Daybreak reveals huge devastation in tsunami-hit Japan

Reuters: Japan confronted devastation along its northeastern coast on Saturday, with fires raging and parts of some cities under water after a massive earthquake and tsunami that likely killed at least 1,000 people.

Daybreak revealed the full extent of the damage from Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake -- the strongest in Japan since records began -- and the 10-metre high tsunami it sent surging into cities and villages, sweeping away everything in its path.

"This is likely to be a humanitarian relief operation of epic proportions," Japan expert Sheila Smith of the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations wrote in a commentary.

In one of the worst-hit residential areas, people buried under rubble could be heard calling out "help" and "when are we going to be rescued", Kyodo news agency reported. TV footage showed staff at one hospital waving banners with the words "Food" and "HELP" from a rooftop.

In Tokyo, office workers who were stranded in the city after the quake forced the subway system to close early slept alongside the homeless at one station. Scores of men in suits lay on newspapers, using their briefcases as pillows.

The government warned there could be a small radiation leak from a nuclear reactor whose cooling system was knocked out by the quake. Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered an evacuation zone around the plant be expanded to 10 km (6 miles) from 3 km. Some 3,000 people had earlier been moved out of harm's way.

Underscoring concerns about the Fukushima plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo, U.S. officials said Japan had asked for coolant to avert a rise in the temperature of its nuclear rods, but ultimately handled the matter on its own. Officials said a leak was still possible because pressure would have to be released.

The unfolding natural disaster prompted offers of search and rescue help from 45 countries. China said rescuers were ready to help with quake relief while President Barack Obama told Kan the United States would assist in any way.

The northeastern Japanese city of Kesennuma, with a population of 74,000, was hit by widespread fires and one-third of the city was under water, Jiji news agency said on Saturday. The airport in the city of Sendai, home to one million people, was on fire, it added.

TV footage from Friday showed a muddy torrent of water carrying cars and wrecked homes at high speed across farmland near Sendai, 300 km (180 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Ships had been flung onto a harbour wharf, where they lay helplessly on their side.

Boats, cars and trucks were tossed around like toys in the water after a small tsunami hit the town of Kamaichi in northern Japan. Kyodo news agency reported that contact had been lost with four trains in the coastal area.

Japanese politicians pushed for an emergency budget to fund relief efforts after Kan asked them to "save the country", Kyodo news agency reported. Japan is already the most heavily indebted major economy in the world, meaning any funding efforts would be closely scrutinised by financial markets.

Domestic media said the death toll was expected to exceed 1,000, most of whom appeared to have drowned by churning waters. Even in a nation accustomed to earthquakes, the devastation was shocking.

"A big area of Sendai city near the coast, is flooded. We are hearing that people who were evacuated are stranded," said Rie Sugimoto, a reporter for NHK television in Sendai. "About 140 people, including children, were rushed to an elementary school and are on the rooftop but they are surrounded by water and have nowhere else to go."

Japan has prided itself on its speedy tsunami warning system, which has been upgraded several times since its inception in 1952, including after a 7.8 magnitude quake triggered a 30-metre high wave before a warning was given.

The country has also built countless breakwaters and floodgates to protect ports and coastal areas, although experts said they might not have been enough to prevent disasters such as the one that struck on Friday.

"I was unable stay on my feet because of the violent shaking. The aftershocks gave us no reprieve. Then the tsunamis came when we tried to run for cover. It was the strongest quake I experienced," a woman with a baby on her back told television in northern Japan.

FIRES ACROSS THE COAST

The quake, the most powerful since Japan started keeping records 140 years ago, sparked at least 80 fires in cities and towns along the coast, Kyodo said.

Other Japanese nuclear power plants and oil refineries were shut down and one refinery was ablaze. Auto plants, electronics factories and refineries shut, roads buckled and power to millions of homes and businesses was knocked out. Several airports, including Tokyo's Narita, were closed and rail services halted. All ports were shut.

The central bank said it would cut short a two-day policy review scheduled for next week to one day on Monday and promised to do its utmost to ensure financial market stability. The disaster occurred as the world's third-largest economy had been showing signs of reviving from an economic contraction in the final quarter of last year. It raised the prospect of major disruptions for many key businesses and a massive repair bill running into tens of billions of dollars.

