New Year

This last night of dying year
Orion is bright in the flooding seas of stars
But then what does this new year mean to them
Is it that they appear and disappear?
Then what does this New Year mean to us
That we disappear and never appear?
When my body my soul and my heart
Blooms into glorious yellow blossoms
In the meadows some day
Why wonder?
When the rhythm of July rain
Echoes as my footsteps
In the fields of this valley some day
Why wonder?
Though you are miles away
On my couch in this cold December night
I wrap a poem for you
In the warmth of my breath
In the scent of my tresses
So that when you open it
You read me in the poem.

To My Love

The moment you dethrone

That goddess in your heart

And replace it with me

Allow me to know

Let me taste it with a vengeance

The day when you wish to say

‘Let’s go home’

I am standing by

Ready to leave everything aside

To set forth hand in hand

When you want to let loose yourself

And swim in my wave

When you want to drown yourself

In the depth of me

Drunk with me

You just have to tell me

But never ask me where I go

In the midst of the dark night

Never ask me what I metamorphosed into

In the full moon light

Never ask me why

I vanish in those sullen evening

Never ask me to lock my doors

You never know when my wings burst forth

Never ask me to bind my hair

For my comrades trace me through its scent

My beloved!

Never ask me my revelation.

Nomads and their Caravans

Halt the advancing dreamlets

They only show the earthly

Hold the flapping winglets

They only tempt freedom

Hold the flooding starlets

They only drown souls

Halt the ticking timelets

The past is already brimming

Halt that story teller

That narrates my legend

Declining to be the heroin

I decide to join the caravans

Of nomads of this tribe of woman

Tonight as I decide to marry

I prepare my trousseau

These dreams; these wings

These stars; these ticking times

See my groom on the horizon

He who nonchalantly walks towards me

I have not seen him ever before

But I do know his gait,

I do know his hair ruffled by the fingers of wind

I do know his scent

Like drifting from fresh bamboo grooves

I do know he is the one who should be coming

Long lost; long foretold to be found

The long time ticks away

Sand’s last grain slips through my fist

Right here; right now

I am a bride all over again

Broken Twig

Goddess of winter is at last awake
There are arrivals of departures
Of seasons and peoples
Bees of hours suck honey
From the flowers of my chronicle
Of love of an eternal whore
Every season brings a relic
From some far-away corner
Where the twilight scatters his shadow
Tentacles of nameless desires
Slither within me
Like swimming in the flood of wind
Like walking with no end
In the trimmed fields of ripe paddy
Like laying at the foothill
Caressing the green fur of the mammoth mountain
Like knitting a yarn from the cotton cloud...
Of all ...
Golden evening sky with the lonesome star
Broke the branches of my heart
My tears are none but
The dew at the tip of a broken twig

Open Door

When you wake up from my arms

When the glow worms beckons you

When you wish to read

The golden poems written by dusk on the horizon

                                        The door is painfully open

When the orchids have woven their garlands

When the thunder wakes you up

When you wish you disentangle

Your fingers from my hair

                                        The door is painfully open

When the echoes from highlands come to blow

With the growl of the valley

When you wish to take up your weapon                 

Of warhead with rose

When you wish to whisper the last word

                                         The door is painfully open

When you want to become the son of this earth

When the throne await you to be crowned

When you wish to dethrone

The maiden of this soil

                                        The door is painfully open

When the “chengi”of tresses of other woman lures you

When the songs of my valley no more pleases you

When you wish to shrug off from my aroma

From the cage of my love

                                     The door is painfully open

Beneath the Chattra

In one such twilight of May

When prophesy from laibung

Hums like bees in air

Fading sun languorous around your face

I wiped the sweat on your brow

Under those branches

Beside the running stream

We cast net and caught dreams  

Now it’s time to set them free

Once more

Into the ever running flow

Of river of dreams drown and lost

Once more

You came to measure the cost of my smile

When it soars into the sky

Like a kite with an endless twine

In the rain of this valley

You came and sat with me

You are gone so as the rain

Yet once more I am wet

You came

Like every day you come

Just to say “chatlage”

I tucked leihao on my ear

Once more I watch you

Recede through the laibung

You took from me

A fiber of my phanek

A wisp of my hair

A mark of my teeth on your fingers

And I sat under the Chattra

Gazing into loneliness

That flash of our departure

I become your mother and your woman 

Once more

Dance in the Time of War

In this Laibung, the ground where the lai haraoba is performed,  the smell of leihao, a kind of flower that is pale yellow in color with very sweet scent which Meitei women usually tie it in a strand of loose hair or tucked in buns pervades. This is the laibung of Ema Chaning Lairembi, the local diety of my locality Phoijing as a whole which consists of Nambol Awang Leikai, Phoijing Makha, Phoijing Chingning and Tera Makhong.

