, but women groups do have a say in many matters. This can be dated back to 1931, when a very important event took place called the Nupi Lan. Nupi Lan marked an important event in the history of Manipur. Nupi Lan means the women's war, Nupi meaning women and Lan meaning war, when women stood up in an uprising againts what we called chak tangba( inflation of food ie rice). The war or uprising started at the said Ema Keithel, when women protested against exports of Rice to Assam to feed the Brittish when Rice itself became scarce in Manipur. But since the brittish were paying, more local prices shot up making it very expensive in Manipur thereby causing a lot of problems for the local populace. Read more. We rememeber the brave women who fought in nupi lan with state holiday every december the 12th.

Women ever since have learnt the power of group effort( I didn't say unions, since they are anything but Left) and have taken up many social causes, the latest being the Manorama case.
Women groups called the Meira Paibi's or torch bearers are women groups whose only common identity being the torce, the kind that was seen in old hindi movies and caves. A short wooden staff with fire burning at the tip. Meira paibi's roam the streets of manipur late at night to keep Vigil against unlawfull activities. Started as a group to punish errant husbands and sons who took to drinking and rowdism late at night, they have evolved to a political force of sorts with a say in everthing.

Even today, many women are doing quite well in their respective fields. In my batch, the state topper in High School was a Girl. Yet there are instances of exploitation, domestic violence, etc but they are minor instances compared to the other parts of India.

Read more about Manipuri Women

Read about Meira Paibis and Thokchom Ramani

My regular Blog at Anthonysmirror

The people of manipur

More about Manipur,

A small Disclaimer: “My posts will be devoid of facts and figures. I have been away from home quite some time, and so I shall rely more on my memory. My memory is really bad in numbers, so I shall prefix all the data with the Imfamous “About”. I usually write the posts from on my laptop at Home and there have been some problems with the net connection, so I can’t google either, except from office where I post the articles. I don’t want to rely much on google either. Not many facts about Manipur are available on the Net and I can’t be sure how genuine some might be. But I will not resort to fiction.”

I shall take up each topic separately, like the story behind The Polo, About Indian Flag, the Problems that we faced, about our culture etc etc.
Today let me share with you some Facts, more about the people there.
I believe, people are more interested in the beauties of the Place, simply put the tourism quotient. Whenever I say I am from Manipur, the second most popular question is, “I heard that Manipur is very beautiful, full of Greenery?”. The most popular being, what our currency is. Few questions come about the people that reside there. Everybody seems to be an expert already on the people of Manipur. For one, we eat snakes and rats. And, our women folk are very promiscuous. A pre-conceived notion, but a fact nevertheless.

I am to blame but I haven’t read the whole of Manipuri History. I recently got a mail, that a Book about the ancestors of Manipur, translated from our archaic language and script written originally on Manipuri equivalent of scrolls is now available with some publishers. It was sent to me on a Manipuri e-group. I have to get hold of one. But I shall tell you the little that I know as of today.

Like in my previous posts, Where I said that we are a little India with our own set of prejudices, class discriminations and even dowry system however insignificant, Manipur is inhabited by different ethnic groups. I, for one, don’t believe in ethnicity. I don’t even believe in religion, I publicly announce so. I am a Beef eating, staunch Threaded Hindu named Anthony. I truly believe in one world, a truly free market. But the fact is that Manipur also has different Ethnic groups. I will write mostly about what I know best. About my ethnicity. About the Meeteis.
Not because the others are insignificant, but I would start writing more truths which would ruffle a few feathers, and we are living in sensitive times now. But I love them all, I will try my best so that everybody lives in Peace. I am a staunch supporter of living together in Peace. I hate the British empire who Divided India, and who divided Palestine. It is the cause of all the hate brewing in the world today. America came in much later. It was British diplomacy all along. Well I am off track now.

