Thatched House

  I will climb Glory Peak for you I will walk from Rukizu to Seed Farm just to meet you I will carry a basketful of cabbages from Mali Farm to Bazaar just to feed you From the top of Porba Hotel building I will proclaim my love for you But please, please don’t ask me to take bath at Pfutsero this winter        Merry Christmas everyone

If you want to get a book to read on Christmas and you have been all too familiar with the gospel narratives in the New Testament, you need not go Christmas shopping again (although it is a curiosity how many people visit the book store during Christmas). All you have to do is turn back the pages of your Bible to the book of Isaiah. The book is full of Jesus Christ although it was written 6-8 centuries before the birth of Christ. I have a number of passages that I really, really love but here's the passage from chapter 11 which  is my Bible Reading for this Christmas. Isaiah 11: 1-9   The Branch From Jesse   1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding ,    the Spirit of counsel and of might,    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD — 3 and he will delight in t...

I have been working on an article for local newspapers which I have tentatively titled as ‘Is too much Music and Dance making us stupid?’ It is a difficult piece to write. There are pieces of thoughts scattered all around and I haven’t been able to put them down coherently just yet. The State Hornbill Festival had just finished and Christmas is round the corner. So, it is a good time to get it out soon. In this article, I’d like to give a critique of how the present generation is fixated to music and other forms of entertainments which I believe is distracting us from being aware of the more pressing issues in the society. In this information age when what’s happening in a distant land can be known here and now as it unfolds, second by second, and there is a flood of information in the net which is just clicks away; there is also a form of ignorance which is pandemic: We have missed out on the basics of education. So many of our students can’t write or speak basic sentences. They use ...

It is half past midnight and I can’t sleep. I have just come back from an incident where two thieves were caught and beaten by some village youths. I heard my tribe being insulted, falsely blamed and shamed because the two thieves happen to be from my community. They were beaten, tied, and one was stripped half naked. The road side was stained with blood. The two were caught for stealing vehicle parts. I wasn’t there when the beating took place but I was told that they were beaten for denying to have committed the act. They admitted that they were guilty. But what was to unfold after that affected me so deeply that I couldn’t sleep. So, I switched on the light again and turned on my laptop to write my thoughts. The thieves are thieves; they are lawbreakers who need to be caught, put on trial, and be punished. We have policemen to catch them and lawyers to put them on trial and pass sentences according to the book. But what about some young hot blooded members of an NGO who take t...

Migratory birds from Australia, Siberia, Sri Lanka, Canada, etc I visited Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary last Saturday after attending one training at CMC Vellore. If you want to know about the bird sanctuary, search in Google and you’ll get more information than the ‘Vedanthangalites’. There are photos in Google Image and videos in Youtube too. But nothing can compare to the experience of actually visiting the place.  Info. Click to enlarge and read So, why I write here is not to give information about the place. As I tried to write this piece yesterday, I kept going to Wikipedia to see what the distance from Chennai is, when it was declared a sanctuary, and so on. But I thought again. If people need such information, they can use Google. So, while I may make use of such background information which may enhance the experience, I will write my story. That’s the beauty of writing. Whatever you write, you need not worry if someone has already written a book on it. No one will ...

OK. I have been keeping aside writing for a while. Good or bad, I now plan to keep this blog running. I say I love writing and think about it constantly; even read about it. But to become a writer, there’s no way to become one but to write . What has been keeping me from writing? First and not the most important, is work . Due to the Scrub Typhus outbreak in Nagaland, I have been very busy: travelling, reading about it, compiling data and analyzing it, and so on. Right now also I’m busy attending a training course in Vellore. But that is not to say that I don’t get time to write. Another reason and a more important one is laziness mixed with restlessness . To write requires a calm mind and a lazy mind strangely is seldom calm . Also why I put off writing is because I always try to write masterpieces, not that I have ever written one. I want my writings to be very good which many times keep me from starting . I think this shouldn’t be.  To keep a writing project on hold in t...

  Been listening to her songs over and over these days

 We filled our tanks, 23rd October, 6:30 AM And made this shopkeeper happy by doing his jatara for the day We traveled miles through tea gardens of Assam While we waited for our friends in the RRT gypsy car who got lost, we visited these maidams, the tombs of the great Ahom kings and queens This lovely couple also came and took some pictures of each other  This beautiful tree at Sonari, Assam is a landmark for one Muslim Hotel where they cook delicious Beef meat. We considered packing some meat in the vaccine carrier which has ice packs, but dropped the idea as the carrier contains precious blood samples Beautiful waterfalls, just before Mon. The ADC guest house where we camped  Loud and clear, showing in which part of the world we are  Preliminary discussions and preparations the night before the investigation  Dr. Kevi tried the safety precaution wears A Morung at Wakching, destination village ...