It was in the twilight of a fine mid month of May the offering of Jagoi khutthek to the local lairembi began. I a daughter of this land was there to offer the goddess my humble and sincere obeisance.

Women with Mapannaiba Phanek and the Namthang Phee with its borders of multivariate colors and 

design flooded the laibung. The Namthang Phee nowadays in a corrupted form is also known by many as Lamthang. It is a special chaddar or phee worn on the occasion of Lai Haraoba. It is white color with borders of variety of color and dotted floral works on the main body of the chador. The border used to be mainly of orange or dark yellow in color but with the change in fashion the variety of color has multiplied and become more vibrant. Nowadays a silk chador called Rani phee is also used with the trend changed. The colors ranged from violet to red, the spectrum of sunlight (VIBGYOR).  Some were with bright turquoise, some with dark orange, some with bright ocean blue and others with violet-purple.

Although in flashes I could see the color of blood and the color of bullet among those many colors of the borders of Namthang, I saw the long perished faces among them as if they too came from wherever they are to participate in the Lai Haraoba. But they were done away as momentary delusion. When I saw the phanek mapannaiba I saw in every alternate parallel lines of black and pale pink the story of our lives….the alternate nature of happiness and sorrow. The twilight followed by a dawn and the despair followed by a hope. Yet in our society this rhythmic alteration of life has become either so frequent or sometimes so slow that at times some of us waiting for dusk our lives dawned without our own realization. 

The Marei pareng, a kind of necklace worn by Meitei women in the time of celebration supposedly made of gold, adorn their necks.  The bright off-white chandon, a design made on the forehead with a special kind of paste made of clay call chandon, was brightly visible. Nachom( a bunch made of different flower) tucked in the ears or at times in the hair-bun of married women or just made to swing with the overflowing tresses of the leishabies ( unmarried women) are beautiful sight. Leigi nachom usually consists of takhellei, chini champrana and rose. Aadhunik eshei (modern Manipuri song) ‘takhelei nachom na samjida, chini champrana napada’ reflects that idea of nachom.  

Where else should I go to find this sight? It’s not about the magnificence, not about the grandeur not about the extravaganza, it simply about how much it can turn your heart on when you are there after so many years and when you have actually forgotten the taste of your native land when you actually have only memories left and nothing else to share. What else could be more beautiful what else could be lovelier than our women and our people? 

Before the beginning of the jagoi I knelt in front of ema Lairembi to pray. When I closed my eyes it came to me what should I pray for. I realized there are many things I could pray for. Should I pray for good health, for a good groom or a good job? I tried but I could not and I do not know why. I prayed for only one thing… for life… for life to go on… that was the only thing I could ask for at that moment.

The jagoi began with the music and the songs of amaiba and amaibi. The song goes thus:

Mamang Leikai Thambal shaatle

Khoimuna Elle Khoiraba

Shabi Lao lao maangda tharo lao

Kallakpa yammi kanjaoba yammi

Mangda tharo lao

Lanshonbi lamyaida mono ware pothapham

Eepamgi lamdam yenglubadi nungshiba maigeibu taamhoure

Shabi ene macha pammubi

Chingnungi sana loktudagi paibirakloda…

Chekla paikhrabada pombi hanjillakpada

Cheklagi kaidongpham khangdabana

Pombi kangaonare….

Haraore haraore

Sibuthoina haraoba subidathoina nungaiba leibara

Leibanida……….

Jagoi khutthek katpa means offering the movements dance to the diety. In the lai haraoba dance is not just for fun, pleasure or show but its purpose is to offer the very act of dancing to the diety consequently becomes a part of the ritual.  Jagoigi khuthek khudingda, with the every movement of the dance I could see only the tranquility, the fulfillment, the joy and the love of our life. The lengthy chapter of life the stories of maladies, the sense of widowhood, the sense of losing sons and daughters in AIDS, sense of waiting for someone who will never return and some who will return to an empty chengphu ( a big pot where rice is stored after husking off. It is an inevitable part of every kitchen in Meitei community) that very night eclipsed for a moment.

It was the aura of a sheer fulfillment. That was the moment of amazement at our eternal capacity to be happy to be joyful at the face of all adversities. That night we all became just living beings who have for a moment left behind all the essences this world has thrusted upon us.

I could see young mothers with all their gracious jagoi khuthek and their young children watching them. Whenever their respective mothers pass by in front of them with the forward progression of the dance they try to reach out to their mothers and scream  ‘mama mama!’ crying trying to go to them. I thought if my own child was among the crowd at that moment she would have reached out to me in the same manner. What can be lovelier than this? It was simply beautiful. I smiled and kept on with my Jagoi khuthek following the progression of dance led by the Amaibies. That was a celebration with dreams in each pair of eyes as much as in mine. It was a dance of a new beginning as much as of an archaic end.

May Chaning Lairembi bless us!