From top to bottom, everything is wrong. That is what my wife's cousin said last Sunday. She wasn't criticizing my typical KPI haircut, second hand T-shirt, or Moreh chappals. She was bluntly summarizing the decay and decadence that is slowly choking this precious land. She could not have been more accurate. Sometimes the sharpest observations are the more blunt ones.

To put it even blunter, in numerical terms, a big Zero precedes a shaky Ibobi Singh at the top of an unstable government, and I cannot possibly compute the precise rank due to all the others who sit below him in the descending order of administration. If Brahmagupta deserves credit for the invention of the zero, then O Ibobi Singh deserves equal mention for continuing its definition and application in Manipur. From top to bottom, Manipur has become one big zero.

After Brahmacharya's discovery of the zero in the 6th century AD, Bhaskaracharya was the first to understand its mathematical implications. In the 11th century AD, he stated that anything divided by zero is equal to infinity. 900 years later, the evolution of the zero has come full circle in Manipur. Ever since our officials have learned the basics of arithmetic, they have randomly divided the value of public funds with zero to an infinite degree; arriving at on single inevitable result - nil. If there ever was a category in the record books for the biggest number of zeros in a single political and economic entity, we would be the undisputed champions.

But we cannot fault Ibobi Singh alone. The mathematics of corruption has long been a part of the Manipur syllabus. Percentages and commissions are a regular fixture in the financial calendar, and the ability to give and receive bribes form a routine part of work ethic. With or without Zero Ibobi Singh, Manipur would have still remained stagnant at ground zero.

I don't need to describe to you what a zero looks like. You already know. A zero resembles a hole. From top to bottom, the unabashed pursuit of riches has punctured numerous holes in the moral fabric, and created a monstrous black hole. Nothing good escapes its intensity. Everything evil gets drawn into it. It forcefully pulls us backward from civilization to primitive savagery.

From top to bottom, it makes us less cultured and more barbaric. Lungnila Elizabeth, Jamkholet Khongsai, and Thangjam Manorama are but a few names in the long list of unfortunate victims claimed by this cycle of uncivilized behavior; this wheel of misfortune; this absolute infinite zero.

The Latin word for riches is impedimenta, which means the heavy baggage of the spoils of war, carried by beasts of burden. It is a plural of impedimentum, a hindrance or impediment. Riches are an impediment to virtue, and a hindrance to progress. Its heavy load prevents us from moving forward, and its leaden weight drags us deeper into the muck. Manipur sinks deeper into the fetid quagmire with the burden of this excess baggage.

As riches increase, do those who consume them. All we gain is the knowledge that we are rich. So said King Solomon the wise. But we have neither increased in riches nor knowledge. All we have increased is our appetites. The opportune profit of a fleeting moment has led to the loss of all things honest and noble. Repeating the same mistake to expect different results is called insanity. We keep repeating our insanity without remorse, regret or inhibition. We keep dividing our precious values with zero to arrive at nothing. What goes around has come around.

Money in itself knows no evil. It is one of the most fundamental of all man's inventions. It performs two vital functions - as a unit of account, and as a medium of exchange. Its third function - as a measure of value and of worth, is the one that has been widely misinterpreted. Any community, in selecting the commodity that it holds at great value or worth, nearly always chooses money as the most valuable commodity.

The belief that money is the key to all worth is deeply rooted in human psychology. This fallacy is even more deeply rooted in Manipur. The belief that power and status must consist of, or be backed by ample amounts of money is taken to infinite lengths in Manipur; and that is the real root of all evil and discontent here.

Money and politics are strange bedfellows. Both need and feed on the other, but neither can admit for fear of devaluation. If it takes money to make money, then it must take a lot of it to make a successful politician. Our politicians are no better, and a lot worse. As much as they cry hoarse against it, they need the AFSPA.

They need it to provide them cover while they recover and replenish the fortune spent in elections. They need the disturbed tag on their areas as an excuse for not venturing out to perform their duties. They need the legions of soldiers; to hide behind them while they divide and halve the spoils of war. They need it today, to promise to repeal it again tomorrow. They need it to define, develop, and enrich the value of zero.

This is not to sound extremist, communist, or anarchist, by any means. I dread the midnight knock as much as anyone else. But what I dread most is the dark future that looms ominously for us and for our children. A future where there is no apparent room for virtue, no place for truth, and no provision for peace or progress. We don't have to look very far to see that future.

It's already in sight, and staring us in the face. It's dark, black, and ugly, and opening itself wide to swallow us whole. Some people call it judgment. Others call it a black hole. I will call it a zero.