The tsunami alerts revived memories of the giant waves that struck Asia in 2004.

Warnings were issued for countries to the west of Japan and across the Pacific as far away as Colombia and Peru, but the tsunami dissipated as it sped across the ocean and worst fears in the Americas were not realised.

The earthquake was the fifth most powerful to hit the world in the past century. The quake surpasses the Great Kanto quake of Sept. 1, 1923 which had a magnitude of 7.9 and killed more than 140,000 people in the Tokyo area. The 1995 Kobe quake caused $100 billion in damage and was the most expensive natural disaster in history. Economic damage from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was estimated at about $10 billion.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world's most seismically active areas. 

[Writing by Dean Yates; Editing by John Chalmers]

2014: Year of Rahul?

~Ashok Malik

As expected the Independence Day weekend came accompanied by a flurry of opinion polls, and a quantitative and qualitative tracking of the national mood and the issues on the top of India’s mind. Broadly, commentators and pollsters alike gave the government something to grin about. They indicated the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government hadn’t lost ground dramatically from the time of the Lok Sabha verdict of May 2009. This was despite the lacklustre 15 months in office.

Such estimations are in line with political assessments in New Delhi. More than the government’s strength, they speak for the Opposition’s weakness. The second UPA administration’s record has been patchy and wishy-washy. Yet, it has been helped by the fact that the National Democratic Alliance is still finding its feet. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) performance in Parliament has been purposefully compared to the previous five years, but it is too early to suggest this will have an impact on popular voting intentions.

Curiously, there was one question in the recent India Today magazine’s opinion poll that evoked a vastly different response from previous occasions. Asked about the best choice for Prime Minister, 29 per cent opted for Rahul Gandhi, 16 per cent for Atal Behari Vajpayee, 13 per cent for Sonia Gandhi and only one per cent for Manmohan Singh. In a similar poll in March 2009, Mr Gandhi had found eight per cent support and Dr Singh had topped the list with 18 per cent.

The responses to the “Who should be Prime Minister?” question are suggestive. They represent a fractured, coalitional polity — which is why no single individual scores a very high, say, 50 per cent. They reflect a sense of disquiet with the current administration and the search for a strong, more decisive alternative. The urging for a moderate, mainstream non-Congress option is undeniable: note Mr Vajpayee’s strong numbers despite his retirement from politics. Finally, they articulate a growing momentum for change, which is the wave (or wavelet) Mr Gandhi hopes to ride.

Unlike, for instance, Mr Vajpayee and L.K. Advani in the BJP, there is no duality between Mrs Sonia Gandhi and Mr Rahul Gandhi, at least not one that is politically obvious. As such, a fair section of Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s support is likely to be smoothly transferable to her son. This makes his numbers even more formidable, at least on paper.

So is Mr Gandhi a shoo-in for 2014? Predictions are pointless and one can only speculate on his calculations and challenges. But there are three to reckon with.

First, the Congress seems to be reconciled to a below-par legacy of the UPA II government. By presenting Mr Gandhi as the alternative, it aims to translate straightforward anti-incumbency into a sense of fatigue with the entire existing political class. If the Opposition cannot come up with a charismatic figure with an all-India appeal or at least the political capacity to steer a rainbow coalition, and if the Congress’ rivals cannot find a hard issue on which to nail the top leadership of the party, then the only new factor in 2014 could be, well, Mr Gandhi’s “newness”.

Second, how “new” would Mr Gandhi really be in 2014? He would have been an MP for a decade. It wouldn’t be easy for him to delink himself from the perceived shortcomings of 10 years of Congress rule. Neither would he be an outsider — in the manner of US President Barack Obama and the Democrats. He would be very much a party establishment figure. He is already general secretary; by 2014, he may have risen higher.

Adversaries of Mr Rahul Gandhi have accused him of exercising authority without responsibility, of avoiding government positions, of not making concrete policy interventions. It is difficult to entirely disagree with such criticism. To the Rahul camp, however, these are necessary if he has to begin the 2014 campaign on a clean slate, without the association (or taint) of incumbency.

