Lockdown to Sumang Leela

Sagolsem Surmala Devi *

It's funny how quickly and drastically our daily life has taken a complete turn-around. From the local club's Yaoshang sports announcements to the patrolling police's routine sirens and SOPs announcements; from the rush and excitement of making plans with the arrival of the seasonal festivals to the wait for yet another lockdown; from the bittersweet "mandatory" attendance to the mandatory online classes and assignments; from the canteen meet-ups to the online video conferences; from the weekend hangouts to the uneventful afternoon and evening teas at home.

Our world was not prepared for such this change. With every passing day we grow lonesome and more. When left with our own thoughts, our own misconceptions, our own demons, every seemingly mundane life gets pretty tough to brave by. Day by day the news media feeds the masses with regulations and updates about the, apparently, surging pandemic.

Stacks and stacks of negative news piles up and clustered into the messy, anxious and paranoid minds of the media consumers. Judging by the situation, keeping a necessary distance from the news media seems to be a sane choice.

But what is a bored yet vulnerable (to my own thoughts) mind left to do in order to kill the mundane hours. For the initial few days of the 2nd wave lockdown, YouTube and the occasional reads from my bookshelf helped with the task of keeping my minds occupied.

But one can only take so little of such routined chores. Then out of desperation (and mostly boredom) I decided to explore more about the traditional form of entertainment, Sumang Leela. Growing up I'd never really gotten into the whole scenarios of Sumang Leela excitements.

But desperation to feed my lazy mind led me this fate. I chose YouTube and Mami Taibang Movies App for my content needs. Out of the other competing Manipuri content streaming and/or downloading apps, Mami Taibang came out valour for my choice owing to simple factor of availability on the Apple's iOS Appstore.

Mami Taibang movies app is the first and only app dedicated to the Manipuri content need for an iOS user. Though YouTube has its own obvious advantages, having an app dedicated to our own Manipuri cultural entertainment industry is an extremely jubilant moment as a Manipuri.

The aesthetics, UI and UX of the app is surprisingly friendly. The app has a wide selection of contents from web-series, Movies and, obviously, Sumang Leelas. With a plethora of content available on YouTube and other popular social media, one can only count till the next day to get news about artists' original works being illegally distributed.

But with Mami Taibang movies app, we can rest assured that the content producers are provided with their much deserving hard earned profits. I was lucky enough to have been one of the many who tuned in for the premiere of the award winning, tear jerking movie of "Ei Actor Natte", which was released and premiered in the Mami Taibang movies app itself.

Growing up I'd always steer clear of the typical Manipuri movie, owing to the same old cookie cutter plot of boy meets girl and boy and girl breaks up storyline, but my sudden interest of Sumang Leela eventually led to the whole Manipuri movie craze.

As I dive deeper into the rabbit hole of Mami Taibang's different ventures, including their main YouTube channel; music app, movies app and websites, I began to appreciate the efforts of the team behind the company and all the other innovation enthusiasts entrepreneurs of our State. I began to appreciate their hard efforts in putting our State on the map of the global technological race.

Mami Taibang movies app is the perfect evidence for such efforts. Apart from the obvious salient features of the app, the part which impressed me the most is their customer service. The voice behind the customer care number, handled my technologically stupid queries with the ultimate patience and an unexpected keen interest for helping me.

This little venture on mine made me appreciate my culture, my State and my generation more. I realise how fortunate I was to have existed in this particular era, in this particular generation and in this particular culture, despite the obvious up and downs. Inspired by the team behind such feats, I promised myself to make my own contribution to our society and culture.