The Angry God and Goddesses – The Reasons

Omila Thounaojam *

A cleanliness drive organised at Ima Keithel :: Pix : Inat Yokhat Lup - Kangla

What could be the starting point? I mean where to begin and how exactly could I describe. I'm not a critical insider and not even a critical outsider to illustrate and demonstrate the state of affairs as precisely as it could be. But one thing is for sure and it is this that everything looks scattered and somehow out of place.

Many logical explanations could be offered but seriously not even one is reasonable enough for the kind of mess that's the truth so damn visible. Look at our "nupi keithel" (ema keithel) and its surrounding that is located at the heart of the capital. It is heartbreaking to see the blossoms hanging at the entrances of the building juxtaposed with the smelly junk lying so loose next to it near the steps.

The situation is as if they are crying and pleading asking us to recognize the beauty that it embodies. The scenic charm that it holds are all ruined by the wasted garbage and mini mountains it creates just next to it.

How many times can welfare societies come forward and do social service? How many times can they clean and try to spread welfare messages crying out loud "to make the city green and beautiful?" There is no limit to spoil anything and at the same time, there is unlimited ways in which one could beautify the world with limited resources.

I went to Paona Bazar yesterday and was desperately looking for some beautiful show piece flowers for decoration purpose and the irony I noticed was spellbound. There were many people who wanted artificial flowers and leafy decor-based items and when I got to hear the prices of each piece, it made me feel funny. Including myself there were many who got it too at high cost.

Awkward perhaps but we all paid generously for the "artificial" look-alikes of natural flowers that contain no smell and life but just the feel of a flower blossoming in our drawing room spaces. May be this is the truth of our lives today. Call me insane for imagining so high and fertile out of a simple situational call but I will say it again, we have become artificial too.

So much so to the extent that even our Gods and Goddesses are angry now and have abandoned or even are at the verge of abandoning us for the sake of sanity. We pay high to be near nature and to go herbal and organic. We kill the contents of nature at the same time to earn high and pay prices and buy a purer healthier life. What a maddening small world where things crazy go on and on and ceaselessly make us revolve round and round and round around meaningless business.

Where to draw the line when all that we do is dumping the garbage anywhere, anytime and every time as long as it is not our own campus. Our main nupi keithel is just one instance to cite here.

Can't make sense out of such a horrific scene where in, on the one hand, we offer our homage to the keithel ema lainrembi with sweet scented incense sticks and oil lamps for a grand day and on the other hand, without inhibition, just dump plastic bags, spoiled fruits and other things right on the passage way. There is no hesitation when it comes to dirtying our surroundings and polluting the environment.

Yet we still assume that our Gods and Goddesses will continue residing in our midst. How can that be possible? It's high time now that we forbid seeing the mild sides of our Creator and starts imagining "how" the changes around must have transformed them beyond our usual assumptions.

What do you think they must feel like when we start our day not with a prayer but with a "Zarda" paan or leave all the rooms smelled with wine and beers during late nights all because we have become urban dwellers. The question of maintaining an ideal form of life is the main thrust of my write today. Now many may feel like asking "what" exactly can be the ideal way of life I'm talking here.

Seriously it may differ from individual to individual but the only thing that I'm sure of is this that we have departed from a pattern of life that kept the sacred at a highly regarded level. We have placed the holy sides of our tradition at some corners of our homes only to be remembered on a religious day. Like the make-shift funga to be lighted on an Emoinu day, we have been living a make-shift life that keeps on shifting its values systems based on our convenience.

"Convenience" is all that matters to us and that's why we don't hesitate in creating a dust-bin out of a park. Who knows that day is not that far, when we will live on buildings surrounded by garbage parks and don't even have to walk on grounds but travel by air ways and live a Godless life when an upload of an offering to the airy angry God on websites will be the ultimate truth.