Such a twin-track approach — with the ruling party appropriating the Opposition space as well and addressing the electorate’s aspiration for change — is not impossible to accomplish. The Left and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee did it in West Bengal in 2006. Nevertheless it is decidedly convoluted. Can the Congress pull it off over a five-year period?

Third, in 2009, Mr Gandhi certainly got the Congress an incremental vote among key demographics — brahmins and Muslims in the Hindi heartland, a pan-Indian urban constituency and so on. How far can this process go?

This is not the 1970s or 1980s and the Congress is not expecting two-thirds majorities. Even so, there is a big contrast between the 206 Lok Sabha seats it won in 2009 and, for instance, a target of 250 seats. This is the contrast between dependence on one ally or the other, and more or less running a government on your own. A Gandhi family member will only accept the prime ministry in the second situation.

For Mr Gandhi to deliver those 50-odd extra seats, the Congress will need to make key gains in Uttar Pradesh and win 45-50 of that state’s 80 seats. In 2009, it won 23. To be fair, Mr Rahul Gandhi realises this and has been focusing his energies on that one state, where politics has devolved into a two-horse race between the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Congress.

This makes the 2012 Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh the true teaser-trailer for the national vote two years later. Mr Rahul Gandhi will need to deflect the shortcomings of the UPA government — chiefly high food prices, successfully sell a new idea and perhaps a new face to Uttar Pradesh, overcome the decrepit and compromised nat­ure of the Congress leadership in the state, and yet defeat May­awati. If he can do that, the road to 2014 will be clearer. If not…

[SOURCE: THE ASIAN AGE | AUG. 17, 2010]

In love, pain is a blessing

Love is painful, but the pain is certainly a blessing. Love is painful because love brings growth. Love demands, transforms and is painful because love gives you a new birth. 

Love brings your heart into relationship -- and when the heart is in relationship there is always pain. If you avoid the pain, you will miss all pleasures of life. With love you become human; you stand erect on earth. With love you are vertical. 

With love are problems. But with problems is growth -- the greater the problem, the greater the opportunity. More and more pain, too.

That's why many people never love -- it is so painful. They never become vertical.

Love never shatters you completely. It simply shatters you a little, a little bit. It shatters the crust of your ego, but the centre of the ego remains intact. Then there is a deeper pain, deeper than love, and that is of prayer -- it shatters you utterly. It is death. When you have learnt how to love, and you have learnt that the pain that love brings is a blessing in disguise, it is beautiful, then you become able and you take another step -- that step is prayer. 

All lovers feel a little miserable. They would like to disappear completely, but it is not possible in human relationships. Human relationship is limited. But one learns from it, that there is a possibility: if it can happen so much in a human relationship, how much more can happen in a relationship with the Divine? 

Love makes you ready to take the final jump, the quantum leap. That's what I call prayer, or you can call it meditation. You have to disappear for existence to be. Love is a training ground, a school, to learn first lessons -- of the beauty, of the blessing and benediction of disappearance; to learn that pain is blessed.

So when you are in love, or when love arises, cooperate with it, don't try resisting. People come to a compromise. The basic problem that I have been looking at is that lovers by and by come to a compromise. The compromise is: You don't hurt me, I will not hurt you. That's what marriage is. Then people become settled. They become so afraid of pain that they say, "Don't hurt me and I will not hurt you." But then when pain disappears, love also disappears. They exist together. 

When you are in love, love hurts. It hurts terribly.

But never resist, never create any barrier for pain. Allow it. And by and by you will see that it was a wrong interpretation. It is not really pain. It is just that something is going so deep in you that you interpret it like a pain. You don't know anything else. You are only aware of pain in your past life, in your past experience. Whenever something penetrates deep, you interpret it as pain. 

Don't use the word 'pain'. When love and love's arrow goes deep into your heart, close your eyes and don't use words -- just see what it is, and you will never see it is pain. You will see it is a benediction. You will be tremendously moved by it. You will feel joyous. 

Don't use words. When something new happens to you, always allow a deep look into it without any language.

