Narrative

  • The virtue of Stubbornness
    This may not work at first because we have never looked at stubbornness as a virtue. So that idea will always encounter resistance. It is politically incorrect to be stubborn. The word stubbornness has been use
  • Teachers of yesteryear
    A few days ago, Aziebu Shaiza sent me a WhatsApp message about the passing on of one of our teachers. Mrs Sulekha Sen had died in Kolkata. It was such a pull from the past, and a sad reminder that we were stead
  • The business of life
    I don’t want to ascribe to the philosophy of ‘The show must go on’ when a great loss occurs in the middle of life. To stop everything we are doing, to pay our respects, and mourn, and remember and treasur
  • Postally Speaking
     By a stroke of luck, I happened to arrive at an address on the same day that a parcel I had sent five days before, arrived. I was so surprised to see that there was not a scratch on it; the parcel box sho
  • After Xavier
    It is quite difficult to come up with a eulogy for a person who was so respected and loved in his circle as Xavier Rutsa was. Everything that needs to be said has already been said and any more than that would
  • Time for the masculine voices
    A couple of weeks separate the launchings of two books by two of our male authors. The first one is Jim Kasom’s Homecoming and other Stories published by Promilla and Co, Bibliophile South Asia. Jim Wungramya
  • Bluedarting and the whole idea of Courier
    Just as I was losing all confidence in courier services anywhere beginning with Blue Dart, they actually made a home delivery. Not in Kohima, but in a faraway Indian city. It was, as a matter of fact, rather la
  • Summer, sister of Rain
    She unknotted her hair and wound it into a tighter knot catching all the loose strands together. Soon she had stepped into the watery field again, finishing a portion they had left undone. By now the skies were
  • Art dealings with trauma
    Trauma is such a terrible word, isn’t it? I suspect the word trauma has become a scapegoat word for people to blame their own ill conduct on. If they behave rudely, or if they react unreasonably in certain si
  • When the ice melts
    The ice is melting. It is a fact. Climate change is real. The saddest thing about climate change is that there exist politicians and world leaders who do not want it to be voiced. A climate scientist has been r
  • The bear that came to church
    A friend who is a priest worked for a few weeks as substitute priest in the church on Longyearbyen, Svalbard. He gave me this rather sweet story: The church on Longyearbyen, the main township, always keeps its
  • Memory Lane with Billy Graham
    Billy Graham’s final journey brings up so many memories for so many people, the Nagas included, the Nagas of a certain generation.   Billy Graham was here. In Kohima, my hometown, in the Naga Hills, my h
  • Writing oral history; retrieving culture
    This is the way I describe what we are doing with Naga writing in English. We are writing oral history; we are retrieving and preserving Naga culture.  The first recorded writings by Nagas took place in 19
  • Not Christmas without Christmas cards
    Many friends agree with me on this subject. Christmas is not the same without Christmas cards. Sending digital cards can never achieve the joy that one experiences at getting a physical card with its handwritte
  • ‘It takes a village to raise a child’
    Whenever I see this adage it reminds me of the way we were raised as children in our society. I’m so grateful for a wonderful childhood growing up in Kohima in the sixties surrounded by family and good friend
  • A national loss – remembering Rev Kaikho Hokey
    Not many people in Nagaland would be familiar with the name of Rev Kaikho Hokey, but in Manipur, there are few who haven’t heard of this man of God. Rev Hokey, as he was popularly known, passed on a few days
  • October food rituals
    I like to start making beef stew in October. It is an old recipe of my father. Beginning in October, when the days got colder and the rains retreated, Dad would pull out one of his favourite recipes and cook it
  • The gospel of the Redman
    The little book, “The gospel of the Redman” also goes by the name, The Indian Bible. It was compiled by Julia M. Seton in 1963. It is a beautiful testament a way of life which seemed very alien to the white
  • Hidden gems in Missionary literature
    Excuse the cliché. But I keep finding many hidden gems in missionary literature from the Naga hills. I’m reading Narola Rivenburg’s “The Star of the Naga Hills” for the fourth or fifth time. The dedica
  • The power of editing
     Any good script is largely a result of good editing. To become excellent, a piece of writing has to subject itself to being scrutinized by other eyes than the author’s. The blessing of other eyes sees t
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