Apaiba Thawai
- a 10th Anniversary collection -
By: Ronid Chingangbam *
It was sometime during summer of 2008 that I wrote to Jayanta Oinam mistaking him for another school friend of hte same name. I wrote to him after I read a series of his poems on 'death' in e-pao (Those days I was also posting poems regularly in e-pao and still I am).
I wrote to him like "Hey! Have you broken up with your girl... How come you write so much of poems continuously on death?" I don't remember what was his reply but I remember he replied real cool like he knew me. But he was not that friend of mine who I was thinking to be from my school.
But we started mailing each other appreciating each others' poems on e-pao.net. And the real click was when we learnt that both of us are so addicted to Thangjam Ibopishak's poetry, one of the greatest poets of Manipur who emerged in late sixties under the influence of Shri Biren. One more thing we have in common is that we could recite Thangjam Ibopishak's poem "Apaiba Thawai" by closing our eyes like it is a nursery rhyme. At the same time we were also very pi$$ed with our own generation who knows so less of our own literature. Since then we started talking of forming a group that would engage in writing poetry and publishing. Now finally our dream came true with Burning Voices.
And I thank e-pao for publishing my poems. Whatever my poems says; you would always publish it giving me the freedom of expression that this world has snatched away since born in the land of jewel - the jewel that India wears on her toes.
Yes, I love the warning tags on my poem "PG rated poems" You have made a poet out of me. I still remember how excited I was when you published my first poem, "Lets Scream" in 2006.
* Ronid Chingangbam recounts how he came across a fellow Thanjam Ibopishak enthusiats Jayanta Oinam and about his first post on E-Pao. Ronid's poems could be read here and Jayanta's death related poems could be read here.
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