[Source: The Discipline Of Transcendence, Osho International Foundation. www.osho.com]

Moms, they are a-changin'…

The mother-daughter relationship has always been a special one. But, in a changing world, today's moms live with their own pressures, perceived failures and disappointments. As a woman's role in the family changes, so does the mother-daughter relationship, says KUSUM LATA SAWHNEY.

One of the greatest relationships is the mother-daughter equation. It is a highly charged and constantly changing relationship. When you are very young, your mother is akin to a goddess. She has all the answers and can fix anything and you are her little follower. When you are a teenager, she is the most out-of-touch person who just does not understand you. We want her approval all the time and become irritable and disappointed when she is critical, for, she seems to only notice our flaws! When we are in our twenties and thirties, we again change and, hopefully, we become friends again. This is because you have matured or because marriage and childbirth also make you understand yourself better and in doing so you also have further insight into your relationship.

This was the old scenario. Today it is a different story.

It is still the greatest relationship. However, life around us has changed so much that the mother has to change to get it right. The onus is on the mother who has had to evolve. The mother has to understand, to empathise, to visualise, to work hard and also to change with the times! She has to keep the balance between your hopes and dreams and your failures and in between make sure you grow up with the right values.

Vital difference

One enormous difference between a mother and daughter of today and yesterday is the element of boredom that has crept into life today. I do not remember my mother ever being bored. I never heard her say those words. Today, on the other hand, women are bored several times a week.

They get bored shopping in the malls or the road-side stalls, they get bored working out at the gym and want to try something else immediately, they get bored going to the same old restaurant, they get bored driving their children to school.

This difference is quite glaring. One has to ask if it is the sameness that is boring? But then you would answer that there is a certain routine in everyone's lives. But when I say bored, what I am really talking about is the feeling of resentment at having to do anything that is less glamorous and less stimulating and generally less worthy of a perceived specialness.

The issue is not whether we are spoilt or not, but in fact to understand that we are spoilt and that we need to rein it in. After all, we have jobs, futures, social lives, gym memberships but not enough ‘mojo' to keep from reaching a plateau. And who is to blame? Is it the grinding routine of our busy lives? Is it the cooking, looking after the children, the partying, the caring for the in-laws or walking the dog? This theory does not seem to fit.

According to Anju, a housewife, her relationship with her mother is fraught with tension “because of her own issues of discontent”. She also adds, “my mother's routine was no more stimulating. She didn't have a job but she didn't complain because she thought she was quite lucky not to.”

It was very different before. A generation that was grateful for what they had, working constantly to make it better but realistic enough to know what was possible and what was just a pipe dream.

Everyone knew that there was a lot of hard work involved but there were good times too. Family get-togethers, parties and personal triumphs. Says Sushma Sethi, “We were much more hardy, we would do what we had to do and were genuinely grateful.” She says she never felt she was too good for anything. “If it had to be done, it had to be done”.

“A big difference in my mother's life is that she did not think of herself as a diva living a life less than she deserved,” says Bharti, a banker and her mother readily concurs. Mrs. Sheila Malhotra says, “She was content with what she had.” Bharti, on the other hand, has no qualms about being upfront: “she wants it all and wants it quickly.”

Life was tough and is tough. We make it worse by comparisons. We all know that realistic expectations are the key. “One should dream but with a sense of reality,” says Jyoti a down-to-earth mother of two. “It is so important to understand that if we want to change our lives, we'll have to think about what we can do to make that change rather than wishing we could be a movie star and live in a 26-floor mansion like the Ambanis”.

“If you are secretly resentful, it is like a slow poison that eats away at you,” says Sapna. And she should know. “My mother had a fabulous voice. I spent many years trying to be a singer but with a mediocre voice I did not get anywhere”. Today she runs a talent company and helps others up the staircase of music. She is happier and has a loving relationship with her mother who was the first one to point out her limitations. “I finally understand that she notices my every flaw but only because she notices her own so clearly.”

Changing expectations

Another big difference is that today life is much more competitive and stressful but we also expect more, are more ambitious and want more from life and we want it all now. We want it to all happen instantly. In the old days, there were rock stars but today we all believe we are rock stars or can be. It is not a bad thing to be ambitious. But we need to also get real!

