Going Back to my Roots

Today I went back to my roots. My family drove to Chungliyimti to visit Longtrok. Longtrok is where, many say, the Aos come from. Longtrok translates to ‘six stones’ and it has been told that the Aos came from these six stones. Stories say that these six stones were three couple stones and they are considered as the ancestors of the Aos.

The Longtrok Site

We had never been to Chungliyimti but early this morning, we packed our lunch in two pretty flower printed hot cases and started off on our journey. The roads were not in the best condition but we made our way to Chare Town. There, we stopped to ask for directions because Dad was not confident about the way after Chare. Last night, Dad had wondered out aloud whether we would find someone to help us around the place. Dad stepped out of the car and went to ask for directions. He came back with a guy who was going the same way we were, and he offered to come with us till Chungliyimti. Me, being the nut I am, joked about how it was fate and that maybe the guy might have seen this happen in his dreams last night. In reality however, it was Dad’s wish from last night being granted.

On the way, we stopped at his parents’ place. We met his parents; his father seemed like a simple humble man. He, very sweetly, offered us water and asked us to drop by on the way back. When we reached Chungliyimti, we stopped at a man’s place because the man who had the keys had gone off hunting. The people there offered us water, and later tea, and spoke to us about the history of the place. While I sat there listening to them, I saw three teenagers put up Christmas lights and decorations, while two dogs walked around them giving them company. I could not help but feel drawn to the aura of comfort and ease the village gave out; the people looked happy and content with what they had and where they were.

Longtrok; the six stones.

A pile of stones next to Longtrok

One of the men managed to get the keys to the gate at the Longtrok site and as we walked about five minutes to the site, I felt a gush of excitement kick through me. The stones were under a big tree; two of the stones looked like they were coming out from under the bark of the tree where the roots held to the ground. They said that all the six stones stood that way, protruding out of the roots, earlier but had fallen with age. A stump was left remaining next to the big tree, where another tree stood — lightning had struck the tree and it had fallen.  Next to the tree and the six rocks, there was another pile of rocks and a shape on the bigger rock reminded me of female genitalia — of birth and new beginnings.

Rocky slope where there are visible foot marks, supposedly
of our ancestors.

They also took us to a rocky slope where people believe our ancestors had once walked on. We could see, on the slope, crevices well shaped into rounded foot marks and steps owing to the toil of daily labour. The people there today no longer walk through that area but the history of our ancestors’ path remained there in the form of well-shaped footsteps on the now mossy rocks. As I stood there, I somehow felt a connection to the past — like a part of history.

Visible foot marks on the mossy slope

On our way back, we stopped at the same house as promised and we were offered tea and sun dried bananas. They were so welcoming and we sat there chatting about our family, their family and our trip to Longtrok. We were even given gifts — two bottles of fruit juice — by the generous, hospitable family. We thanked then and bade them goodbye, with hopes that we would see them again someday.

I cannot say and prove that this story of the origin of the Aos from Longtrok is true. I cannot totally say that I firmly and wholly believe in it as well. What I do believe in are the people that I met today — I believe in people. It is true that we all need something tangible to believe in; something palpable like the six stones and the foot marks on the rocks. For me, though, human beings give me faith. It is also true that the sense of the, for lack of a better, supernatural, is not brought about when it comes to mortal beings like us. But today, I saw the mystic and the heavenly in the hospitality of the people we met today. I saw faith and fate in the little village that held onto their roots and onto the goodness of communal richness. It might have hit me hard because I have just returned from an unfamiliar Delhi after almost a year, but the warmth of the people, the series of hospitable events and the comfort with which they welcomed us left me touched. Today, I went back to my roots; my roots of hospitality, of social harmony and rich social and cultural history.

