Thatched House

Machine-minded He disposes and discharges As if they are tools in his hands Pity Those machine-like slaves But also him Who lost his soul. (frustrated at the way I was treated by superiors the last few days)

For Eastern Mirror Column 'Health et al.' Many Nagas do not know that there is another Nagaland which exists right under our nose: The bottom half. They are simply numbers in our census. We do not know their names, we do not discuss them, and we do not hear their voices or ever meet them face to face. If you are reading this, perhaps you are one from the upper half who is ignorant of this sad reality. Once in a while, some people from the upper half unassumingly travel to the land of the lower half and to their horror, see for the first time that there is another Nagaland which is so different from the Nagaland we believed to be living in. Many Nagas today, who are born, brought up, or lived long in towns and cities are so ignorant of our own fellow Nagas who live in the villages. We think we are all basically from villages and we are more or less the same. Some of us naively believe that Nagas are equally progressing; that we all wear similar clothes and drive similar car...

(Tsazu, Kikruma) Silence doesn't mean it is over But when all is said and done The only option left is Silence.

A writer is first a reader Then...

 It is 1:00 am  and neurons are firing. The juice is flowing and my pen is harvesting. Blessed be his name.

For Monday Column in Eastern Mirror. At Dimapur, Photo: Caisii Mao (demotix.com ) ‘India is a country where Atomic Age and near Stone Age people co-exist’. PK Jha ‘You can take a horse to the river, but you can’t make it drink’. Dustbins can be provided in public places by community decision, but how do we make individuals throw waste into those bins and not elsewhere? That question is literally worth lakhs of rupees even for a small State like Nagaland. World Bank estimates that India loses Rs. 24,000 crores annually due to poor hygiene and lack of toilets. Rs. 17,000 crores are spent on the cost of treatment due to illness from insanitary conditions and 4.5 lakh people die from such diseases every year. It is estimated that Rs. 1,000 crores are lost from tourism revenues because travelers find India to be too dirty. The infamous ‘ Delhi Belly ’ is the term referred to illnesses acquired from eating Indian food! Last month, I saw two empty Mazaa (drinks) packets flew out of a s...

OK, I received my salary after 4 looong months. So, I ordered two books online: 1. The Politics of Sanitation in India: Susan E. Chaplin 2. How much should a person consume?: Ramachandra Guha They must be on the way . :-)))))

It is a wishful dream. Maybe someone else has it too. And I hope I don’t spoil it by sharing it now, because I feel more time should be spent on research before putting it out in public. It is a work in progress. A patient from Pungro in Kiphire district has to travel about 290 kms to the State Capital for an Ultrasound and most of the other routine diagnostic tests. Also, apart from the doctor’s prescription pen, treatment facilities are very limited. Patients from Mimi or Thanamir villages have to walk for half a day or hire a vehicle to reach Pungro. For people in this area, the time wasted, the labor days lost, the worry, the difficulties in finding a place to stay in the Capital, etc add up to the travel and stay expenses, and medical bills. So, it is a hard decision to embark on such journey to seek for medical care. Such patients tend to reach Kohima in critical condition after complications have set in. We blame such village folks for their ignorance and scold them for com...

Another half baked article for weekly column :) 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 research is a fanciful study done with questionable methodology from a non-existent research institute in an imaginary 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 cautious in interpreting the research reports 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 ...