We are all very special but there are yardsticks we aspire to. But we should not let them define us. It is great to have them but we need to take them with a pinch of salt.

People are generally happier when they have spent some time working out their own priorities and what is important to them. When they understand their strengths and weaknesses. It is when you measure yourself against an external barometer that you feel bad and guilty about how your life should be. Says Meena, “We are judging ourselves by other people's values.”

Doctors say it is all about the external versus the internal. If we are referencing ourselves externally we will always be unhappy. But if we live according to our internal selves, then we can make choices about what is important and then set our own standards.

Renu Tyagi, 60, who spent her entire life as a teacher says, “We were much more honest and realistic. We had clearly defined boundaries. Today it is all very vague and the adage ‘anything goes' seems to govern lives, which is not a good thing.”

Renu's mother, a sprightly 86, says, “Women didn't work in my time so we concentrated on being good home makers and always made food for our husband. Today she sees her married granddaughter constantly saying that she does not feel like cooking so the couple go out. It's as much about the changing times as it is about the evolving relationships and expectations.”

Priorities were very different then. “It was always about my family, my husband and children, my home,” says Mrs. Deol. “Today my daughter cares about her family but she also cares about herself. She is also a valued and important part of the family. Maybe it is because she also contributes to the household in a monetary way.” But not necessarily. Says Kavita, “The value of life has changed. Even a housewife is respected for bringing up her children in today's increasingly difficult world.” Agrees Mrs. Deol, “If my daughter is happy then it makes sense that her family will be happy too.”

Values are changing along with the times. Says Rima, “I was brought up liberally but I did not question everything. My daughter questions everything and paramount is her right to do what she wants within boundaries.” The young are much more forthright and unselfconscious. Says Rima, “My 15-year-old daughter wants to wear a bikini but my mother was horrified. I allowed her to wear a bikini when on holiday abroad and also when my mother was not around. Just because I didn't wear one does not mean my daughter should not. If she wants to, why not?”

New boundaries

Is that hypocritical? No, just understanding your daughter and the sensibility of your parents. It's a changing world with lots of new boundaries to work with.

As the child grows from dependence to womanhood the mother has to keep in mind the child's emotions, her need for limits, her privacy, her concern for her and her safety should not exclude the reality of an intensely smaller and global world.

Some mothers do change and can cement their relationship by being honest and forthright but some refuse to and lose out. A mother may appear cruel but by being honest she is demonstrating her love. As my mother keeps saying, “No one else will love you the way I do” and when the child understands that no matter early or late — in those times or these times — it becomes a great source of power and fulfilment. No matter the times we live in!

[SOURCE: THE HINDU | SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 2011]

Is rising India a just society? If not, what must be done?

~Mani Shankar Aiyar

To make ours a truly just society, we should ally economic reforms to governance reforms through the panchayats so as to translate accelerated growth into ‘inclusive growth.’

The Arjun Sengupta Committee on the Unorganised Sector has just informed us that 83.6 crore (836 million) Indians live on less than Rs.20 a day, that is less than 50 cents a day, which is half way below the somewhat arbitrary ‘poverty line’ of a dollar a day drawn by the World Bank and other international institutions. Yet, as P. Sainath, The Hindu’s Magsaysay Award-winning Rural Affairs Editor, has informed us in his brilliant articles and outstanding speeches, this is the same India which has the world’s fourth largest number of dollar billionaires, whose combined wealth makes the India of today (forget tomorrow!) the second major economic superpower in the global economy of billionaires. According to Sainath, we fare rather worse when it comes to dollar millionaires, our global ranking falling to eighth. But when we drop below arabpatis, crorepatis and lakhpatis to the aam admi, Sainath finds that the phenomenal spurt in GDP growth rates in recent years, which will see us breaking the magic 10 per cent barrier this year, has raised the aam admi on the UN Human Development Index from 127th position all the way to the 126th position. So, around 20 crore (200 million) Indians go to bed hungry every night. This is injustice indeed.

