Thatched House

We need to preach people out of the church. What?  Yes, we need to preach them out of the church.  Why? Isn’t the church for all people including sinners and broken people? Yes it is. Then why should we preach people out of the church? Because people have become too comfortable in the church! The worst of crooks have become so at home in the church, and it seems to be OK. It is not OK. If the church welcomes and accommodates sin in the church and ends there without speaking against it or trying to transform sinners, we have got it utterly and terribly wrong.  We need no more flattery or false sense of well being. We need to hear in the church words which speak right to our sin and make us turn in our seats. We want to become uncomfortable, as if the church furniture is so bad. We want the words to prick our bottoms, heart, conscience, and soul so that we cannot just continue to go on without doing something about it. We need to make it cl...

 I am at the passport office Dimapur and came here too soon. The gate is still closed and I am parked outside waiting. I realized that I have this window period to blog. Arriving early has been a problem for me. I do get late when there are external factors like unusually heavy traffic, or waiting for other people. But in a given normal circumstance, I am usually ahead of schedule. I think I learned this from my aunty who is a little extreme in this front. In Pfutsero, when we were going to travel by bus or taxi, she would get up so early, prepare tea, and wake up everyone. We would go to the station with a torch light and wait there in the middle of the town, with no sign of life. Then some people will start coming. The habit had set in so that when I am going to travel early the next day, I couldn’t sleep fearing that I might miss the bus/taxi. So, today have appointment at passport seva kandra at 9:15 am. I set my alarm at 5: 00 am and started from Kohima at 5:30 am, fear...

'I planted the seed, Apollos watered it…' There are people who cannot stand the success of other people. Some have the mentality ‘If I cannot have it, I won’t let him have it either’. More subtly people spread lies or burn inside. But can’t we celebrate when other people succeed? Without religion, people may do it when they realize that there is space for everyone. If we do not focus on others but do our own thing, we also can do well. But having the mind of Christ is where we find that we can truly rejoice when other people succeed. If we planted the seed but do not get to enjoy the fruit and someone else do, the part that we played in planting the seed has immense value in the Kingdom of God. If someone succeeds at something good, it glorifies God, and it doesn’t matter if we were not a part of the success. We can join in the celebration.

Do you write these days? People ask.  I say No.  Why? You should write, they advice.  I have no answer. But I have these reasons in mind. One. I became a father. Two. I have no internet in my laptop. Three. Gardening. Then, my wife suggested that I should pick up writing again. And that got me thinking. I thought that she should be more considerate as she knows my routine, but I felt that she pushed me. It was a good push.  My 2 nd book project has been in cold storage. When my 1 st book was released in Nov 2014, I said I will write another one, this time a proper book and not a collection of newspaper articles and talks transcripts.  I took up a hobby which I didn’t have the space for. Gardening. It is rewarding to the body and mind and I don’t have any thought of stopping it.  Bougainvillea cuttings of June 2015, blooming in March 2016 When I look back at the days when I used to write regularly, I was not freer th...

My fascination for bougainvillea is as old as my marriage, which is nearly 2 years old. I was able to make my wife fall for it too and we have been collecting as many varieties/colors as we can. This specimen is one of the prettiest, that it has multiple colours in one plant. What we have come to understand about growing Bougainvillea is that it is easy to propagate (cuttings around June), low maintenance, loves sun, cannot tolerate freezing temperature, and doesn't like wet feet. It can be grown in the ground or in pots, and is suitable for Bonsai. It can be grown for fencings, hung from pots in balconies, or as arch for gates.

American cultural critic Chris Hedges said, “Cultures that endure carve out a protected space for those who question and challenge national myths. Artist, writers, poets, activists, philosophers, dancers, musicians, actors, directors and renegades must be tolerated if a culture is to be pulled back from disaster.” When Belarusian writer and journalist Svetlana Alexievich won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature, she started her Nobel Lecture at the Stockolm City Hall with the words: “I do not stand alone at this podium…there are voices around me, hundreds of voices.” Likewise, intellectuals in every society carry the voices of the people. Our own Naga writer, Easterine Kire who won The Hindu Literary Prize 2015 in her acceptance speech said, ‘This is not my book, but our book, because of the number that embrace it’.  Our society like any other society is going through a transition which is anything but a smooth ride. We see failed institutions and weak leadership which ar...

The other word for a government job is ‘security’ because of which many seek for it. Times are changing; the old pension scheme is gone and it is being said that firing from government job for non-performance may become more common in the future. Some people speculate that government jobs in the future won’t be ‘regular’ anymore and every job will be ‘contractual’. In extreme cases (although not rare in Nagaland), government job means that one can get pay without work. I had a neighbor who I always see throughout the year. After several years, I came to know that he is a colleague in the same department posted in his village. When you travel to the small towns in the sub divisions, you see government offices being locked for most part of the year. Search for government job plays a huge role in our electoral politics. We vote for candidates so that they can give us government jobs. When elected, the assistants (chamchas) of the elected representatives hunt in the department...

What I am about to describe here may be offensive to some, simply common knowledge not worth writing about to some, or disagreeable to some who may argue that it is only my private individual perception. How do we describe the generation of today? It is not easy because no two people are the same and we all have our own experiences which inform how we would generalize a generation. But as I look at the people around me and assess how people speak, behave, or think, I think a kind of pattern emerges which marks our generation. Although our interactions are limited to the people we come in contact with, the internet has provided a good platform where we can observe the behaviour of people that we don’t even know. What people post in facebook are not all true about them, but they surely tell something about the type of people they are.  I think one emerging trend which is a matter of concern is that there is a group of young people who are very difficult to deal with. With ...

Nagaland woke up to the year 2015 with the news of its elected representatives being divided into 2 camps, one group based at Sovima and the other at de Oriental Grand Hotel. As a result, 7 NPF ministers and parliamentary secretaries were suspended and the crisis led to the ultimate showdown of the floor test on February 5. But it didn’t live up to the suspense as all the 59 legislators voted in support of the incumbent Chief Minister. Fast forward, in November the 8 congress legislators were merged into NPF and Nagaland created history by having the first ‘oppositionless’ government. The winter session of NLA as a result was finished in 30 minutes as there were no questions to discuss.   Exactly a month after the tame floor test, Nagaland was shocked by the lynching incident in Dimapur which made news headline across the world. Neither the problem of illegal immigrants nor the morality angle of the issue could justify the horror of evil which unfolded. It was a testimon...