Four Years After

By Joy Shaikhom *

"Every human institution (justice included) will stretch a little, if you only pull it the right way."
- Wilkie Collins

The world we live change every single second. I have added four years to my age before my parents see me. Change as said is the only constant. It's the era where a beggar accepted a credit card payment. But we called change when advancement takes place. "

It is a wonder that after four years Manipur seems to change a lot. The change we bring or we anticipate are that, the number of school going children has been reduced, the roads are like a drainage, the early age marriage has increase, we fear our security force that are kept for our security.

I only know two things when I am at my schools days, I either play or I read books and if I don't, my illiterate mom will not grant many facilities which I enjoy at home. She is the best Guru I ever had, though illiterate she speaks many English and her primary level Mathematics is far better then this computing world, even after my Management PostGraduate she makes calculation faster then me, but it should be in terms of money. But the present Manipur has transformed into the world which is very different from an ideal world (Kindly refer to Transformation Picture, enclosed at the end of this article)."

As a custom or ritual, a person will be well treated when he or she goes home after many years by the Society or by the parents, so well treatment of parent were poured to me like king-treatment and they take me everywhere they used to go and no doubt I always wanted to go for vegetable shopping. So as usual I went for a vegetable shopping with my parents and sometime with my sibling and I was wondering to see that the well built son sitting beside the Aged Parent asking money for their evening gathering at some local bar.

Suddenly I remember my little conversation with someone near me saying that she don't want to get married because she is not sure that she may not get a person who is not alcoholic, which I usually convince her that alcohol may not affect a person as long as he (or advance she in this era) drinks alcohol, it get affected only when alcohol drinks him or her, this is how I convince and drink sometime with friends so that my friend who hates drinks may not get angry.

Many a time she makes remarks like "masa faraba, mapambom utup amuk chaoba, chahi 30 suraba mayam ama, mama hanubidagee sen nibane, thabak suningdraduna aduga yu thak toine, aduga numidangna insang haowee haote toudoine (which means a person of well built, with shoulder arm of tree size and age of 30, keeps asking money from their old parents and used the money for alcoholic purpose, and after all they even said the food serve by their old parents is not good)".

Sometime I make joke to her that, is your brother like that, but she said, luckily she don't have elder brother, she just observed her neighbour gentlemen. Many well built gentlemen will be hanging like a bat either in the bridge or in someone's gate (where we call konthong) and they are busy with nothing but one thing is sure that they dress well and have their own bike even though they cannot read the names of their bike properly.

There is no proper light but the roads are shining with many bikers, the school and colleges are empty but the tuition centre is flooded with many students. Students normally complain when the strength of the school class room goes beyond 40 but you may wonder that, in any tuition centre more the 100 students go in one batch and students get adjusted to that as they came for tuition just to count the number of hairs their lady friend has on back side of the head!

We have different seasons, as always Manipur get enough rainfall in festive season, so this Diwali was with rain in my place, being far away from the Imphal city, the roads were not so muddy as Imphal City, so that is the advantage of being little away from the heart of the State capital.

I was surprised to see the skillful driver who drives in the street which hardly have roads but full with fishery pond with no fish, and most adventurously the passenger traveling in such road conditions, an old lady of age 70 years with wither skin have the strength to board on the passenger jeep without sitting but hanging like a dry leaf of the desert tree, so people are physically fit.

Mostly I have the habit of using plastic money, so I don't keep a handsome amount of money in my pocket, the reason being I don't have much money to make decorum of my small pocket and from a business point, it's always better to remain my money in plastic form so that it gets interest generated. But hard cash need arises, going home means spending my earning so I am required to withdraw certain amount which may not make me over draft but there is no cash in the ATM.

Surprisingly the ATM remains close when Banks working Hours are over, there are not less then 50 person waiting in line to withdraw the cash, it is hard to believe that people line up for cash withdrwal as early as 4 am so that they get chance when the ATM finally opens at 9 AM, sometime the machine do not function after standing for 3 hours.

Many projects are coming up or anticipated for coming up. Believe it or not, many expertise have become overnight rich by involving in NGOs and also by becoming a contractor, but we don't ask the output of the NGOs or the fund allocations of the allocated fund, these are not part of the their contract. It is a wonder that people talk in such a manner that getting some NGO projects means getting whole amount of the project or 98 % of the project value for their own benefit.

Many organization are talking about setting up of new NGOs Projects and some central Government fund for making roads and drainage and how to divide that fund among well wisher of them. But none has spoken about how the project must be ran or what will be the benefit that will generate; I must say, with the population size, the Government has funded enough but due to mis-usage by the bureaucrates and Anti-Government groups we are still blaming the central Government.

Many organizations are working for self benefit by exploding the general public. The change they bring are not acceptable. The value of societies are degraded, there arose a wide gap between the rich and poor. The child are uneducated, there are more roadside drinkers. A time has come where civilian can't survive, egos started sounding that for survival in the state we must be either a Police commando, Army or an Anti-Government Group (where they called themselves social reformer/revolutionary). This is not just the end of the ego, a saying goes that if anyone have a dream of becoming over-night rich, one must have a strong backing by Police and Anti-Government, every project are under the control of both the parties.

On any day you are not saving to go out in the cities with some money in your pocket because we are scared of the people who are there for our security by paying the public money, I have contributed to their monthly salary in the form of income tax which Government deduct every month from my small salary and still they want to loot from us. This is a very strange situation where one fears with the person who is kept for their security. I fear to walk in the road after sun goes down as there are many or enormous security personnel who are misusing their power to civilian.

If the present situation continues, our direction of becoming better State may be ruined, the situation seems like we are just going back to Stone Age. Looking forward into the present and future anticipated world, a high caution note may be taken while transforming among ourselves.

Action like delay of NIT campus, burning of Dams may not be the right step from the point of advancement. Many companies are willing to explore the opportunities but due to high risk involved, creating job opportunities depends on the society and Government who we designated as public messenger or voice of public. To include I may take the opportunities to all the people of Manipur including the bureaucrats and self called social reformer or freedom struggler to rethink and answer the the below sounds.

A Transformation Picture