More disturbing still, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, in his May 2007 lecture to the Bureau of Parliamentary Studies, pointed out that over the period of the first six Five-Year Plans — a stretch of about 35 years, given Plan holidays (as they were somewhat archly called) — the rate of growth of agricultural production consistently exceeded the rate of growth of GDP. Of course, we are talking here of the ‘Hindu rate of growth.’ Indeed, when during the 1980s the country first jumped from the ‘Hindu’ rate of growth to the new trajectory of 5.6 per cent annual average, agriculture still beat GDP by growing at 5.7 per cent. Thus, in the first 45 years or so of Independence, the first beneficiary of growth — high and low — was the kisan and the khet mazdoor. How significant this was for them might be gauged from the fact that they constituted between two-thirds and four-fifths of our population. The iconic status of Jawaharlal Nehru, now sneered at by our middle class and their spokespersons in the media, is fundamentally explained by the aam admi in Nehru’s era having shot up from near stagnation to at least the ‘Hindu’ rate of growth. (For remember, the annual average rate of growth of India under the British in the first half of the 20th century was a mere 0.72 per cent). And the major governance reforms of the Nehru era — the integration of the princely states, land reforms (however halting and partial), tenurial reforms, the A.D. Gorwalla Committee on reforms in the cooperative sector, and S.K. Dey’s Community Development, but, above all, the Balwantrai Mehta Study Group on Panchayati Raj — all were aimed directly at the poorest and most needy. In consequence, the growth of that abstraction called ‘the economy’ might have been sluggish but the exponential rise in the welfare of the poor was spectacular.

State, the only hope

The other spectacular consequence of Nehruvian socialism was the burgeoning of the middle class. The middle class has now outstripped its requirement of socialism (hence the vulgar kicking of the ladder up which it rose). But for those 836 million Indians surviving on under Rs.20 a day even six decades after Independence, the only hope of survival is the state. But not — above all, NOT — the state intervening through an indifferent bureaucracy but a state reaching the people through the intermediation of elected panchayats. Rajiv Gandhi’s constitutional amendments have given us 2.5 lakh elected institutions of local government at the grassroots in both rural and urban India. To these, We the People of India (the rural people, not the beautiful people managing the Commonwealth Games) have elected 32 lakh democratic representatives, responsive and responsible to those underprivileged 836 million Indians in their gram sabhas. Meanwhile, accelerated growth through economic reforms has given the Finance Ministry the wherewithal to channel the stupendous sum of Rs.81,000 crore to rural development and rural welfare. But if even that gigantic sum of money has raised us only from 127th to 126th position on the U.N. Human Development Index, it is because the state still relies too heavily on the bureaucracy and, almost everywhere, is yet to genuinely empower the panchayats and nagarpalikas through the effective devolution of functions, finances, and functionaries. The 2000-page, three-volume report on The State of the Panchayats — A Midterm Review and Appraisal which I tabled in Parliament last November is proof of both the enormous strides we have made in the last three years towards meaningful Panchayati Raj and of the long road we are yet to traverse.

Therefore, to make ours a truly just society, my plea is that we ally economic reforms to governance reforms through the panchayats so as to translate accelerated growth into ‘inclusive growth’ — the overarching objective of the Eleventh Five Year Plan. Let us, therefore, dedicate ourselves, at this commencement of the seventh decade of our Independence, to the greatest dream of the greatest Indian — the Mahatma’s dream of Panchayati Raj — for that would be the true symbol of our having accepted his talisman of summoning to our minds when in doubt the poorest man we know and asking ourselves whether the step we propose to take will be of benefit to him for then, as Gandhiji said, our doubts will vanish and we will know the right path to take.

(The writer is Union Minister of Panchayati Raj.)

SOURCE: THE HINDU | WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2007

Gam Mang

Zotna diing lam theilou in ka ding a, beidong leh lungngai dedu in ka om hi. Ka ngaihtuahna ah thildang bangmah a om kei, ka gam mang na akipan suahtaakna chihlouh ngal. Ka om kinken theikei. Ka diangtuah vilvel alah koitan mah ka tung kei. Ka omna akipan mundang zuan kichi zeel sam mahleng ka kipatna mun mah ka tungkik zeel. Upate’n, “Numei gilou in a zunthakna ngei mah ah atha kik,” achih uh toh bang haihuai tak in ka kiteh thepthup! Ahi’a, hiai huntak in ahi, Ka pilna, siamna leh thiltheih theihna tengteng ka suuk.

