"Two Weddings In One Lane"

Good afternoon!

We say "Marriage is made in heaven" as an idiom for those who have a happy marriage or partnership. The love marriage versus arrange marriage debate is always going to be an ongoing process. For liberal-minded, they will stand for love as an expression of one's independent and choice. On the other hand, the conservative will go for the arrange marriage. However, arrange marriage can be individual choice or by family obligation. Between the love and arrange marriage, there are also those falling in love first and arranging the marriage with the approval of family from both sides. In case, if both the families disapproved based on disparity in social status, caste and creed, religion, wealth, etc., thus, the lovers may opt for love marriage after eloping or get married in court with their friends as witness inspired by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet love saga.

In India, wedding is a mainstay in the social Calender and one of the most celebrated families event which may continue for several days. The wedding rituals and celebration vary based on the resources of groom, bride and their families. In Hindu culture, the wedding date is decided by Pandit in order to perform the wedding rituals and ceremonies in auspicious day unlike the western culture wherein the wedding date is decided by both the bride and bridegroom. In my community, usually marriage ceremony take place before the Christmas season and after New year. Also, in the month March or April but before Good Friday. I'm not sure about the Muslim wedding celebration although I have heard about "Nikah" but not all the preceding ceremony. Like Hindu, Punjabi wedding also has many rituals and ceremonies that has evolved with time.

The last Monday, I were not surprised by the fact that there were two weddings in one lane and also two weddings facing opposite to each other. Besides the mentioned four weddings, there were also couple of other wedding processions on the road. I guessed they were proceeding towards the direction of their respective weddings venue. Unfortunately, I felt like my ear drum was bursting because of the very loud non-musical sound of the drum beats followed by the wedding band in uniform, the break-dance (literally) by friends and families, and the use of crackers announcing the arrival of the groom in chariot. I was really amused with the guys who were dancing will actually break their bones with their unique style of break dancing. I bet Michael Jackson would have love to join the dancing... :)

Because of the dozens of wedding I came across that day, I believed it was definitely an auspicious day. However, for those who are commuting on the road and at the same time where the wedding processions were there, it was definitely a bad experience with the slow traffic movement. Ultimately, I were late by nearly one hour when I reached home. I can't deny the fact that I mouthed a couple of curse words from the back seat of my cab silently. Even if I have bad mouthed loudly, I'm sure the noisy drum beats would have distort it. Adding up to the woes of commuters are the wedding guests vehicles parked on the side of the road where it is actually not a parking zone. No offence intended; it was really unkind of the groom family towards the commuters on that day...:) Anyway, it was a very important day for both the bride and the groom starting their journey together as one. I hope they will all enjoy their married life.

I understand the value of wedding rituals and ceremonies. The importance of marriage in our society is not simply a marriage rather the forming of strong bond between the two families, i.e, the bride and the groom family. Besides all the good things, sometimes the wedding venues are questionable when it is located nearby the main road. I'm not sure how the authority has approved the venue as appropriate for marriage ceremonies and parties. Any type of wedding venue right next to main road can cause any kind of nuisance especially when it comes to parking of vehicles by invited wedding guests in NO PARKING zone. Often, it leads to unnecessary traffic congestion which is very inconvenience for public.

You and I cannot simply stop the marriage ceremony underway. And obviously, it will also be very rude and unpleasant if you and I had to walk into a wedding venue uninvited and requesting the invited wedding guests to move their respective vehicle parked outside. Of course! A commotion may erupt among the guests which can definitely pause the flow of the wedding ceremony. In this type of situation, any individual actions may backfire. However, the unpredictable repercussion from the bride or the groom family is worth analyzing before taking the bold step. After all, we are more inclined towards maintaining our social status to fulfill our whims with no regards for other people. 

But I believed it will be more sensible if we can include a line in every wedding card informing the invited guests that there is no parking facility at the wedding venue. I'm sure it will create a convenience for the commuters as well as the wedding organizer. Even if the guests arrived with their respective vehicle, it will nice gesture if the wedding organizer can arrange a parking zone at appropriate place.

"By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." Socrates.

Thank you. Have a good evening!

"Farmer"

Good morning!

