Phengphehlep tial mawi,
hnunglamah, hmalamah, hnunglamah,
kawng tluanin!
The butterfly
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A log for a pillow
in a farm hut,
aching body.
A dark hazy night
no moon in sight
and no stars shimmer.
Strange companions,
we are all aliens
in the end.
Frost bitten hands
shivering body.
I pity myself
in a darkened hut.
(Remembering an 80km hike from Chayangtajo to Seppa, 2002)
a farm hut
It’s been nine years. Upon reaching Aizawl for the very first time just before dawn, my then 4 year old nephew uttered just one word in Mizo, “Ehe!” This could mean a lot of things to do with surprise or astonishment yet it mostly meant at the time to comment on the beauty and splendour of the lights of Aizawl city as seen from the cliffs of Thuampui in the wee hours of the morning.
A friend living in a beautiful coast exclaimed how he was ready to pay to live on a hill-top city like Aizawl. Such a spectacular scenery for free, absolutely no cost all the time, would be a dream come true, he reckoned. This clearly was simply a case of the grass being greener at the other side of the fence. Give me the beach any day. Or may be not! To return home to the hills after a long hiatus, yes, to behold the Mizo hills again after years of absence, with all its splendour and majesty was something I have not really taken into account. I realised and appreciated in a new way how the hills are truly majestic and just marvellous! And the most surprising thing was people didn’t even realise it. We often take for granted the most significant things in our lives!
It’s 5 in the morning: couldn’t resist to click away even at the hour only to get back to bed!
Noonday view of Aizawl
Aizawl on a hazy day: time stands still here
Aizawl: Cloudy Day
Making a mark
River Mat
River Khawthlang Tuipui
Hmuifang
Due to the ‘new’ Lunglei Road, built with loans from the World Bank (therefore, World Bank Road, you see), the average traveller travelling to Lunglei must climb the famous ‘Mount’ Hmuifang without exerting any muscle at all. This I reckon is a travesty. I am not saying that the hills are sacred with sacred spirits on them, but that to build a road on the hills forever changed the landscape and thus the natural beauty. Someone in the Tourism Department of the State government had some bright ideas about how to build a tourist resort and thus spoilt the beautiful hills forever. Trouble is no one came to me for advice (yeah, I know), and I’m not sure if people even realised how the beauty of nature had been raped and destroyed, never to recover again.
I am saying that they should have left the hills alone, and let the road be built somewhere else, not through Hmuifang hills, of all places. And instead of shamelessly destroying the most beautiful spot on top of the hill, it would have been better to build the ‘resort’ somewhere else, thereby providing potential tourists and hikers a place to hike and beautiful picnic spots. Now, that’s talking non-sense as it’s never going to happen now. I am aware of that too, yet I can’t help but feel frustrated at ‘their’ thick-headedness or whatever you call it!
The road is only a few years old yet the maintenance leave a lot to be desired. Potholes abound numbering as much as the missing road signs which I am told are stolen by people along the road to be sold as scrap metal. Scrap metal?! They should get a life. Or am I too naive in blaming them? Could that be the work of pranksters or drug addicts? I don’t know. But I sure am upset at the way they don’t even care or love their own land. Strange things are going on here!
Approaching Hmuifang Hill on the main highway
This is where they paved paradise
To put up a parking lot
Building the resort at the most beautiful place in the area
Only idiots think they can improve upon the beauty of nature
For Lunglei: A view from Tlabung Road
A view of Lunglei from Serkawn: Cloudy day
A view of Chaltlang from ATC
Aizawl on a hazy day
A golden afternoon
Before sunset
Just before dusk
Welcome to Mizoram!
sacred memory
the new building
Al speaks like Scottish because he is. That’s alright, he and his wife are friendly people from Scotland. He’s been here before a couple of times, heard more anecdotes than I did and he shared one that involved Mother Teresa.
As the story goes, Mother Terasa once stepped inside and joined worship service at the Circular Road Baptist Church on AJC Bose Road. She sat herself right next to the Baptist pastor of the time Rev. Neil McVille or whatever his name was. During the service she said to him how God had told her that the BMS land next to the Missionaries of Charity home must be given to her.
Now, if Mother Teresa told you that God spoke to her you would not doubt it, would you? And when it comes to a land that belongs to your organisation you also have your people to answer to. I don’t know what any lesser man might do but Pastor Neil said to her, “Mother, God has not spoken to me yet!”
They did die young
If you walk off to where the bamboos grow in an obscure corner of the compound, you will see a tombstone for the two wives of a Mr.Templeton. I don’t really know enough to comment on who they were but what struck me was how young they were when they died in the 1840s. The first wife died when she was only 17 and the second at the age of 18. It must have been some sacrifice for them to leave home so young to serve God in an unfamiliar place with the knowledge that they may never make it back home. To this Mr. Templeton joined the Psalmist saying, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”
Carey, anyone?
So, there was this Asian looking guy sitting next to me and I thought he might be Japanese. The rest of the people next to him were conversing in German. I asked the guy where he was from saying –
Me: Ni hui shuo putonghuo ma?
Him: Wo hui shuo.
Me: Ni shi cong nali lai de?
Him: Wo cong Taiwan lai.
As you would have figured out from the conversation (:-)) it turned out he’s from Taiwan. So, the poor man was confused when I said I was from India, and that too in Chinese. The other people sitting with us were from Austria where they also speak German. They have all come to Kolkata to volunteer at the Missionaries of Charity.
Me: So, you know Carey, right?
One of the Girls: Yeah, I know Jim Carrey.
Me: Not him. Have you ever heard of William Carey? You have haven’t you?
All of them: No?!!
Me: Aha, where have you been all this time?!
Some of them: Europe…Taiwan
Me: William Carey’s picture hangs right there.
The Austrian Girl: I will have a look at it then…
The two girls from Austria are Catholics and the Taiwanese guy doesn’t have ‘any religion’ which I am willing concede might qualify them to not have come across the name William Carey. However, there was not a good enough excuse for the German boy who claimed to be protestant. But I am also awakened to the stark reality that this is what the modern Christian world has come to, forgetting the legacy and heritage that a humble cobbler turned scholar like Carey had left behind.
Jim Carey? A bit over the top most of the time, me thinks anyway.
One Reverie 