Once I rang up home around 9:30 pm.

Mom picked up the phone and whispered to me, " Hellooooo....".

I was surprised and asked mom why she was whishpering. Still she was whishpering so softly, I had to press the reciever so hard to my ear in order to stop any escape of the feeble voice that came from the other side.

Mom told that there was some firing!! going on and it seemed to her that the sounds came from just a kilometer away from our residence. Instead of comforting her, I was laughing. I told mom, " Come on mom, it's nothing new!".

This short conversation flashed me back several times during the night and I couldnt catch a wink.

I somehow felt that I have accepted the fate of Manipur as I felt.

As a teenager, I had been outside Manipur and have not really felt the stint of difficulties that my family faced all these years. Now I am here in a different land all over again, so far from my own hometown.

My days starts with work and ends up wrapping my work and weekend is for outing and having some fun. With my style of living, I found it so difficult to accept something which is predominantly ailing my own home state.

I loathe to think of going back to Manipur and settle there. The only comforting factor being that I have my parents and my sibling there.

Quite a number of times, I had proposed my mom to bring everyone here and leave that dreaded place.

Lots of problem ranging from economic blockade to general strikes.. prices of commodities soaring high... which in turn affects the whole economic cycle in the family.

Sometimes I stop and ponder, am I correct when I asked mom and everyone else to leave Manipur.

Am I trying to escape from reality?
Am I scared to face the truth??

Questions galore revolves round my grey cells. At the end of everything I somehow come to this conclusion that I am correct.

How could a SON be wrong to ask his MOTHER to come to a safer place to live. And I counter questioned myself," What reality I am talking about and what's wrong in escaping from a dreaded place to a safer place?".

The long and short of it is that I agree to disagree the belief that we should in the crowd to feel the crowd.

Being a student moulded in scientific ambience, I rather think of moving an object using a fulcrum. The farther you are, the better chances for you the move the object effectively.

This sums up the reason why I rather feel fortunate to be away from my home state and work in a foriegn land and ask my family back home to join me.

The farther I go I have a better chance to learn about Manipur and to get ways and means to do away with all the ailings.

We have formed usergroups of all Manipuris across the globe, imparting informations and doing ground works as to how to lift the several issues which our people are facing.

We do respect the heroes who have come out on the fore and decided to fight against all odds being in the crowd.

But frankly put, I or we intend to be out of the crowd and fight.