Flipping through old photo albums, I always joked that these pictures spoke of a rags-to-riches story. Another time, I laughed at the way adults employ such corrupting methods to get inherently materialistic children on their good side with baits like confections and toy figurines. Other times, when I feel struck by poeticism, the transformation of an unkempt knife-wielding-child somewhere under the age of four into a well bathed, dolly bedecked ‘girl’ wearing a more cultured smile seems surreal. The simple transformation of the uprooted and uncarved tree stump or the open landscape into a furnished apartment in the city seems like backgrounds upon which I were simply displaced from and superimposed. Sometimes, I find my own speech and accent strange as if that too were affected.
There in the rural origins, I had breathing animals to hold. My late grandfather and I even herded goats, walking distances on hills together. The photograph with my grandmother shows our bedroom in the old village-home. It was taken the day when possibly the first Russian speaking-singing doll came to the outskirts of Ukhrul; sent all the way from a distant land by my ‘future-mother’. And in perhaps another great example of our mind’s capacity to generate false memories, I claim to remember waking up to a rare sight: the gift of a doll of Caucasian beauty.
I lived with my maternal grandparents in the village till the age of four. At four, I moved to the capital city with my aunt who adopted me. The earliest memory of meeting her is a hazy one. She came to visit. I cannot quite recollect whether the outlandish two-piece satin suit she wore was maroon or saffron — (Whether or not the current politico-religious scenario has managed to colour my childhood memories is uncertain). We were on our way to fetch water from the little pond behind the house. All I knew was that this strange woman, rather chubby for us villagers, was going to take me away from my grandparents. I asked her coldly, and as rude as a child could be, “Ne tiu-Chon mi?” (“Are you Aunt Joan?“). In my mind, I had laid a tense and hostile atmosphere to intimidate her. The next minute, she slipped on the mud, made slippery enough with early drizzle for the city dweller visiting her hometown. At that moment I burst out laughing. I cried when she left Ukhrul. She was a busy air hostess (or flight attendant, as they say it today) who had to return to work. She would send chocolates, clothes and toys to us.
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One day, she came back and took us all to the home in the millennium city. There, I adapted and my grandparents returned not too long after. They’d visit again. Left with her, I knew only my mother tongue that lost its functionality outside the house. Just like the doll’s language that had no currency in a small town like Ukhrul, a small town language had no currency in a big city like Gurgaon. The doll, left behind, must have rubbed off some of its ill fortune on the one that took its place. Nonetheless, things kept improving for me. As for the doll, I doubt it ever learned to speak Tangkhul from the blabbering of one local toddler to the other.
My mother’s friends occasionally tell me stories of their early encounter with me. Once I gave a sharp kick to one Mizo aunty on the shin out of frustration. She had been communicating with me through nods and intoned yeses. We had been managing one sided conversations until one of her yeses fell unfavourably where she should have given a resounding no. Another aunty said I would make animal noises like low rumbles of big cats, stretching my hand out in a claw and scratching the air before their unfamiliar northern faces; a reflex reaction to them leaning in to pinch my cheeks, pre-signalled by infantilizing small talk.
One story that my mother narrated revealed ayi (grandmother in Tangkhul language), to be a bit of a scammer. She had touted me as an extremely well behaved child who never even looked at what was in another’s plate during mealtimes and ate just what was served; did not waste nor ask for more. In the city-home, when my grandparents had left, my mother recalled asking me sweetly if I wanted another spoon of rice. It was a rather big rice spoon for a tiny bellied one. It seems I nodded with an aggressive grunt, all the while staring intently at the meat on her plate. I jumped about, hardly sleeping in the afternoons, Tandav dancing on the bed around her and orating, sermonizing in the newly acquired Hindi, while she slept or tried to sleep. I would watch, identify with and imitate hyper characters portrayed by the likes of Jim Carrey and Govinda. So much so that she had to wean me off of it to inculcate a façade of normalcy to aid social interactions in the real world.
Teasing and inevitable racism at school was another hurdle she helped me jump over. The first time I felt or realized there was a ‘difference’ was when another kid in a Montessori school asked, “Why are your eyes so small?” I came home, looked into the mirror, and held my eyes wide open with my thumbs and index fingers. And asked my mother why my eyes were small. She gave me some scientific and geographic explanation that probably sufficed. Questions of such kind, unlike the innocently curious ones between children playing together, would turn dumber and malicious as I grew older. But people are growing aware of the North-East region now, and so the questions have shifted towards gender. Occasionally, curious ones ask me what my gender is on some days when I choose not to conform to the standard or don’t look ‘woman’ enough even on days when I wear floral prints.
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After high school, I went on to study English Literature and then International Relations. These courses taught and continue to teach about lives and processes across cultures and societies as people and things move about. It is a wondrous thing. I find it so on days when I’m not caught up in the personal and the mere syllabus. I’m still learning, adapting and reforming as one ought to. Now I don’t see those old rural photos as I did before. I see a free and healthy childhood spent with people who cared for one another. I moved from one matrix of absurdity to another, forming new nexuses of bonds. Both homes have changed so much from the static images that float about, appear and disappear in our minds. I’m unafraid of returning to the rural and the lack of capitalistic material pleasures, appreciating creative commodities all the more. Friendships and unlikely bonds with people from various backgrounds, nationalities, genders, and belief systems despite our differences amidst all the violence over resources, is a wondrous thing if I may say it again. Any family structure based on mutual love, care and understanding, functions as well as a traditional one based on the same. Let us be open and welcome mobility.
And so I wish to be able to tell stories of people and things, places and spaces that don’t yet exist. Our stories are among the seas of remarkable tales that complement each other, constantly moving and crashing upon the shores of diaries, news, social media, books, ears, and eyes. Let us continue to share our lives, our stories.
Jessica Jakoinao is a freelance writer and editor who particularly likes to work with experimental fiction. She is the deputy editor at ptenopusmag.com, an online literary magazine on art and triviality.
Iwui Story is a segment aimed to add tremendous life’s values and richness of human compassion through intimate stories of other people’s life experiences, adjoining a ‘reflective piece’ for each readers as the story present themselves with its richness of wisdom, of failures, achievements, tears, of joy, love and affection. A wholesome piece of life lessons and reflections.
Look out for this space.
If you think you have a story that will impact and help change lives, do send in your story to ukhrultimesdesk@gmail.com
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