Singtang khua lian lou chik ah bel gam mang na’ng a om khol kei. Gammang lak, theih ngeilouhna gam leh khopi liantak ah bel agam mang theih luat. Ahi’a, gam mang na laklak ah leng nitak khomial leh khosiat kithuah ni a gammang kaan a beidot a om kei diing.

Naupang lua bel ka hi nawn kei. ‘Aw huut’ chihte le neikhin ka hita. Huai kum in Maului gaal lou ka neih uhi. Skul khawlni – kiginni – ahi a, vaai pailam khua a niim ziakin ai-sawk di’n ka kisa hi. Maului dung ka zui suk a, vangphat huai chih di adiam vangsiat huai, ai-anntah ana om ua, vaimim kang sukvui leh sasung/gil suang gei khawng ah ana om nengnung hi. A tuung lam in anntah kine lou bang sim mah leh, bangtan hiam ka zuih nungin Ai phul-in-ana-phulthoh zozen hi. Phaze sa in kaban matsak ek hi.  Lui nak akipan lui taw lam manawh a ai-ann kitah zeel hive’n, atahtute’n sausim tahsuk ta uh ahi ngei dia, galmuh phak in le a om nawn kei uh. Ka theihlouh kal in sausimtak zuisuk kana hi maimah a, hunkhop leng ka ngah ta hi. Ahih ziakin, atahtute’n tua lui dung ahon lehzuih chiang ua ka kituah guih khak uh ka lauh man in, zui suk ngam nawn lou a, gamlak ah ka peet khe ta. Huchi a innlam zot sawm dan ka hi hi.

Sun nitum kuan, khomui zul ahita. Upate’n ‘tanau mel haih hun’ achih uh ahita. Khua asiat ziak in, nidang saangin khua amial baih zaw. Van a mial demdum a, meipi atai ziaiziai hi. Akal laklak in, vanpi aging honhon zeel hi. Ka omna mun ka thei chiah kei na a inn tan dakkal 2 lampai hi di’n ka gingta. Gammang ahi kei a, kum 3/4 paita (vel) a lou kibawlna ahi. Sainou leh pawnlak ahi. Sing alian lo nai kei na a, himahleh pawn asah mahmah. Lampi didan a om louh baan ah khodaak theih na’ng leng ahi sam kei. Gamsate’ gamtatna’ zawi bel a om. Tua pawnlak pal zohvual ahihlouh man in, ding lah hilou tu lah hilou in ka pai khunkhun nilouh hi. Gamtatna hih nawngkai seem di’n vuah zuk-chih-tak in hong zu zawmah hi.

Ai-anntah leh Aisa melsel de dia kuan ka hih louh manin nawtkuang, torch-light chihte ka tawi sese kei. Ahilel a gen in, tamlou chik mat a, Pathianni’ zing a beteh toh pok di, chihtan kia adia ngaihtuahna nei ka hi lel. Ka kawlzaal dim zeen a kuahlou hilengh ka khomial na’ng thu a om kei. Khua a pum mial ta. Vaai nanung vuahsia in alap achih uh ka tungah atung ta. Baihsam taka a mat theih ahihman in ka duh-am a, ka huaiham lokha. Duhthu ka saam zaw mah. Zuak di toh mat di, Pathianni’ pocket money neih di, chih ahi mai. Adang a om kei. A khonung a ka buaina di phet ahihlam leng ka thei kei. Kuate hiam gim-le-tawlna ken huaihamna toh khatvei baibak thau sawm dan chuh ka hi lel ve. Ka khonung ngaihtuah kik chiangin, huaihamna leh duh-aamna ziaka hauhsakna ichih chiitui (salty water) toh kibang, i tam dawn tam peuh leh i dang taak seemseem hi’n ka mu hi.

