Thatched House

Morung Express Editorial Even for a small State like Nagaland with few congested urban locations, a lot of man hours are lost every day due to traffic jams. It is estimated that India loses Rs. 60,000 crores every year due to traffic congestion. A government servant gets his full pay even if the staff bus reaches the office late by an hour every day. But the combined work hours that are lost due to traffic jam is costing the State economy very dearly. The irony is that traffic jams are often caused by silly reasons. It could be a wrongly parked car, a driver on the phone, or a mini bus stopping at all the wrong places picking and dropping passengers. It is said that at the start of any traffic jam is an idiot. Building good roads and parking spaces, managing traffic, etc will save a lot of precious time every day. A lot of precious hours are also wasted through use of electronic gadgets. These devices which ought to save us time are robbing us of time. Instead of going to ...

Guest Editorial, Morung Express Although Nepal is grateful to India for the relief work following the earthquake, the Indian media has come under attack from the Nepalese.   The coverage of the tragedy by the Indian media is said to be insensitive and patronizing.  For example, a media person asked a mother who had lost his son, ‘How do you feel?’ In another instance, a wounded person was filmed to show on camera the open wounds. The media love to increase their ratings (TRP) by claiming that they are reporting from ground zero and that they have reached the affected area before the aids arrive. The media tend to sensationalize and exaggerate whatever they cover, and in the case of a tragic event, that is a very insensitive thing to do. A blogger commented that the coverage of the earthquake was like shooting a family serial.  Also it didn’t go down well with the people there that the coverage of the relief works by India was done in a patronizing manner....

Morung Express Editorial Dorothy Sayers wrote an article ‘Why Work?’ during World War II. The piece is still relevant for our day and society. It is interesting that such a wonderful piece of writing should be available for about 70 years which could have revolutionized the way we work and yet we continue to have such poor attitude to work. She explained work as ‘a creative activity undertaken for the love of the work itself…for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing’. The reason we work should not be for the money the work will fetch, but for the sake of the goodness of the work. But the monetary returns of a work is so much ingrained in us that we cannot think in terms of the work being done. The worth of a work is not measured by how much money the person made but how worthy is the thing that is made. When we work on a hobby, we work for the pleasure of it. We don’t count the time and money invested on it because we love the work and has no expectat...

Guest Editorial 8 (Morung Express) When you go to weddings, you hear the announcement, ‘to my extreme right is the vegetarian table. The other tables have the same items and you can go to any of them’. This is a positive move towards equality that we have been practicing during wedding feasts. Officers’ mess or VIP tables were very common in the past. Those were the places where special treatments were given to the VIPs. The tables looked more beautiful, the food items were more special, and there were shorter queues. But thankfully in many programs, we are doing away with that VIP culture. Those who hold feasts are realizing that there should not be preferential treatment in serving food, and all guests should enjoy the same food together. I think the shift is shaped by Christian teaching of equality and the change in culture is brought through practice in church circles. But there is still a long way to go when it comes to the sitting arrangements in churches. Fashionably la...

http://morungexpress.com/pursuing-a-hobby/ I have toyed with the idea of changing career in midlife. I am nowhere near it mentally and have no particular area of work in mind. But I am happy that I have started working on a hobby that I have been thinking of for many years. It is the art of making bonsai. Circa 2003, I went for a plant exhibition in Imphal where I was mesmerized by miniature trees planted in pots. The trees were familiar except that they looked old and small. I didn’t know they are called bonsai. As life continued in a hostel, then in the nation’s capital city, I had no opportunity to try my hand at making bonsai. But after life stabilized here in Kohima, I am happy that I can pursue this hobby at last. I have read the theory, watched the videos, and have acquired the tools including the indispensable concave cutter through online shopping. Life can be full of tensions. It can become monotonous. It can become dull. Sometimes, you need to get away. Sometimes, you...

http://morungexpress.com/tobacco-lobby-cancer-cow-urine/ First, a BJP MP in the parliamentary committee looking into rules regarding tobacco sales said that there is no Indian study linking tobacco to cancer. This was followed by another member saying that a lot of chain smokers do not develop cancer. Another BJP MP, again a member of the committee remarked that there is no fool proof evidence that smoking causes cancer. The context is that the government had planned to increase the size of pictorial warnings on tobacco products from 40% to 85% by April 1 this year. Increase in pictorial warnings is shown to bring down tobacco prevalence. But because the committee brought out these statements, the deadline is crossed without any action being taken. What is going on here? There is no dearth of global and local evidences that tobacco causes cancer. The Indian government’s own study showed that there is a very strong link. But why are these parliamentarians making thes...