THE NEED TO RELEARN GRAMMAR

At quite a very young age, we learn to recite the English Alphabets and write them. We undoubtedly learn our alphabets by memorizing them but this foundation becomes so rigid that all throughout our years in the educational system, we learn by memorizing. Memorizing has become synonymous to learning and this has raised many concerns. Our present educational system, in the recent years, has thus taken early steps and now our courses demand slight practicality in all subjects. But our ways of learning, which are still rooted in memorizing has increased the call and need to relearn grammar in our growing English-speaking society.
In kindergarten, we learn English by memorizing. So, our beginning steps to English are memorized steps, and some might argue that there cannot be any other step than the present one. This is certainly an interestingly debatable argument, because all of us learn by imitation, but what I wish to discuss on are the steps that follow these ‘foundation steps’ previously stated.
Grammar is the whole structure of English as a language. We learn grammar in the classes after kindergarten where our minds are better developed to understanding syntax, morphology and other intricate components of grammar. But during these beginning grammar steps, memorizing comes into sway. And most students end up memorizing the answers to the often unchanged and unchallenging “Fill in the Blanks” questions that come under the grammar section of our question papers. We fill them in as memorized and without proper or any understanding on it. This hinders our knowledge on grammar and in the next class, grammar becomes uninteresting because what should have been learnt last year, was not.
In middle school, during our time, the grammar subject was called “English II”. I remember a particular incident when our teacher asked us what the other name for “English II” was. Embarrassingly, no one could answer. All I heard being answered was “English” without the “II”. This incident subtly shows how less we know of grammar.
Grammar is a journey so intriguing and any child, if only given a push towards curiosity, will find its adventure breathtaking and unending. I agree with Ken Robinson’s statement that if a child is curious, he/she can take in massive amounts of knowledge without much aid from teachers. We all know this to be true, because we have all been children at one point. And we have all learnt a thousand things just because we were curious. It is worthwhile pondering on why in the incident above, my fellow students could not answer to the question that was asked. Could it be because no one had told us to memorize that? Could it be because something had failed to spark our inbuilt curiosity.
Grammar and its rules are like Mathematics theorems; if you learn them once, you can use it to solve all the ‘solutions’. Once you understand grammar in all its simplicity, you can get the answer to all your problems. Those hazy moments when you could not decide whether it should be ‘principal’ or ‘principle’ and ‘this’ and ‘these’ will definitely be solved.
The fad for memorizing our grammar answers has had such a damaging effect on the ‘English’ of a large amount of our educated population who sometimes cannot make out the difference between ‘send’ or ‘sent’. We ‘spell by ear’ and ‘write by ear’ and I am confident in saying that we would not be doing it had our beginning grammar steps been otherwise. Confusing ‘fate’ with ‘faith’, ‘save’ with ‘safe’, ‘advice’ and ‘advise’, muddling up tenses and putting plurals and singulars at wrong places, and often at the same places, are little instances that urge us to relearn grammar.
Simple and proper sentence construction has become a harder task than teaching our dogs to do their jobs at the right places. This is because we have been keen to memorizing and our expressive composition skills have been curbed in turn. We express in our own mother tongue or Nagamese and translate them to English both in composition and speaking and one can imagine the disarrayed result.
Sticking to textbooks and not venturing to other creative or literary books outside of syllabus has evidently grown into us. We forget to keep reminding ourselves that “One should be a great reader to be a good writer”. The need to read goes hand in hand with the need to relearn grammar. Those that are familiar with the musty scent of books are those that are familiar with grammar. The same hands that hold these musty books are the same hands that pen down grammar in all its true sense.
Grammatical errors have become a historical plague amongst our learned people. It is time we stop depending on technology to correct our errors and indulge in the journey of the need and want to relearn grammar. We should nurture in ourselves the spark of curiosity, acquire linguistic knowledge by ways apart from memorizing, write and spell by knowledge and attempt to be a good reader.
As a literature student, I have penned down passionate solutions to this malady of bad grammar. But I anticipate that scholars and students from other fields will come up with further varied, interesting and perhaps more practical ways to formulate a vaccine for this malady. Until then, let us keep up our thirst for grammar, simply grammar.

 

A PAGE FROM MY DIARY

Dear Diary

     It takes time to get used to the new but anything becomes old and ordinary with time. Time, however, undoubtedly fixes and heals anything. Time can even turn the ordinary into the precious. A little ironic isn’t it? Explains how certain things become brown yet costly antiques and how certain people, perhaps even complete strangers, become people that have so much power over our hearts and our emotions. 

     Adi turned twenty four yesterday. Part of me feels that it is unrealistic to reminisce how far we’ve all come.  Indeed, Time has played its part. It can be both a friend and an enemy though. Will there ever come a time in our lives when we will wish that time had never crossed us, will there come a time when we wish that we could turn back time and change a thing or two, will there come a time when we wish for more time, will there come a time when we wish that we knew naught of time?

     Human life is full of surprises. It is amazing how much a human body can grow, how much a human brain can learn, how fast a human cut can heal, and how much a human heart can love and hurt at the same time

     I have started my quest for my future university. It is funny how trivial things can shake our dedication and test our patience. Uncertainty eats us up but somehow keeps self-complacency at bay. The mystery lies in the approaching revelation to certain anonymities of one’s future. The need for disclosure keeps us pushing forth with a power that can only be described as benign. The need to discern and discover this anonymity will always keep us on the search, driven by this benign force that all of us are given. Here’s to the search for all things new for life is all but too short.

Yours always,

Aren.