Khua lah mial deuhdeuh, vuah lah ke den lai ahihman in ka pum kawt vek hi. Ka kawlzaal bang dongkholh kasa petmah. Ka ning akitel gawp a, huchia ka om laitak in, ka ngawng ka zuuttouh leh vangkot liansim khat ka maikha zawmah a, kintak in ka la khia hi. Bangtan hiam tua pawnlak a ka pai khuankhuan nung in ka potsan thei khongkhong. Gammang mun thoveng zaw deuh lak ka tung ta a, mahleh ka aisa kuah chihtham a om nawn kei!

Thoveng khat suak mahleh, ka omna’ gammang ka thei ngei kei. Koilam manawh a pai di, chih leng ka thei sam kei. Suahlam koilam hi a, Tumlam, Simlam leh Mallam koilam ahia, chih ka thei kei. Khua amial luat ziakin ka ma tongkhat tan lel a gamla diing khawng ka mu baan lel hi. Khepi kokna lamlam pai zaw ka hi lo na a, himahleh ka kipatna mun mah tung ka bang gige. Atelh hetkei. Van ging lah adai nai kei. Kawlphe zotzot lah lampi tanvaak hial didan in avaak pha thei kei. Singkung kal a khodaak di chih lah ahi thei kei. Kek in ahon deng khak ka lauh man in Singliim lah ka beel ngam kei. Ka kivialleh-leh mai. Aloh ngaihna ka thei zou kei. Gammang a kum 40 vakvaai mah ka bang hial.

Chih ngaihna theilou in ka om a, kei-le-kei naktak in ka ki mohpaih. Ka thilhih khelh ziaka gawtna tuak hidan peuh in ka kikoih. Ka aisa kuah teng bang ka paih vek hi. Huchi in, beidong leh lungziing tak in sing lian lolou bul ah kingai ngehngah kawm in ka tu a, vanlam ka en tou a lah bangmah ka mu thei kei. Ka kunsuk diaudiau a, gammang potsan theih didan ka ngaihtuah tuah mai hi. Luidung apat ka peetkhiak dan ka ngaihtuah kik a, awl in lampi diing suahtuah theihna ka nei thei khongkhong hi.

Tu in, ka gam mang nung kum 10 val bang pailiam ta mahleh, huai nitak a ka beidotna mangngilh hak kasa. Manglam a mat di’n leng deihhuai kasa kei. Himahleh, huai nitak in ka gam mang na in kei hinkhua mahmah ah leng sinlai tamtak hong guan hi’n ka thei.

Zotna diing theilou. Nekzonna/sepna toh kisa a lohsam khin dimdem kisa . Lungziing leh beidot tawpkhawk tuak a kithei. Leh, panpihtu diing neilou a i om hun uh a om nak. Ahihhangin, huchi bang mangbatnate ituak chiangin i pilna, siamna leh theihna tengteng suahkhia thei pen kihi hitah, chih ka thei khia hi. Gam mang ngeilou om diing in ka ngaihsun kei. Siamsinna lam ah leng a gam mang theih tham – koipen zui a bang pentak lunglut ka hi a chih nasan leng theilou in a gam mang theih. Huai kia leng hilou in, Gam-le-Nam heutute’n leng mipite paipih/piina diing lem theilou a ahon gam mang pih hun uh bang leng a om thei. Duh-amna leh huaihamna ziak khawngin leng a gam mang theih hi.

Paina diing thei ngellou pi a, tuah khak na lamlam apai. A baihsam sam ban hih, lah lungkim thei taktak tuanlou. Football pek dia kuan in, lampi basketball kimawlte ngapthoh ziak peuh a va chou mawkmawk in kimawl pih ek. Tup tumta neilou a, tuahkhak dandan a pai, chih dan pian in gam-le-nam vaai a iki makaihna uah leng a gam mang theihluat hi. Ahihhangin, gam mang ka hi chih ki theichian kilkel a, i beidot taktak chiangin ahi suahtaakna lampi om thei diing teng i zon uh. Huai hun chiangin, abul a kipat thak bang le khok isa kei; kikhekna chih bang i kihta kei; neih-le-lam a leng i huaiham sam kei; banah pilvang tak a mailam zot sawm in i pilna, siamna leh ngaihtuahna teng ki suuk khia hi. Ahihleh, eilawi gam mang ikisa uh hia? Gam-le-nam vaai ah? Siamsinna leh nekzonna kong ah??