“The first farmer was the first man. All historic nobility rests on the possession and use of land.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

It’s Friday and I believed it is the best day to be in office. And I never want to miss Friday and it’s certainly like the happy ending of contemporary rom-com Hindi movie. Nevertheless, I have had a good week and now I'm ready to enjoy every bit of my weekends by the end of the day.

Many years ago, my family tree occupation used to be farmers until my dad joined State Bank of India in the year 1987. Even now, my mom excels in growing all sorts of vegetables in garden back home. It is not an exaggeration because she is my mom… :) When I was growing up, I have experience the joy of harvesting grain in paddy field with friends and families in the month of November and December. The hindsight of harvesting season is like a rat race for all the farmers. Whoever has harvested the largest quantity of grains becomes the talk of the village throughout the harvest season unless another farmer beat the record. In order to determine the quantity of grains, gunny sacks are filled with the grains fully. Then, the counting starts and the counted sacks are loaded in a truck.

My parents used to scare me by saying, “if you don’t do well in your school examination, you’ll land up becoming farmer.” I do understand their point because majority of the households from my village are engaged in agriculture as occupation. It is not easy run a family throughout the year with farming as occupation. Living in a small village invisible from the map does not offer many opportunities or any viable long term solution in order to substitute farming or change the occupation. In addition, the economy status of my state Manipur does not give enough importance to invest in agriculture. Whenever I'm home during the summer vacation, I've seen many farmers waking up early in the morning to make sure the river water reached their respective fields so they can cultivate. Or else, any shortage of water can easily go downhill and they will be unable to cultivate on time. I just hope the state government will at least invest in irrigation system to make sure no farmers bear the consequences of drought.

As agriculture is the primary source of livelihood, we'd always hope the weather god to be fair with all the hard work invested. Of course! Cities are miles and miles apart from villages when it comes to opportunities to earn and live an ordinary simple life as “Aam aadmi.” The thoughts creeping in my mind inspired by the plights of farmers however cannot be definitive yet debatable. It is this strong feeling on the farmer dedication and work ethics which I felt are incomparable with the way we work in any organizations. Believe it or not, a farmer will keep on working despite the scorching heat of the sun. And although, we are comforted in office with air-condition, drinking water, loo, transportation (pick and drop), cafeteria, etc., but seldom have we remembered the work we do in office is for our bread and butter.

The irony of our role in an organization is nonetheless similar with the role of a farmer. Yet, the farmers are passionate, dedicated, and very committed with their work knowing very well the outcome will be the livelihood for his family. Our education and knowledge may have gotten us the easy job ahead from those who do not have a degree. But the question is, “Do we love our job and do we have the characters of a farmer?” The bitter truth is that we don’t deserve to be part of an organization as a workforce if we do not understand why we are working. Only if we were passionate about our work like the farmers with the understanding that the work I do is my livelihood, I’m sure everyone will be undeniably rewarded by the end of the year. And that’s when we can stage harvesting festival in an organization… :)

Food for Thought: “There is no gilding of setting sun or glamour of poetry to light up the ferocious and endless toil of the farmers wives.” Hamlin Garland.

FYI: The dawn of the millennium revolutionized education in my village. I’m very proud of my root because my parents have learned from the hard ways and encourage us to move forward with time. The good news about my village is that 100 % of children below 16 are going to school every day. We have a bright future and I'm sure we will create our own opportunities within our boundary to help grow one another rather than to move to cities.

Thank you. Have a good day!

"ytinummoc ym fo tesb ehT"

“We have the capacity to function our brain at 100% but circumstances have denied the passage to 100% usage of our brain.”

Attention! Disclaimer: This is the sole thought of my alter-ego and the name of the community as well as the incidents mentioned in this blog is not fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely intentional. Please do know that this not a policy or a memorandum to change your priceless values. ***It is a mockumentary from my alter-ego mind directed towards my community which I cannot keep as secrets.***

The fact is I belong to Chiru tribe, one of the smallest tribal communities in Manipur. You can take us the wrong or the right way because we are the most stubborn and ego-centered tribal community. We do not believe in coherence system. I am not denying that I do not belong to these groups. Well, I'm also part of it. We believe, I, alone can change the world with the mentality of “I don't need your f**king advice.” We may come across working together in MNC or Central Government or State Government but you will not see us sitting together for breakfast or lunch because we placed pride above people. We think everyone doesn’t deserve respect unless one from his family is an Indian Administrative Service officer or Gazette Officer or medical professional. We may be closely related however the closer ones are our biggest enemy because we believe in the saying “Keep your friends close and keep your enemies closer” literally.

