The never-ending issue of a so-far-away-mega-dam-to-be keeps me terribly frustrated, sometimes almost depressed. I feel so, not because of the sporadic banging of heads by anti-dam lobbyists 300 km away, or against unrelenting all-powerful walls 3000 km away.

Not because of hundreds of wise-guys, much like I, who pen their thoughts, as if theirs were the last word on something going to happen some place they have not, and probably will never ever see. Not because the silent nods of the pro-dam folks at zero mile are not seen or reported about, but are noted and heard within the walls that matter.

What matters is the always-lose situation the common people of Manipur invariably find themselves in. And what is especially worrisome is that no one – right, No One - seems to care, or seems the least bit worried about another T2TYMD.

T2TYMD? Ah! Ten2TwentyYears More of Darkness.

This marathon darkness should leave one truly horrified. Just think, among a thousand other things, that 10-20 batches of Manipur’s young BSEM/CBSE/COHSEM/ MBBS/MU etc. candidates are condemned to study painfully under flickering candle-flame till 2020. Or 2030!

The impact and loss of not being able to study to their heart’s content, during any hour(s) of the 24 hr clock – while, at the same time, not missing out on the light relief through occasional TV serials like SBKBT, Arirang or Discovery – is not only not fair on their future and our present, but the loss and harm is way beyond any estimation!

[Here, I wonder why the concerned Department has not held any seminar, or presented to the people its Power Vision-2020 as done by Higher Education … even if it remains mostly of talk only status.

But the fact of the matter is that some of these exercises might just lead to some positive things being done, if not, at least the negatives could get identified and excised somewhere, sometime by someone. The sum total of all these should tip the scale towards the positive.

It is, therefore, suggested that our Chief Minister should make each government department state its “Vision-2020” within the next 2/3 months. It would not only be very interesting, it might also actually spur action and a future, for once. Of course, the CM would have to take the precaution of putting a cap on expenditure for each department’s Vision.

Say a maximum of Rs. 25,000/- per department. This would be inclusive of five hard copies only for inauguration. For the rest of us what he launches on the net, on the same vision declaration day, should suffice. This ceiling on expenditure is absolutely necessary, to rein in those who tend to go overboard].

A disturbing and inexplicable phenomenon is that our deprivation of power and light are taken lying down by most of us. It would, however, be unfair to blame the silent majority.

After all, those who could have led the protests, viz. the other-wise hyper-active civil societies, are just too busy protesting, under limelight conditions, only about everything under the sun, except for commonplace things like electricity, non-performing schools and colleges, inordinately late dispersal of salaries, dysfunctional PHCs, poor infrastructure, no piped water, clogged drains, sickening garbage-piling-rat-thriving scenes of Imphal, our capital etc.

This deafening silence prompts the light-desperate sons of the soil to adapt by quietly upsetting tight family budgets and buying Chinese inverters and Thai batteries. When these batteries get discharged because of no power for recharging... the better off go in for generators as a back-up.

Some go in for phoren rechargeable lamps of all shapes and sizes, and perhaps with sirens, radio and torches in-built. Whereas the majority make do with Myanmarese candles that look straighter and burn cleaner. Many also simply go to bed early and rise early.

Now, as the Sriram Hondas and Birla Yamahas are prohibitively priced, bargaining and buying someone’s attractively packaged flood west generators (that come at half the cost of our own products) is the way out for the well heeled.

But the story does not end there, because they then go about stocking drums of diesel to tide over regular blockades, both natural and man-made.

This endless cycle of grim situations get worse if the generators are the type run on kerosene, because of a thriving relic of the past, the permit raj! Whereby, as petrol pumps down their shutters, hordes of aam imas spring up, hawking blue or pink plastic bottles and cans whose contents are over-priced, ruin engines and tend to suffocate us. Thus the general public’s ad-hoc remedy becomes a never-ending story of back-ups upon back-ups, besides the frequenting of workshops and lung specialists.

Should one attribute the lying down phenomenon, as an effect of being the sports-powerhouse of the East making us take all raw deals in our stride? Or, being the patient listeners that we are, the rhetoric from the Kangla podium directing us to look east, goes down so well with us that we applaud and forget our daily grinds.

Or, in trying to be so goody-goody do we evolve into a people who find it difficult to say No ... so that our apparent accessibility does not permit us to raise a whimper of a protest … for things one should take for granted?

Whatever, we end up obediently fishing out our slim wallets and purchasing inverters, batteries, generators, DVDs, jungle boots, dynamo torches, blankets, quilts, slippers, nail-cutters, look-a-like Barbies, even more look-a-like Nikes, canned beer, bottled wine, spicy sticky sweet n’ sour snacks, and what not.

We lap them all up because our own much-touted look east wallahs can never produce such attractively made necessities at such throw-way prices.

(The gist of the story is that the Tigers’ un-declared “flood west” initiative succeeds, and sells with impunity because there is and was no fanfare. They know our needs and so they just make and sell.

They also make sure we can stretch our few rupees a bit more, so that we can buy more, and they can make more … forcing us to ignore a nice sounding: Be Indian, buy Indian. Thus we just shell out. They pocket. And to our detriment what we unwittingly start is an un-called for keeping up with our own Joneses!

The lesson is: Our think-tank certainly have more than a thing or two to learn from these flooding west economies who follow the simplest of market strategies based on supplying human needs attractively priced and packaged… and not wasting their breath on fanfare policies).

So, when there is no electricity what does the government do? It performs a sleight of hand and creates a diversion. Troops and helicopters come and a foundation stone is laid 300 km away.

to be continued .....