Once upon a time, at 14, I wrote a juvenile article entitled "A Visit to Loktak Lake" which was intended for publication in the magazine of my Alma Mater in the Imphal west district.

One soft-spoken Ojah A. Surendra Singh, a Hindi teacher from Heingang in the Imphal east district was the teacher-in-charge of the publication even if there was no dearth of more capable teacher in the venture. In 1969, many of us in the eight standards were quite ignorant of what the magazine was all about.

A circulation was made by the school authority inviting articles from teachers and students of the school which was going to publish its second issue since its inception in 1962. I was determined to write one such for the same after I had consulted my seniors in the school.

I approached the teacher-in-charge of the venture to include mine too in it. Right from the beginning, I had doubt that my article would get a place in the publication on two specific reasons: the first being lack of maturity in my write-up and the second, being the spirit of racial discrimination which I thought was rampant in the school. That’s a kid’s fear which turned out to be just the unreal.

After the end of the academic session, the 2nd issue was brought out, and my article was not found in it, simply because the editor did not see it fit for publication. I was greatly disappointed.

Moreover, I was furious when I found in the magazine a poem called Bapuji contributed by one of my bench mates. I thought what a happy soul he would have been to find his article in the school’s magazine, that too in the English section.

Out of jealousy, it was murmured in the class room that the article was written on support of senior students or it was a home backed one. When I asked the teacher why my article was rejected, he consoled me to say that I should write one more for the 3rd issue.

I was in a high hope, spirited and confident with the assurance of the teacher. I believed that the third issue would be brought out at the turn of the year to include my article to be cherished greatly when grown up.

I also thought one of my articles would get a place in the issue during my days in the school. I had that much desire to see that it was materialized. That never happened. No third issue was brought out again. I lamented for the outright rejection of my article which I wrote with a great hope painstakingly. For days, I was in no mood for being attentive to classroom teaching.

Years later, in my first year in the erstwhile D.M. College, Imphal in 1972, I wrote the second article for a monthly journal called Nachom edited by one Ibotombi Singh of Thangmeiband Hijam Dewan Leikai. My happiness knew no bound when my article shone in it.

The journal sought to please every community living in Manipur by inviting articles from both the hill and plain writers. For one of many, it was an eye opener. When I got one more copy of it from the editor, I raced up to the residence of the Khullakpa (Headman) of my village.

Straight away and excitedly, I jumped on the high verandah of the khullakpa’s house to enter it, in the hope that I would get certain amount of encouragement or appreciation for the piece of my accomplishment at that age of mine as I thought.

But to my dismay, I found the headman lying on his huge bed that was laid very close to the fire-place, and he was fully drunk after sipping mugs of home-brewed liquor as paddy was plentiful in his granary. I was also afraid of being scolded to wake him up from his midday sleep, snoring with snort and coughing.

Without losing hope, next, I ran off as quickly as possible downward to find Luplakpa (the deputy headman) who was sitting in the open court yard of his house, puffing a white flake of Akbar cigar and releasing its smoke from inside his mouth casually.

His super structured house, though with thatched roofing after the Manipuri style was comfortably weathered with neatly swept verandah and the wall decorated with horns of brow-antlered deer and oversized photographs shot in the 1940s. “Pupu, I said to him, I have brought a rare copy of the story describing the Koireng Pung Hongba (a festival running for five days to inaugurate a new set of drum made of wood).”

Losing his mental faculty, he looked-up for a while, and then, he lowered his head to ponder in a pensive mood. It was all against my purpose to trace him out. Irresistibly, he was more curious in knowing more about his great great grandfather’s father’s father who was believed to be one among the Luhupas, Ngameis and Phungnais who dug Thangapat (Kangla Moat).

I told him that it was a part of the legend which occurred many centuries ago. It was obviously impracticable for the scribes and nobles in the royal palace to record names of all those who took part in the digging of the moat.

He was a half-deaf octogenarian that in 1972, and he would not hear unless spoken to him in a louder voice. He was a story teller too, and was not to be convinced easily, and he wanted a copy of the Royal Chronicle of Manipur for him at once so that he could find his family saga in it. That was what he believed, ignoring the significance of the festival for which I tried to read to him in all humility and sincerity. It was in vain.

The evergreen tiger killer Pupu Luplakpa backed up by creamy skin was not that happier again when I told him that the name of Rongreisek, the grandson of Neirong, the social, religious and customary head of Koireng community who took part in the digging of Kangla Moat (Thangkampat in Koireng as sung by the legendary Rongreisek to commemorate the historic event) in the middle part of the 18th century was also not traceable in the chronicle.

Pupu’s contention was that only his ancestors were connected with the Royal Family of ancient Manipur, either by paying frequent visits to the palace, or by participating in the royal functions. It was his sense of acquisitiveness to discover his social root, for which he had an enormous pride.

At long last in 1982, I wrote about the Koireng Tribe and its origin on the basis of facts recorded in the British Accounts in Manipur, an attempt to show that the Koirengs were out and out a Mongoloid stock when many tribes of the stock claimed they passed out of caves, so did the Koirengs.

The first part of the article was published in the short-lived monthly journal called The Nagas edited by one Prongo Keishing, a retired MCS officer. Surprisingly, the subsequent part of the article was wholly missing from the second issue of the journal.

When I enquired of the editor why he had fragmented my article, he said someone in anonymity strongly objected to the article without stating reason. I argued why there was the third person in the way to censor my article as his own business.

I told him it was unethical and irrational on his part to play with one’s article that way in journalism, and it was a serious case to destroy one’s article, be it of national importance or not.

None of the set-backs could dampen my enthusiasm for article writing. In the same year, I wrote one more article on tribal economy of Manipur which was serially published in Manipur Mail that helped me build up courage. Deeply influenced by it, my attachment to writing on funny tales of funny episodes began.

It was the year print media got the push in Manipur. I also edited magazines of the erstwhile Adimjati High School, Imphal from 1979 till I left it in 1987. It was reminiscent of Ojah Surendra who rejected my childhood article to compensate me 10 years later.

In the Hindi class, he taught me how his master’s faithful horse that got lost for a long time returned to him.