It took us more than 10 years to complete the Bible translation to our own dialect, and that too, only New Testament. When the translated Bible was launched, we did very well to criticize the translation as if the Bible has been translated to another dialect. Our main reason for our proactive criticism is because we want the Bible in own family version of mother tongue. And it is going to take us another 20 years to translate the Old Testament because like it has been mentioned earlier, we are not coherence in bringing out our ideas and our dialect vocabularies. But we will rap out dozens of vocabulary like vomiting at full throttle after the translated Bible is printed. That’s how we do things.

We don't make eye to eye communication rather we are very good communicator from back, popularly known as backbiting. We never care about our villages because we believe in the mantra there is a better life outside whereas our villages are not good enough for better people like us and the truth is we are never ashamed of our origin. We switch our sides like a chameleon changes it colors every now and then. In fact, the reptile “Chameleon” and “Chiru” appears to be like siblings as both the word starts with “CH”.

Further, when we are back to our villages, we tried hard to avoid anyone with low standard of taste and fashion even if the person used to be our childhood friends. Now that we think we are better than everyone, we expect our level of standard should also followed by others. We also don't give a damn on our villages’ authority administration because our respective villages’ chiefs are all f**king clown and ignorant who doesn't have education like us. We do not take initiatives unless it is fed to us by spoon because they don't deserve our educated mind “ideas” and “innovation”. We believe the village authority did not pay for our education, and why the heck do we need to return the favor of helping develop all our villages? We are Christians and go to Church every Sunday but we least respect the pastors because their sons and daughters or relatives also party with us.

We are really good at cracking jokes with reference to every village of ours. We think there is nothing funnier than cracking jokes on the accent of our dialect which is differ from village to village. We also nicknamed our villages, like we called Dolang village as “To-Jang”, Charoikhullen village as “Shei-ek char”, Nungsai as “Thairam”, Langdangmei as “Lung-mo”, etc.

Among the best, the Youth society in each of our villages is still run like dictator government. If you raised your voice and instead of providing the explanation, they will counter you back with, “Where is your manner?” If you politely questioned the system, they will say, “The system worked for us; and anyway you are going the leave the village again for studies or work, so why change it?” And if you are not good with guitar, they will say, “You are not like Christian” and continues to conclude with “Just seat in the choir bench and sing the Hymnal songs.” This is great! **N.B. The “you” refers to a person who does not belong to Chiru communities and he/she is an idiot. **

Our parents are our biggest fans in the world. Their best advice is, “Do not be like them, they are bad people and you will never gain anything from them.” And our parents don’t give us the time to know a person better rather pre-judged or condemned the person which we believe it is right. We all still believe the story about witch-hunt prevalent in all our villages even though we are very faithful Christians. And we don’t eat in the house of those who have been declared witch; otherwise we will also turn into witch, and thanks to our parents and elders for the efforts on fingering out the witches. The best part is we still expect a place in heaven because we do not want learn to live with our own neighbors or love each other.

Some of us live in major metropolitan cities, but you will not find us together except once in a monthly basis and the advent Christmas celebration in early winter, and that’s awesome. As we work our ass off like we are the only one working here in Delhi and contributing the most in Indian economy, it’s a relief. We also think we are the best among the students in Delhi University. And we tried multiple competitions examination continuously for 3-4 years without getting through. Once we gave up, we are right blaming the examination authority and for the unfair treatment meted to us by the larger communities, and for taking away our position because we belong to smaller communities.

With reference to our working environment and growth, we are absolutely right to treat our status in line with the elites like C.E.O., C.F.O., M.D., Board of Directors, etc. The fact is “We are better people.” We genuinely believe we will be like one of these people if we were not born in Manipur as Chiru. We believe the curse of being born as Chiru is that “We have the brains to function at the maximum 100% but circumstances have denied the passage to 100% usage of our brain.” We believe, even with only 10-15% usage of our brains, we have already make a huge contribution in the knowledge chapter of our human history.

NO thank you. Have a bad evening! This is my alter-ego signing out.