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Showing posts from November, 2005

Manipur and Football

In its long history, the game of football has been an integral part of every manipuri. The game is in the blood of every manipuri. Just as Latin America is crazy about their football, we are not behind them when it comes to fan following and the love of the game. Every year the pologround in the heart of Imphal is jam packed on every day of the famous CC meet football tournament. Fans of both the teams and true lovers of the game converge to enjoy every match. The popularity of this game is so much that every locality has a football club. The amount of talent this tiny state possesses is enormous, so much so that half of the major Indian clubs are filled by players from the state. Sometimes the scouts go nuts on whom to select. But the recent controversy in the Santosh Trophy has left the people of Manipur feeling ill treated for the game that we love so much. The incident happened after Manipur's Tomba Singh scored Manipur's first goal from a beautiful free kick, the best free

EDUCATION???

EDUCATION??? a true incident in Bangalore, India It was around 5.30am on the 26th of Feb 2003, I had just returned from work and was feeling exhausted, not really exhausted I guess, but it was the stress that was getting into my head from last night's work. I was pondering on my thoughts as to what to do at the moment, so I decided to make a cup of tea and wait for the morning newspaper. The wait seemed to last for ages and the frustration of waiting for something was getting in. Then I decided to take a walk to get some fresh air of a typical bangalore morning. The morning air was fresh as it can be, there were people of various ages, some jogging for health, some on their way to work, some doing the usual poojas in front of their houses, rag pickers, the municipality van, the milkman, the next door shopkeeper, everything was as normal as usually it was. But something caught my eyes in the distance. The sight immediately prompted me to go up to person and talk to him. The sight wa

2 marriages, a tiring journey and finally home

2 marriages, a tiring journey and finally home This is an account of 2 different marriages and a journey back home to Imphal. I was home after 5 years. That's a long time. I guess quite long. So, What would be the perfect culmination of true love?... Marriage?... Or something else? I guess its different perceptions and people have different ways of defining it. so here I was, ready with a back pack, at the railway station, on a waiting list, tensed of how much money the ticket collector is going to demand, the anticipation of seeing a close friend after 6 years, 2 marriages to attend, a 15 day long journey, confused about which coach to get into, the whistle blows, the train starts to chuck out of the Bangalore city railway station, hoped in one of the coach, still tensed. 30 minutes into the journey, the most dreaded man in a train comes, the ticket collector. Looks dangerous, but a smile worked, 100 bucks and I got a seat for the night. The smell of human excreta announces the ar

The Menace

How, when and why AIDS? It is something that we have been drooling about for sometime. Manipur is a state where AIDS education and awareness is much higher than anywhere in India, even the metro cities of India do not possess this rate of education. Here I am going to deal with the problem that we all seem to hide rather not talk about it. This problem is with people who were drug users at some point of time and who are now clean and back in the society. Now we all know that the amount of risk that these people carry of having the disease is much higher than anyone else. The problem here is the family. It has been seen that the families generally tend to get the person married to someone so that, you know, he/she lives a decent life. But no one thinks about the risk. All that matters for them is for the person to get married and lead a totally different life, which in the society we call it as a CLEAN life. The risk here is enormous because it involves the wife/husband of the person, w

File a case if you have AIDS.

Imagine this: You are a bright young man/woman, who has got everything in life, money, esteem, security etc etc. Now you are ready to settle down in the bliss of a married life. You find someone or your parents find someone for you. You get married, you have the best time in your life, you have the best wife/husband in the world, and one day you find out that you have AIDS? What do you do? Cry out loud? Or fight for your right? Or just accept it as faith? I suggest you read on….. In a recent article published in the times of India, Delhi edition, it was brought to light how one can file a case if AIDS was transmitted by their spouse. We all seem to be quite ignorant about it when it comes to filling law suits. We live in a country where we are taught to accept everything as a result of faith or destiny. Now the times are changing and things are going the American way, least we can put that way. There is a law for everything in the US of A, India also has. The difference is that there p