Dr. Mohendra Irengbam Singh's 'Points to Ponder'
- Part 2 -

Prof JC Sanasam *

A writer is dear and necessary for us only in the measure in which he reveals to us the inner working of his soul – Leo Tolstoy

The writer does the most who gives reader the most knowledge, and takes from him the least time – Sydney Smith

Dr. Mohendra Irengbam taunts at the innate mutterings of religious people or people of faith saying, 'Ishwar kee leela' or 'Allah kee meherbani' or 'it's God's will'. He wants to be a free thinker. Whether he believes in the existence of God or not, or is it a fallacy, he seriously debates in depth here in this book.

Points to Ponder
Dr Mohendra Irengbam Singh
Vrinda Publications (P) Ltd Delhi 2013
Price: Rs. 350/- Pages 420

However he has challenged with a vital question, 'What was God doing before He created the Universe?' The answer will be difficult. Logically God also must have been born with the birth of the universe. He captions a paragraph, 'God Particle – Found on July 4, 2012' in his article 'The God Particle and God', page 319-324. Perhaps scientists are going to claim, in fact they have already begun to, that neutrino, a sub-atomic particle that permeates everywhere in the universe and in the bodies of the living organisms, in reaction with 'Higg's field' is the phenomenon that created the universe and lives on earth later. Hence scientists have used the word 'God Particle' as the nomenclature of this complex.

About the 'flat-broke' grim situation of power supply in Manipur Dr. Irengbam remarks, 'Some 15 million babies are born prematurely every year in the world and one million will die while many others are disabled. But 75% of these deaths could be avoided if electricity and expensive drugs that only science provides were available in both the developed and developing countries' (WHO), - Energy Conservation and Immoral Electricity in Manipur, page143-146.

He is absolutely right to have commented, 'Electricity is an energy that does all kinds of work.' The modern world is one where energy and its technology is the cornerstone of everything. If a place or region is deficient of this essential merchandise then it has to live in its history only. It is baffling what Manipur is doing about electricity at this kind of situation at this present age. Who can say what if it is the wish of the state or the people. In vision of a Green Earth some countries have already started to generate electricity from 'technologies … to use saline sea water for energy production … from solar ponds and algae (kang in Manipuri)… solar ponds with salt water trap the heat from the sun that can be used to generate electricity'.

Many immensely interesting and mind blowing topics in good numbers are here in this book. A modern man better read it if he wants to know where he is living, where he stands, what happened before he was born, what is going on in the environment around him and many more new things, explored lately.

Mohendra is a born writer. His evolution from being a physician clinician to becoming a writer itself is the evidence. The outer cocoon may be of strong elemental sheet, if one is to be a born writer, nothing can resist the writer inside the cocoon. Perhaps he never toyed with the idea of becoming a writer at the first place during his early days. When he began to drift towards retiring from active professional job he took to reading.

The fruit came out, his first book, My Search for God, followed by two more, Quest beyond Religion and another. During his boyhood and youthful days he grew up as an agnostic and skeptical unbeliever (if not non-believer). Who could say reminiscence of these boyhood days of his will bring nostalgia of his home and neighborhood to him later in his life?

Meandering into the memory lane how he went to swim with friends in the ponds at Lamphel Pat under the shadow of the Langol Hills, how he and his friends came back from school, barefoot on the Uripok-Kangchup road, dusty during winter and muddy during rainy season, how they used to clasp at the back of a truck (a Chevrolet Lorry, they used to call it) that used to trudge along that road to reach home faster or maybe just for the heck of enjoying a short ride, intense nostalgia very often rushed in him. It is a natural feeling for somebody who loves his birth place. The fruit of this love was his book, The Origin of the Manipuris: Manipuri is not a Tibeto-Burman Language. He did not stop with that. He continued writing a Sunday column in the local daily Sangai Express (English version) and this book Points to Ponder took its birth.

It is difficult to judge what genre this book belongs to. There are certain elements to call it kind of an autobiography or kind of a travelogue, or a scientific essay on the origin of the universe and lives on it, or something all about Manipur. Part by part he writes as an anthropologist, at times as an archaeologist, a geologist, a physicist, a geneticist, a linguist, a historian, a philosopher, a theology expert, a psychologist, a neuroscientist, an astronomer, a cosmologist; he can fit anywhere, with fascinating facts and truthful materials at that.

An anthropologist or an archaeologist or geologist normally goes to the field for their works; Dr. Irengbam's work-field is his library which undoubtedly has a huge collection of information and documentations. It is a feat of the philanthropist in him that he started to contribute his columns with this series of information for the sake of the growth of knowledge among the youths in Manipur, or of any place elsewhere.

I am sure I would not be wrong to say that Dr. Mohendra Irengbam Singh is maintaining a good health in spite of his age, and I wish he lives many, many more years to write more precious things to enlighten the knowledge-thirsty pillars of the future generation of the human race.

Concluded...