The huge Juniper tree in front of my house at Kikruma village is legendary. My grandparents used its shade as home. It also served as home for ghosts where they raised their young ones. Now, I want to make dwarf plants (Bonsai) out of it. (Strictly speaking, Dwarf plant is not a synonym of Bonsai) I have been reading about Bonsai for some years. My interest in Bonsai began when I went to a plant exhibition in Imphal around 2003-2004.  It is time I put into practice what I have read. Juniper trees are said to be ideal plants for growing Bonsai, but it’s hard to find Juniper saplings. So, I have to manage with cuttings. I took around 20 cuttings each from the two juniper varieties that were available at home. Out of about 40 cuttings, only 2, one from each variety survived and developed roots. That’s a success, actually. These are the two.    My mom already had these other 2 saplings (below); again from cuttings.  So, here we are, set to begin. Keep a close look at ...

Published in Eastern Mirror as 'We are a dirty people...' Nagas look different, eat different, and behave different from mainland Indians, but if there is a similarity between the two, it is that we are both dirty peoples. A sense of cleanliness does not come with university education. This conclusion I arrived at as I see the PhD scholars’ eating behavior in my hostel mess hall. This was an interesting observation as I was doing my studies in Public Health and had the honor of eating with Masters, Mphil and PhD students from various disciplines at JNU, New Delhi. Some of them would ‘plough’ through their plate like a paddy field while some would eat with both feet ‘perched’ like birds on the benches. No amount of teaching could make them throw used paper cups into the dustbins just 6 feet away. Also a sense of cleanliness does not come with increase in wealth. Many poor families do not have the ‘luxury’ of running taps in their homes while the rich can have surplus to water th...

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. Robert Frost This is one of my favorite poems... studied it for exams in Pre-University days. Then after several years, I revisited it and thoroughly enjoyed discussing it with a friend next door in medical college. That was about 5 years ago. A few days back, I was stopped by in my life's journey to enjoy it again. I still have miles to go before I sleep.

The football ground in one Sema village is so bad that the two goal keepers can't see each other :-).....Yesterday in the office, we were privileged to have our hands on a photocopy of an official correspondence on the matter; written by one IAS officer in the office of the Principal Secretary of the Concerned Department.  It reads: 'The existing playground at Naghutomi (old) Atoizu Sub-division, Zunheboto district has the story of the goal keepers not seeing each other and needs to (be) rectified. In fact a new playground has to be made. Hence it is requested that allocation of fund be made for....'

 Thought of publishing in the local newspapers but I didn't   There was a study conducted by the Faith Research Institute, Notown which showed that tea drinkers are more likely to go to heaven. Tea drinkers have a higher percentage of having ‘Born Again’ experience than the control group which does not drink tea. It is probably because religious people have a higher tendency to meet over a cup of tea and talk, where the gospel is preached and more people experience being ‘Born Again’. The above study is a hypothetical study done with questionable methodology from a non-existent research institute in a non-existent place called Notown. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a research done on such a topic showing similar findings.  One must be careful in interpreting the research findings that we see in newspapers and journals almost every day. There is already a study which found that sitting is injurious to health. In health, strictly speaking, every human activity i...

"Walking In The Air" [Intro:] Walking in the air, floating the sky... Floating in the air... We're walking in the air We're floating in the moonlit sky The people far below are sleeping as we fly We're holding very tight I'm riding in the midnight blue I'm finding I can fly so high above with you Far across the world The villages go by like dreams The rivers and the hills The forest and the streams Children gaze open mouthed Taken by surprise Nobody down below believes their eyes We're surfing in the air We're swimming in the frozen sky We're drifting over icy mountains floating by Suddenly swooping low on an ocean deep Arousing of a mighty monster from its sleep We're walking in the air We're dancing in the midnight sky And everyone who sees us greets us as we fly

In 'Nine Million Bicycles', Katie Melua sang that we are twelve billion light years from the edge. And she added, "that's a guess, no one can ever say it's true". A scientist responded saying that we actually know the distance from the edge. It's not a guess. He said it is 13.7 billion light years and not as Katie Melua sang. Of course, it's a song and 13.7 doesn't really fit into it. The song's an expression of love; about how deep and wide is her love for her lover. Katie Melua accepted the correction and a new version can be heard here She has a sense of humor and took it well. In this song, 'If the Lights Go Out', there is a lot of apocalyptic overtone. In Nine Million Bicycles, it was the scientists, now here, what will the Theologians say?:-))) "If The Lights Go Out" They say the world must end somehow, They say the end's not far from now; I think they're wrong, Don't worry your life away,...