Somewhere I Belong - By Haumuanlun Samte

One Evening I boarded a blue line bus to meet my cousin residing in North Delhi from Satya Niketan bus-stand. He called me the previous night telling me come and get some important papers from him. As usual, the moment I got into the bus I heard someone calling out "Hey, Bahadur!" I pretended hearing nothing, and didn't bother to know to whom it was addressed. Such insulting words hurled at us, northeastern tribals is now quite a common experience. I'm beginning to grow up with it now. My take here is that it's all part of a modern city life!
However, calling someone by the name of Chinky, Nepali, Bahadur or whatever, just because of a facial difference is awfully difficult to comprehend. You may be a Khasi, a Naga, a Mizo/ Zomi, a Kuki or a Meitei, but you face the same humiliation all in all, here in Delhi. I wonder what may be the situation in the other cities of our mainland India. Whether you subscribe to it or not, the mindset of the mainland Indians are transfixed to the belief that we, northeasterners, are inferior to them in every way and this has a deep psychological root in the minds of the people from generations past and would continue through generations to come. I often asked myself, why don't they call us Japanese, Chinese or Korean instead? Why Nepali? Why Bahadur?
As I rode the bus, my mind got wholly taken up with memories of the past experiences I had gone through. From the moment I stepped down at the New Delhi train station in June 2004 - the sneaky auto-driver, the brutal bus conductor, the first day at my college where I was ragged three times, the cunning landlord, etc. - to this day I had been going through innumerable mental distress as a result of treatment meted out by the majority for the sole reason that I'm from the Northeast part of India. All these reminiscences made my blood boil. But I could not do anything about it. Nor do I have the power to change the past.
The man who was sitting next to me seemed quite a gentleman. He was well dressed and had a friendly, cheerful face. His eyes tells me that he qenuinely had an interest in me for some reasons unknown to me. The man introduced himself, "Hi, I'm Ravish," and I responded, "I'm Lun" After spelling out and teaching him how to pronounce my name correctly, we began to converse intimately. At some point he said to me, "You must be from Manipur," and I asked him how he could say that. He said he just guessed it. I was not surprised at all, but wondered how the hell did he guess!?
"I'm not from Manipur," I told him point-blank. You don't know how I hate to be called a Manipuri, and that I come from Manipur. Most of the times when people asked me where I was from, I usually told them that I was, rather, from Mizoram or Nagaland. The sound of my own voice responding to someone with 'I come from Manipur' struck me as if a dead blow which, I thought, is more scandalizing than when someone out there called me a 'Chinky'. "Most of the guys I have met from the Northeast are from Manipur, and I thought that you too are from there," he said. "Um hum," I responded dismally. "By the way where are you from?" he asked me. "I come from Zoland - the land of the Zo people." By this time, I began to feel weary talking and thought that, with this he would stop asking me questions. But I was wrong. He seemed to be more and more enthusiastic about our new topic of discussion, and even told me that Regionalism and Linguistics had once been his chosen preoccupation.
"Where is that place?" I now felt sorry that I talked to him in the first place.
"Well, it's a long story. You would never know where I come from. Nobody would know that's because I don't know myself where I belong."
"I mean, like, the place where you are permanently residing? You had told me that you are a northeasterner. I had never heard of such a place. Is it somewhere in Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, or somewhere else?"
To me this guy was still a mystery. He was innocent, polite, friendly, humble, truthful, outspoken. And, curious.
For the sake of intimacy we had just created, I began narrating to him who I am and where I belong. "We are a people, who are independent and secluded from time immemorial. We had our own rajas(kings) and chiefs who looked after our welfare. However, our identity began to erode with the advent of western imperialism, like you had faced a couple of centuries ago. By the middle of the past century, when the Queen of England left India our land got demarcated into separate countries, and at the present day, we are cut across by three countries, India, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Her Majesty, the Queen of England had done a terrible tragedy upon us for leaving ourselves to our own fate. And worst, she never knew her mistake."
Ravish listened to me attentively. I was wholly engrossed by my own narration and I didn't even give him a chance to open his mouth anymore. Whether he is interested in all that I have said or not, didn't matter. My own enthusiasm let me go on and on. Which is what I did. And, thanks to his curiosity, he didn't lose his interest either. I went on. "Actually, I'm from the state of Manipur but you cannot call me a Manipuri. Our place is called 'Outer Manipur' and we are alienated from the real state. In any case, to be a Manipuri here is a huge liability, what with landlords refusing anyone who they know hails from the god-forsaken state. Manipur is being associated with all the ills afflicting the whole northeastern states"
He seemed amazed at this.
"Exactly like the people of mainland India treated the northeasterners as if they are foreigners and that too, with pure humiliation, we are treated as different people in our own tiny state. All channels of growth have been barred for us. Our interests and traditions are like topsy-turvy with those of the plain people."
He agreed to what I said. I awaited some questions from him, but he was rather looking for an answer on my face. So, I continued.
"The condition of our people, and of our land is singularly different. I bet no political ideology in this world would have suited us. Though small, secluded and marginalised, we fought amongst ourselves and killed our own brothers due to identity crises. Among us. Between us.
"Which is why I had told you I don't know where I belong. I do know that I'm a Zomi, but the land I referred to as the place I'm coming from, called Zoland, is only a dreamland. But, be assured, one thing is for sure. I come from a place somewhere I belong."
Time seemed to grind in slow motion as I went on unveiling layer by layer the intricacies of identity consciousness in Manipur valley and the segmentary hill society to which I belong. The snarling traffic got a sigh and our bus speeded up for a moment. Now we were nearing my stop. We exchanged some more friendly words and then, bidding goodbye I stood up from my seat and rushed off into the busy traffic.