Manipur, as it is, is inhabited by the Hill tribes and plains men. The Plains Men or the Valley Men are called the Meeteis. The Meeteis , but for a few sects are in the general category unlike some notions that all chinkies have Scheduled caste or Scheduled Tribe reservations. I am not even an OBC. It amused me when my placement officer called me in on day and told me to apply to HPCL because they were offering very good Package and they had reservations for SC/STs. Even she had assumed without checking out if I attended my B school with a reservation and without checking out my ranking. So the plains people or Meeties makes up most of Manipur. Could be more than 80% of the native population ( I am not including Bangladeshis and Nepalis and non-manipuri Indians), here 80% is a guess. The rest is made of a number of tribal brothers and sisters. We have been living together with harmony for hundreds of years, but politics have now reached out its poisonous fangs to the Harmony.

So what are the Meeteis, Who are they? Meeteis, as described by a British writer “are particularly a handsome race. Hardly an obese men are to be found( which of course is not true anymore). The Meeteis have beautiful features. The Meetei Women have very beautiful hair”. Some British Anthropologist have chronicled about the Meeteis very pleasantly. Meeteis are good in numbers( unlike me), very sincere, and take friendship and honour very seriously, even today. It won’t be uncommon to see a Meetei picking up a fight against injustice, something as trivial as eve teasing. Meeteis take their manhood also very seriously. Honour matter much to them. Maybe a legacy from our oriental ancestors, read hara kiri.

It would also be surprising to know that the Meeteis, follow Hindusism. A particularly strict sect of Hinduism called the Vaisnavism. It was the sect of hindu made popular by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. I don’t remember the exact dates, interested reader may google for it, but it was around the 16th century that
Hinduism spread in Manipur after a Hindu missionary ( yes Hindu also had Missionaries, and I studied in a mission run by Hindus) known, not in a very good light, as Shanti Das Goshain( Goshain was what w could pronounce Goswami as, I believe). The Meeteis embraced Hindusim because it was a very pure religion, and it is often said that Vaishnavism reached its peak in Manipur. When, a Meetei starts something, it is said that we do it till perfection. What made ShantiDas a Vilain was because he poisoned the ears of the then King, Maharaj GaribNiwas, to burn all the ancient scriptures of Manipur. The Scrolls that I mentioned earlier. Only a few could be saved and salvaged. It was Gloom times for Manipur when he burned down the scriptures. We still have some that were Hidden though. We call it the “Puran mei Thaba” Puran = the scriptures, mei thaba means to burn. But since then, the Meeteis have followed Hinduism with a fervor unmatched by any sect. We celebrate the Holi for 5 days with complete abandon, we celebrate the Rath yatra on the lines of Puri, for 10 days and very seriously full of festive and grand feast both during the day and night for 10 days. Each family takes turn like a Rota, to take care of the feast for the 10 days. It is celebrated in the local Brahmin Family and there is a Brahmin family in every locality of 15-20 families. Some families jointly take the turn to offer the feast and the Puja for the day. It is considered that Offering a crown for the Jaganath gets you Assured Blessings, it is just a matter of pride and pretige I believe. My mother offers most years. And all other Hindu festivals, just name it and we celebrate it right from Govardhan puja, Diwali, Durga Puja, Shivratri, Krisna Janma, Saraswati Puja, Viswakarma Puja and what not.
Add to it, the festivals from the pre-hindu era. The Lai Haraoba( the Festival of the Gods) , Cheraoba( the Manipri new year), Ningol Chakouba( Manipur raksha bandhan equivalent where the married sisters come home to a day of festivity and feast and brothers showering them Gifts), Emoinu. Who said India was a Land of festivals. Manipur beats the rests of India in it. Didn’t I mention time and again that Manipur is a miniature India. And that we like excess of everything.

But since the Manipuri version of Hindu came from west Bengal, they gifted us with another legacy that I am thankful to the bongs for. The love for Fish. Manipuri Hindus are staunch Hindus ion that we can’t carry chicken or mutton into the house in general and kitchen in particular, even today. But we can’t do without Fish. Of course to appease the Gods, we keep Thursdays as pure veg ( but that’s the day when youngsters cook chicken on their own in the backyard). Some Meeteis also after attaining particular age devote themselves to god and stop eating fish altogether. But we love Fish. I can’t do without fish. Of course, youngsters nowdays living away from home, and most of us live away from home for studies or for work so most of us eat non-veg Food except for a few girls. Well next episode soon. More about the people.

Keep coming.

Don't forget to read manipur- Part-I


And Visit my regular Blog at Anthonysmirror

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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