Let us be honest, how much do we know of the Northeast? I would say not much. We associate it with one of the monsoons, though the Southwest monsoon is more famous. What else about the Northeast monsoons? If it was too heavy, it affected cricket matches in the region. I remember the number of test matches which were lost due to rain in Chennai. And yet the BCCI went on allotting one test match to Chennai before Boss N. Srinivasan took over and invented a new nursery rhyme:
Come again another day
Big, fat Srini wants to play
This appeal was just like the recent judgments in the Srini cases!
Let me confess, I have never been to the region nor am I very familiar with its scenic beauty. In my boyhood, my family regularly subscribed to the most popular magazine of the day, The Illustrated Weekly of India, which had a children’s section, Our Young Folks League, handled by one Aunty Wendy and offered a Pen friends League. Thinking I could carry on a life-long correspondence, I chose a friend from Northeast, a Suzanne something something from Kohima, I think, and I began writing. I knew nothing about the family, friends or customs of my new pen friend and could not even correspond in English. But even in those days, I admired Tamil literature and penned Suzanne something on the beauty, sweetness and melody of the Tamil poem Tirukural. Well, I waited for some more months, no reply came, and I wondered how I could carry on pen friendship with someone who did not care for Tirukural.
The Northeast did not figure in any one of my thoughts. Jim Corbett’s hunting tales, I vaguely remembered, had something to do with the region. The region committed the unpardonable sin of not contributing to Indian cricket, it did not figure in Ranji cricket let alone test cricket. Well, I do want to be fair, Northeast is one of the greenest regions in the country, but during the days of my boyhood no one bothered about environment. As for its people, Nagas, Mizos and Bodos, they had not achieved prominence to figure in the media, which hardly bothered about carrying features on them.
Even Bollywood disappointed me in its coverage of the Northeast. In college, I watched a Bollywood blockbuster Ae Gulistan Hamara featuring of all people, Dev Saab – where his immaculate wardrobe was in full display – wooing and winning the hand of Sharmila Tagore who was in a sexy tribal costume. Whether it copied Northeastern fashions I would not know. The tribal leaders and the villains led by Ranjeet would give us nightmares and I comforted myself with the thought that we had not lost anything by missing out on the Northeasterners. Sharmila, one can be certain, was highly embarrassed by the film. Dev Saab redeemed himself in another film, this time on the lives of the Northeastern tea garden people. The story was from the pen of K. A. Abbas, but who was the heroine? I don’t remember.
I blame my ignorance for these lapses. The Northeasterners were as good, hardworking, and beautiful as the people from other states. They were slow to enjoy the fruits of civilisation, but when it finally came, found themselves involved in border disputes and petty power struggles with their neighbours. My own generation ignored them. In a way it was good, as they were kept away from most modern vices, chasing wealth, land and power. The Centre treated the region disdainfully and it is doubtful if the Modi government can bring about any changes for the better.
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V. Gangadhar
The writer is a well-known satirist.[/column]