Donkey Monkey Swa - A Redefined Version!

Remember the game Donkey Monkey Swa that we used to play when we were kids? I bet it used to be one of the favourite games we ever played during those good old days. These days, we hardly find the children playing local games at the leikai lampaak and elsewhere.

However, this game, Donkey Monkey Swa, seems to have been redefined a little bit and has been reportedly playing within the realm of power paiba and power chalaiba kaangbu in our society.

In its earlier days, the game began in quite an amateur way. The fam-achouba paiba babu sahebs cracked the idea of redefining the game. Honourable Mr. Gorobi gave his full support and launched the game with the slogan ‘I want this much commission’. And as per the game, it’s but a strict rule to give Gorobi the claimed commission by hook or by crook.

The spirit of the game spread like wildfire from one department to another. Of late, most of our (echin enao kaina kouningdaba) security personnel have also become fond of this game. So, when they say ‘We want an Activa Honda’, they try to have it by any means. Even if that means they have to steal it illegally, of course with the help of a legal authority, consider they already have it.

Under a normal situation, security personnel are supposed to maintain law and order in our society. They are also supposed to protect us from thieves and criminals. Their presence around us should make us feel safe and secure.

However, it is a different glass of chaangang in our society when it comes to our security. They scare us like hell. We don’t want to have them around us because of many reasons more than one. Besides shameless acts like ekai-khangdana sen chaaba, waarak waatemdaba nature like ahal-laman khangdana khonda waoba, they have won another accolade – ‘Gaari huranbagi heinabi’. Beraney!

In a normal society, when we lose something we take help of the police to report the matter. But imagine the situation when we have to report about theft to the thieves. That would be like a ‘dassa nihey’ situation.

Wait, wait. The game does not end yet. We must not forget to mention one of the eligible candidates of this interesting game – the black marketers a.k.a. meeyamgi ee chupaga sen taaba kaangbu. Whenever there is a natural disaster or an economical chaos, they are the ones who earnestly play and benefit from the game. All they need to say is ‘We want price hike’ and the game automatically begins.

In every two or three months, petrol runs out of stock in our state (though the official reports always say they have enough stocks to meet the public demand). For many of us, it has become a habit to buy cooking gas cylinders only from the black market. Either we are too rich to afford anything that black marketers charge us or we are dumbstruck morons unaware of our action.

Every week and month, we need to have bandhs or general strikes that disrupt our normal lives. Standing for long queues for petrol has become a habit among our people.

Amid all these, the government who robs Tomba to pay Chaoba ardently enjoys playing Donkey Monkey Swa. So do our security personnel who misuse their power to make the society more ‘farangjai’.

We, the confused hoi polloi, prefer to play keku-lotpi with no courage for dhampa fongba. We are so used to bear the brunt of bandh/general strikes, petrol price hike and adu-ada price hike while the players keep on playing as much as they are enjoying the game.

Perhaps, leading a normal life has become something like rocket science in our state. Perhaps, the pursuit of at least a liveable society is going to be a long tiring journey. We must dare to remain optimistic. We must also remain as the mute spectators of the ongoing game- ‘Donkey Monkey Swa’.

This article was published on 1 Sep 2013

A Yaoshang to Remember

A tug of war showdown at a park in New Delhi

A festival is celebrated for its essence. So, sometimes it does not matter where and how you celebrate a festival as long as we keep up the essence. This year, we celebrated Yaoshang, coinciding with the last day of the festival, in our traditional style but with a typical quintessence in New Delhi.

We organized typical games like chafu thugaibi and thouri chingnabi. The best part of the event was the tambola housie. We had gathered at a popular park, as we scratched and shouted for the quick fives, stars, the lines and the like.

For a while, we felt so closer at home. It was indeed a typical spring evening. The only sad part was time restraint. Sundays are always precious for working professionals. We had to spare our Sunday afternoon to catch up with one another. The event, which was supposed to start hours earlier, began a little late. Yet, we make it up with unrestrained fun and frolic. I am sure, as a side note, we managed to redefine the concept of ‘Meitei pung’ here in Delhi.

Well, I do not intend to bore you all with my personal experience of how awesome my Yaoshang festival was. Still, I would like to stress on how important it is for us to catch up and celebrate every festival together, whether we stay back home or elsewhere across the world.

I have observed in all these years that our folks in Delhi do not have a unifying factor. Most of the diasporas and expatriates rely heavily on internet, and social media to be precise, to connect with their friends and families. I consider it that there is always a strong undercurrent of nostalgia among us. Most of us are homesick during many occasions. In fact, festivals fuel up our nostalgia meter.

Beyond the Yaoshang play-field

Quite contrary to my over-expressive opinion, I have also come across many Manipuris in the city who get pissed off with the smell of ngaari, soibum or hawaijaar. They, in my opinion, are the chanafam khangdraba kaangbu.

Ngari, soibum and hawaijaar are a few of the distinguishing factors of our community. The smell of ngari or soibum while crossing a building or ally makes most of us nostalgically hungry. And that’s a unique specialty of our community. Correct me if I am wrong.

