It was 15th august 1947, the day we got our independence day. Since that day we are fighting to be recognized as an Indian.
More than 50 years passed and still we are better known to be a Nepalese or else some foreigners.
I am not sad that we are called as Nepalese or foreigners but the bad thing is that do we really lost our identity as a Manipuri among the Indians.
Now one thing must be coming in everybody mind WHY and WHY???
This is not a matter of shame for us, this is really shame on the others who thought that they are more educated than us and have more quality education.
Yeah I know and we all better know that they have the world class facilities given to them from their school time only but there are lots of
people who are doing graduation and already graduated asking "Manipur belongs to which country?"
At this time my mind stuck on one thing did they really had Indian geography subject during their schooling???
And also wants to say something on all the people of Manipur who wrote on e-pao.net that Manipur lacks quality educators and quality people,
now stop criticizing and discouraging your own people and see on the other side of the coin which is more shinning and glittering.
Today we have lots of world class sportsperson from Kunjarani to Dingko, and many many more that will take a time of day in mentioning all the names.
There are lots of executives working in MNCs and prestigious firms through out the India and even in different countries.
These people are not only earning money for themselves, they are earning the name of Manipur to the outside world.
Do you ever think that with so little infrastructure of Manipur, any state in India can bring the laurels as what Manipur had brought?
If you will ask me my view then I will say a big NO. But some educated people will say "who cares we had already achieved what
we were deserved, now is the time to do something extra things", it is easy to write and say but not that much easy to implement.
Whatever we are and we have it is all because of us, so my friends and beloved people of Manipur we should be proud of us and
wherever we go we should show others that we are not less than anyone else.
ADAPTBLE MANIPURI...
Adaptation is a dictionary word which means that how well anyone can cope up in different conditions. We Manipuris are already learned the
adaptation techniques more advance than any other people of India.
Some people won't be agreed with my view but I would like to tell
them "come out from the useless gossiping and see what the other Manipuris are doing". Even though we are unrecognized by general people of India
but wherever we go not the Hutch network follows, but our impact always remained on their mind.
This is something to be proud of ourselves and it is the power of adaptable nature of Manipuris that no other have.
In my life span of 22 years, I had experienced some facts that make me lay down the above point with my collar high.
My little experiences....
1. I passed out my 12 standard from Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Langjing known to be a hindi school where most students are non-manipuri but almost
every time Manipuri student come out be a topper.
2. After that I joined an engineering college in Mysore, where we all (6 meiteis out of 6 "2005-batch") kept the record of getting job in campus interview.
Above that we made our friends (non-manipuris) how much important we are. Now they want to be like us only,
the way we dress, the way we eat.
They are changed to non-vegetarian from vegetarian; they started singing manipuri songs,
eager to learn more manipuri language. Our rooms became the conference room as all liked us so much.
This is what we need to do and I think that all manipuris who are staying outside Manipur are doing the same thing and giving the same impact what
we gave to them, so it's not far from now that every Indian will recognize the greatness and the capabilities of Manipuris.
And most importantly every Indian will know there is a state called Manipur in India.
3. Lastly but not the least, I(only lone manipuri) surprised when I gave my introduction to our Delivery Manager(DM) who is been in USA from the last 16 years
recognized Manipur well enough and started telling in Manipur language (broken) in front of 200 employees meeting and said to me he was a friend of
one manipuri during his schooling.
At that time I felt like I am in cloud no. 9 and proud to be called as a Manipuri.
What words stuck in my mind is that he didn't tell "he had a manipuri friend", instead of that he told "he was a friend of one manipuri",
so how much important he gave to that manipuri guy.
This is only my past experiences and there are lots of manipuris who had experienced more than me and they will be telling same things....
I am telling all these facts in order to encourage the students who are going to persuade higher education outside Manipur not to fear to anyone else
and think you are the best and you can adapt any situation. We are known to be jolly, funny, courageous, friendly, active,
brainy and lastly beautiful so you guys are THE ONE.
NEED TO LEARN LIMO (Little Input Maximum Output)..
As we know that we are one of the poorest state in India that doesn't meant that we can't do anything, but to do something we need to learn LIMO.
Some educated people said before we emerged to India we were living sufficiently with our own resources, but do you ever think that whatever we are today,
the facilities we are enjoying would get with that resources???
Definitely not... My friends life is changed and we need to catch the pace of the others.
But the question is that how can we do with our limited infrastructure. That's why we need to know LIMO.
LIMO comes into my mind when I was in the college where all the localite students used to invest lots of money in going tuition and all.
But in our case we are getting a limited money, from that we have to do everything so no money left for going to tuition and all.
At that time the LIMO come into existence in our life and we fought hard and we learned and now we all are enjoying our life.
Why I came up with this LIMO system is that even though we are one of the poorest states in India, we should know how to convert the little infrastructure
that we have into an efficient way, apart from criticizing one another and leading to do nothing.
There is a quote "something is better than nothing"
and it should be in every Manipuri's mind.
Also we are all aware a short story about a monkey and two rabbits where the monkey acts as a judge and divide
the share of bread for that 2 rabbits.
So we should not be the rabbits and also not let them to be a monkey.
Tayenjam Biswajit Singh, a Software Professional at Infosys, writes regularly for e-pao.net .
He can be reached at [email protected]
This article was webcasted on September 19th, 2005
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