Homesick and Home is sick

By: Hidam Gourashyam *

"Business is profitable when the export exceeds the import" is, probably, the second most important thing I learnt about business in school. Of course, the first thing is to understand what profit is. I learnt it really young in life, I guess, when my parents used to run a grocery shop in Sikhong Keithel in the 80s.

Money does not equate to happiness but money gives us the power to choose and that makes us, sometimes, happy. What to choose to make us happy varies from person to person. Let us say need and interest of a person. Even then, the need and interest for human goes much beyond its basic survival needs and keeps increasing, rather, complexifying non-stop throughout the history.

However, some basic needs remain the same (without going much into detail, everyone knows that we will die/ extinct without certain things). We can say that migration is a natural process of shifting location of species' dwelling/ breeding ground in search of a better environment to flourish.

The new/ chosen environment should provide better food and better security, better breeding ground etc. Let us consider that this process is the design of nature and the provision of these needs definitely makes everything alright.

Well! This is not so. Every logic fails when it comes to human nature in all its forms i.e. mind, language, relationship, love, emotion, society and so on. There is no such a simple formula to understand or explain, therefore, solve the whole thing.

Let us see some examples of the exports of Manipur. They all have one thing in common i.e. they don't (get/want to) stay at home i.e. Manipur.

1. Shining sportspersons
2. Nurses and others in hospitality
3. Students
4. Educated persons in search of job
5. Soldiers et al

One may find that this export is not very profitable. Even if we have brighter/ optimistic/ global outlook of the whole process and say that the world is interacting + intermixing + interbreeding + transmigrating + communicating + (virtually) socializing with anyone anytime + the world is shrinking + flattening and so on.

The truth is the organizations like EMA/ NAMA (just to a name few examples) exists because they cannot forget their homes after living in a better environment. "We miss you." and "we miss you too." are not very pleasant expressions if we have to live a lifetime saying these.

Now that the winter is here, don't we feel like having ngaaren (a naturally refrigerated fish-curry) Together with all our near and dear ones? This is something we can never do online So Far, can we?

We keep dreaming of a home where we can live + develop/ prosper under the guidance of the pioneers of this land who are otherwise migrated or compelled to flee all over the world. The reality at home is, we live under the fatal supervision of our brainwashed relatives who oddly claim in big billboards, "We stay awake All the time to put you All to sleep Forever."

The excerpt here is from the book 'The Dream Drugstore: Chemically altered states of consciousness" written by J. Allan Hobson

"The wannabe saint often used voluntary deprivation of food, domestic comfort, and –most of all—sleep to set the stage for inspiring and instructive vision and message from godhead. Sleep deprivation has been used in this way by religious reformers like Emanuel Swedenborg as well as by political groups bent of brainwashing."

To be frank, we need them to take proper rest (I mean physically and mentally), so that, they can think straight instead of shooting straight deliriously without thinking. People have nightmares in open daylight even in market places when shooters don't get proper rest.

Oops! The damage done is always collateral in the long run.

Going back to nature, Manipur has temperate climate and known for its rich biodiversity. That means we can live here. Nature has been supportive so far. We are the only one who doesn't support each other.

The storm of bullets, the cyclone of corruption, the drought of development, the poverty of quality education, and the acid-rain of factionism... is gradually creating a nuclear winter in Manipur. This environmental sickness has to be cured first.

Or is it the case that some kind of adaptation/ mutation has already taken place among the fittest survivors? Some people still flourish in such a harsh environment also. The mutation must have definitely normalized corruption, abusive languages, killing for a Few Rupees More, violation of human rights and so on.

May be, those who are still suffering + struggling at home are yet to undergo the necessary changes in their genes or time will show us what happens next for people are still struggling and resisting it…

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Hidam Gourashyam contributes for the first time to e-pao.net
The writer can be contacted at meitei(dot)ibomcha(At)gmail(dot)com
This article was webcasted on December 04th, 2009.