Amsterdam is a city easy to fall in love with. A big city with the heart of a small town. Trams and cycle tracks peacefully coexist with the tube and fast sleek cars. There is no hurried pace that you associate with a London, Paris or Delhi. When I visited this city in 2000, I expected to soak in Van Gogh, Anne Frank, Windmills and tulips and not certainly expected to bump into a Manipuri.

Amsterdam Central is city's busiest station. During my trip, one corner of this stretch outside the station had an ISCKON group singing 'Hare Krishna' in full fervour, attracting several people to it. One person in this group stood out. A middle aged lady 'chandon' on her forehead, 'lei phanek' immaculately in place, chanting 'Hare Krishna' along with a motley group of dhoti clad Europeans. That was the defining moment of my travel 'discovery of a Global Manipuri in arguably world's most cosmopolitan city.

Am I a global Manipuri? I certainly belong to the group of Manipuri Diaspora, who have written in e-pao about their experience of the Manipuri identity. My forefathers migrated to Cachar, some two centuries back, when the Burmese invaded Manipur. I grew up in Shillong, Along and Guwahati and have spent all my professional life in Delhi. I still maintain close links with my extended family who are based in a village called Chengbill in the Hailakandi district of Assam. My immediate family is settled in Guwahati.

Take my ancestral village Chengbill (with its Awaang Leikai and Khwa Leikai) is a Manipuri enclave that has existed for more than a century along with the surrounding Bengali Muslim and Sylheti Hindu villages. The Manipuri culture is carefully preserved and followed. If I may dare say, perhaps in a form, more purist and traditional than the land of its origin. Most of kids of my village study in Manipuri medium. (Yes, it is a subject right up to University). One of my grand uncles continued the grand tradition of Pena playing right till his death.

In Guwahati, where I spent most of my formative and academic years, there is an active community that actively takes up causes that concern Manipuris, Manipur and Manipuri identity whether it is during the recent proposal of greater Nagaland to include parts of Manipur or over the Bishnupriya issue. I do not know how many people in Manipur are aware about the Bishnupriya issue (where a community called Bishnupriyas, speaking a Bengali dialect, with a large population in Assam and Tripura, attempted to usurp the Manipuri identity, by weaving a grand tale of being the original Manipuris and how they have been pushed to the sidelines). My parents, now lead perhaps, a more active and busy lives after retirement, with the Dispur Khun, Marup and the Manipuri Mahila Samity.

Here in Delhi, where I spend my entire working life, the interactions in my professional life is limited to a largely cosmopolitan set up professionals who have created a unique Indian urban middle class identity, comfortable in English, love pub crawling, experimenting with global cuisine and watching cross-over movies at a Multiplex. Outside this set up, are clients and associates who are most likely to be Americans or British and an odd French.

I have few close friends from Manipur with whom sometimes I discuss issues of identity and Manipuri Diaspora. Increasingly, I am meeting several Manipuris who are more close to the Indian urban identity that I described above. Some of them, I would probably define as typifying a global Manipuri Doing well professionally, ambitious, well read, well traveled, global in outlook but without losing their Manipuri identity or links with its culture.

Perhaps I fall in this category of the global Manipuri. I take an active interest in issues that relate to Manipuris. I do manage to catch any Manipuri plays that are sometimes staged at NSD. Of course, I love my eromba, Singju as much I as I love my asparagus soup and the Kakori Kabab. I do get my supplies of Hawaijar,Ootonga, and Ngari faithfully couriered every quarter from Guwahati. I love to downloaded and listen to Manipuri songs as much as I like my Simon & Garfunkel and Kishore Kumar.

The Global Manipuri identity, I suspect, will increasingly define this new set of brave, new generation of young Manipuris, whether they are based in United States, Australia, Canada or India.