No doubt, we have students’ associations here but in my opinion, I think we need a body that unifies both the students and working professionals in the city. Don’t you think we are quite used to community living? Besides, we get more ideas that further grow when we interact with one another. I used to crack jokes about a demand for a greater Manipur in the capital. I hope this does not sound like a step to launch a demanding crusade, like a homeland — a concept that we find it hard to resist.

Back at the Yaoshang arena

Nevertheless, I missed the original flavour of Yaoshang back at home — those countless games and sports at the leikai lampak, many chaak chanaba programs, getting pampered by mom’s delicious insaangs and the list is endless. I do miss all my leikai friends and cousins, with whom I grew up together celebrating Yaoshang and many festivals to the fullest.

We do celebrate Yaoshang here but we celebrate it paying a due homage to all the best memories about the festival we have. I had wished many a times to celebrate Yaoshang in the city. I randomly shared my plans then but never had any support from anyone in particular.

This time, we managed to make a difference with the help of some very good friends. We wore colourful phanek on that day as a reminiscence of good old Yaoshang days. Nothing can beat that.

We do have terrific plans for celebrating the forthcoming Cheiraoba in yet another compensatory attempt to lessen the degree of missing home. No matter, how and why we celebrate it, what makes us feel good is the feeling of being together with our own folks in the city. We come from different leikais; most of us did not even know one another but then the nostalgia factor, like a strong yubi thouri, binds all of us together.

I am glad to share that a Yaoshang, Cheiraoba or Chakouba in Delhi will never be the same again. Thanks to all my friends who have supported me and chanura marup (a group of exported Meitei chanuras) in pioneering this endeavour. We hope we can repay our gratitude with a scrumptious Cheiraoba meal soon. You might even want to join us. Cheers!

This appeared in 7 April 2013 edition of the Sangai Express 

Where Have all the Local Games Gone?

Has it been a long time passing? ‘Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities’—I partially agree with Mark Twain, especially for this quote. From the context of our own Manipuri society, civilisation in fact seems to have multiplied many unnecessary wants and necessities amongst us. Citing just a mere example of the local games, modern kids have grown up playing with China-made electronic toys or computer games. Thence, they have zero idea about various indigenous games that were quite popular some good old years ago.

Come evening, we used to make our own play groups then and to decide upon which game we should play on that particular day. The Leikai Lampaks were frequented by kids from the nearby localities. Every evening it was quite an exciting experience—for each one of us to gather up somewhere with our favourite cousins or friends and indulge in playing anything or everything—till the evening transcends and till our worried moms would reach the playgrounds calling our names, shooing us homeward.

The annual (final) exams, during winter season, were greeted with open arms not because we were ready to conquer the questions but because a long vacation of almost three months was on the way. Sooner the exams ended, the better it was for us because we would not miss playing those games anymore. And especially on the last day of the exam, we didn’t mind being beaten up by our moms simply because we were caught playing in our school uniforms. Those were better than the best days of our lives indeed; and even if those days are never meant to come back, the memories satiate us, and at times, help us flick an innocent, unnoticed smile on our faces.

Today, we hardly see the kids playing those local games anymore. Computer games, play stations, tekken games—all these have become the favourites amongst the kids nowadays. Maybe their parents are rich enough to afford them all these civilised games; or maybe due to the exploding population and the mushrooming homes and buildings in each locality, there aren’t local grounds left for the children to play. Perhaps, the town has become quite a terrorised region that the parents are scared of sending their children to play somewhere at the local ground. Whatever may be the reason, it saddens me to a great extent that our local games are almost alien to the current generation. Though the age-gap is not even a decade, things seem to have gone haywire in all these years.

The other day during my latest weekend getaway at Lansdowne town with a few friends, we really enjoyed talking about all those games we used to play as kids then. I also discovered some pretty fascinating local jargons for one of the games which we usually know as ‘Swa’. The play norms at Khurai vary a little from Wangkhei (that I got it from our interesting conversations about this very game on that day). ‘Swa’ used to be one of the most favourite games we have ever played almost every evening especially during so many winter months. A game that used to invoke among us a thrilling gusto, I am gladdened than glad to admit that ‘yes it was the most enthusiastically played game amongst us during those carefree childhood days.’

Besides the swa-ful memories, the maarbon (Manipuri accent for marble) games used to engross us for long hours. While Swa was meant to be played during the evening, maarbon games were meant for the whole day. There is an ‘Emashi’ in our leikai who never allowed us to play maarbon at her shumaang. And of all the available shumaangs, quite ironically, hers was perhaps the most fascinating place for us to play any maarbon game. She used to shoo us away like anything but we were so damn care. Every morning we used to gather at her lawn and play the games until she would yell at us. Many a maarbons we lost frantically running away from her home, many a maarbons she didn’t return, but did anyone care about it? As long as we had another morning, another kouta of maarbons, we didn’t mind being called as shameless kids.

I don’t know the reason exactly, ‘Where have all the local games gone?’, but from my personal point of view, it seems to be an open threat to a meaningful slice of our cultural norms. I would be more than sorrow indeed to tell tales about our local games to my grand kids someday. But it seems most of us have to do that. It is more or less some kind of helplessness but who has a choice?

By and by, on a sweet note, to all my contemporary friends and acquaintances, let us keep cherishing all the good memories of our childhood days and about all those games we have played. Cheers!

This article was published on 20 Aug 2011