www.e-pao.net- a portal for global Manipuris- thus read the result of my search on Manipuri, in a leisurely afternoon. That led me to gluing in the contents of the portal. And to my surprise it had a lot in it. So my temptation got increased gradually with passing days.

But deep in the mind, it also resurrected my question about who is actually a "Manipuri"? In process of my exploration to get in touch with as many people as possible in the portal (mainly through the chat room), this doubt deepened further. Are the people who are from Manipur but does not speak Manipuri as their mother tongue, a Manipuri? Are not people whose mother tongue is Manipuri but not from Manipur not a Manipuri?

I don't belong to Manipur. In fact I have never been there though I always carry the desire to see that place, where my ancestors belonged to. I was born to a Manipuri parent. According to the Census of India 1991, there are 1,270,216 people living in India whose mother tongue is Manipuri. Out of these over 87 percent live in Manipur, 10 percent in Assam and about 1.5 percent in Tripura. These constitute almost 99 percent of the Manipuri speaking people. Other 1 percent are scattered throughout other various states including Nagaland and Meghalaya, two neighboring states of Manipur.

I am also told that Manipur is a unique state in the country in various ways. Particularly, when it comes in political issue, the people of Manipur has been so liberal that the state has given the first Chief Minister in India from minority Muslim religious community (if one excludes the state of Jammu and Kashmir). It is also a state where for many years politicians from minority community remained Chief Minister without much hiccups.

During my university days, I had an opportunity to see and meet Manipuris from Manipur. Some of them were friends too (at least I thought they were). During my third year of engineering course, my mother happened to visit me. Excited about having Manipuri friends from Manipur, I invited quite a few of them to visit my mother. In the end of the day, they all were very happy. I was too happy until they started telling "your mother speaks Manipuri so well. Now we understand at least your mother must be real Manipuri". Oh boy, my ideas about my own identity and belongingness to an affinity disappeared in one go!

As a young man, I happened to take active interest in things related to the community of Manipuris. After all, in our state, Tripura, we are not even 1 percent of the total population (a hundred years earlier from now we were 11 percent). For many reasons under such a situation, keeping one's identity becomes a matter of difficulty and stress, a phenomenon not uncommon anywhere in the glob. So we happened to be in the streets on some emotional issues like inclusion of Manipuri in the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution (in early nineties) and introduction of the language in schools in Tripura etc. My friends who are not Manipuris in the state used to ask me "if there is a football match between Tripura and Manipur whom would you support"? I had no slightest of doubt for answer: it is going to be Tripura, the land I was born and brought up. I stand to that even today.

Does this disqualify one by any measure to be a Manipuri: a people for whom I take immense pride to be born as? To me it does not. I still aspire to meet my old friends and say I too am a real Manipuri at least.