Dr. Mohendra Irengbam Singh's 'Points to Ponder'
- Part 1 -

Prof JC Sanasam *

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood – Friedrich Nietzsche

Any man, who will look into his heart and honestly write what he sees there, will find plenty of readers – Ed Howe

Do not trouble yourself about standards or ideals, but try to be faithful and natural with your writing … – William Dean Howells

Dr. Mohendra Irengbam is a man whose writing proficiency fulfills what the above adages say about, and is a writer with many more unexpected rare talents of much higher calibre than those of many other popular writers; unexpected because he is a physician, an MRCP who did enormously heavy practice in the UK. This, any reader will easily see in his book 'Points to Ponder.' Knowing it, howsoever, one does not become a good writer the next day. To be a good writer it takes lots of things: study, hard work, experience, wide reading and traveling, calibre, honesty, a good amount of rational sensitivity, appealing language, courage and boldness, a keen insight; most of all, a style of his or her own.

Points to Ponder
Dr Mohendra Irengbam Singh
Vrinda Publications (P) Ltd Delhi 2013
Price: Rs. 350/- Pages 420

If you are searching for a book that says everything about Manipur, Manipuris (Meiteis specifically) and relevant matters with other ethnical groups in the state: their history, socio-politico-economical matters, art & culture, literature & language (again Meiteilon specifically), hypothesis about the genesis of the Meiteis, conflicts in Manipur: the list is long; hardly is there anything, to do with Manipur, left out: this is the book.

Apart from what is about Manipur he has dealt highly intellectual accounts excellently on the origin of the universe: Big-bang theory, God particle, black hole, origin of life, genetic transmission, mutations of genes in homo-sapiens to get separated from apes although of common ancestry, so on and so forth. Precisely his is a knowledge-packed 'page opener', a 'must read' book for youngsters as well as for adults who would like to seek knowledge and intellect, maybe of Manipur, or elsewhere in any part of the world for that matter.

When his writes-up appeared in the Sunday columns of the local daily, Sangai although the topics stirred the readers, however the impression did not last long; but now when they are arrayed in the book then the reading has become much more appealing and meaningful, not to let down journalism products.

The book has 4 chapters: i) Meiteis and Manipur with 38 articles ii) God and Religion with 25 articles iii) Science and Philosophy with 30 articles and iv) Historical Events with 17 articles. These 4 chapters have covered almost everything there is to it of world-knowledge with a profile of world view on each topic. The author himself says that his book is all about questions on 'why do people have to die', 'why do Africans have flat noses while Middle Easterners and Indians have big noses', 'why do the Meiteis have less body hair', 'atheism is a prophet-less religion', 'the sun was once a god', 'why does a person's skin darkens in the sun' and 'the birth of Meitei ethno-nationalism', and of course many more interesting topics with catchy captions like 'how was Kangleipak (Manipur) raised from the bottom of the sea', each a treatise with captivating salient elements on the subject matter.

In his article, 'A Meitei's Dream' he writes, 'Though there is no country in the world where the people in it are equally happy but in Manipur all the people are equally unhappy'. This is the art of writing. With this short half-metaphorical sentence he has sketched the true picture of the present Manipur. He knows how to use idiomatic ironical parlance in his writing.

To the aspiring belligerent youths of Manipur he says, 'Wherever there is a will there is not always a way'. What he wants to say is perhaps the youth better take up sensible, reasonable and realizable approaches like mass movements to achieve their goal or dream instead of taking up arms that has proved to be a bounce-back-damage to their own end.

He touches areas which will arouse intense interest in the minds of any knowledge-thirsty reader: 'Modern geneticists worldwide now have proven from DNA studies that about 50,000 years ago our human ancestors left North East Africa … One group … through the north east land corridor of India (perhaps Manipur) into South East Asia … Back in freezing Manipur at the end of the Pleistocene age, when the expanse of water in the valley dried up … at the end of the Ice Age (the last Glacial Maximus) about 21,000-17,000 years ago … our ancestors came down to settle in the valley' Meiteis and Manipur, page 22. 'The origin of the Meiteis … the missing link of Meitei evolution will be found in the foreseeable future by decoding the full sequence of DNA of the Meitei genome' page 29.

To verify Mohendra's hypothesis it is strongly suggested that the Depts. of Anthropology, Linguistics, Manipuri Language of the Manipur University, and Art & Culture and Education Depts. of the Government of Manipur should lose no time to take up a project on the determination of the Human Genome among the Manipuri ethnics. In fact researchers had already accomplished such fact-finding explorations for the Khasis of Meghalaya, the ethnics of Arunachal Pradesh and even for those of Nagaland, and had revealed many new data. Perhaps it is Manipur which is left alone without such a venture. This is another example of the old habit of lethargy and slow fall-behind nature of the Manipuris and their intelligentsia.

From Mohendra's book we have come to know that certain Indian linguists have published books about Meiteilon (Meithei) to the world's notice e.g. Shobana Lakshmi Chelliah, Prof of Linguistics at the University of North Texas.

However Dr Irengbam shows his doubts about her book because he challenges the lack of authenticity of Dr. George Abraham Grierson, an Irish who with his interest elsewhere sat in Calcutta (1894-1928) and wrote about the Meithei language based on information collected from some local superficial enthusiast. Mohendra has pointed out that her book is based on what Grierson accounted.

to be continued...