Al Ngullie
Kohima’s weather feels a lot like that of Switzerland – sunny but freezing, frosty but dry. Oh, I forgot – I’ve never been to Switzerland. My world-travel credentials up till now are limited to jarring to and fro between 4th Mile and Duncan Basti in Dimapur, in a rickety Museum-worthy cycle rickshaw which at best find pleasure in dislocating my kidneys every next ride.
Anyway, when my management decided on deputing me to our Kohima office, I had little idea that the trip would cost me half my resilience to endure ice-cream conditions and thankfully, I now know how those poor pork slabs and feathered chickens must feel when stuffed inside Samsung refrigerators.
For starters, my nose began acting cute by regularly transforming its color from deep purple to royal green, depending on the amount of sweaters and Jackets I had on (notice the plural). For naïve Dimapur guys like me, Kohima is a refrigerator someone forgot to switch off. You got to believe me, in Dimapur you can hang around office in an old Jockey with only a tiny towel held in readiness to ward off any speculation on your…duh-huh…assets and nobody would notice the birthday suit. (I still remember way years in Patkai Christian College, all the guys in the hostel would, by 10pm study hour every night, be ready, dressed only in ...er...Batman’s shorts. For what? Long midnight walks through the new campus area; a half-naked bunch of savages enjoying moonlight at 11pm.)
Back to the point, frankly I admire journalists in Kohima who live their profession under ice-cream conditions. Pretending to be a hot-shot journalist on my first day there, I secured an appointment with a certain big government officer of a certain big department for a certain supposedly big story. So to make the better of my first day I got up very early. So feeling fresh and strong I went off to sleep again. After an hour I woke and started grooming. I’m quite handsome and smart too, but only when I wear a mask, that is. My mom keeps complaining why mirrors in my house never last two weeks. But of course you really don’t think I’d let her on to the secret – that even mirrors crack at the sight of …er…my face?
Anyway, swaddling my summer-only-friendly self in the biggest jacket I could find, and that’s not mentioning two sweaties, a vest , a tee inside and one blanket-looking muffler, I walked out to meet the big guy with lofty dreams of landing a big page-1 story. In the first place, before moving out I dabbed almost a quart of moisturizer on my face for the reason that the freezing air had dried my face closer to feeling like Dracula’s first facelift. The chill stretched the skin tight across my face, giving it an Oh-you-must-be-very-surprised look. No wonder everyone who passed me by gave me seriously surprised looks. Um… who them or me?
After the moisturizer thing, to get to the main town, I struggled through mazes of roads, alleys, terrace pathways and a mighty lot of cracks which supposedly make for roads between breathless buildings in Kohima. Honest, there’s just so little, so little space available in the Capital. You look towards right and there’s your neighbor having dinner, you turn left and your other neighbor’s washing up, look behind through your window and a third neighbor’s cooking Khalo and then you walk out your door and lo, you’re right in the middle of a market or something. So where do you look for space and breathe?
You look up of course! And there you’ll see floors and floors of high-buildings obscuring the sky. The world is indeed, a small world. And I have no doubt, many a romantic loon in here fond of moons, stars and anything romantically cosmic must go to Kohima Local ground to look up the sky to satisfy their romantic sensibilities. A very special friend gifted me three stars and to justify my missing-you-very-much remembrance of her, I looked up the night sky only to smash my eyes into walls and buildings. So I went to the local ground. Ah, there’re my stars. Worth the trouble of walking down straight from Kohima Science College just to look at my stars.
I think we are going too far off the story. Anyway, by the time I wound my way out of the stifling alleys between buildings, finding a taxi posed the next problem. Found one and also well found out that the Capital can also be a good training place to practice the blessed virtue of patience: it took the traffic about an hour or so to reach the main town from the PR Hill junction. Ah, at last, my office, just in time before my patience classes ran out of lessons to teach me.
Wearied and embattled from these various exigencies of unfamiliarity, I went out main town to meet the officer I’d mentioned kilometers back in this article. The same problems met before were met again – traffic jams, frost-bite, stifling alleys, and yes, mosquito-fertile nullahs and disease-friendly sewerage just like in Dimapur. It was a double take for me due to the officer’s office being of bi-branch department. One was in Agri-forest colony and the other somewhere down NST colony. Which one first? Well I tried the main town branch. And the search began.
I asked a staffer at the counter who conveniently pointed to the next guy. “Tai ke hoodi be!” So there I moved from staffer to staffer hoping fervently the next one pointed to would finally tell me where the officer I was looking for was. Finally, after a lot of finger-pointing and responsibility-passing, one gracious lady said she knew the officer. Then gratefully I asked her where his office was. “Oh, tai to Agri-Forest colony branch office tee ase!” So there I sauntered off again. Aaaaarggghhhh. After all.
Finally, I reached the Agri-forest branch after busying myself with a hefty lot of yawning and droziness in the taxi thanks to traffic jams. I entered the office and enquired for the officer. (Finally my big story!) I went over to the office assistant and enquired “Hello, Ma’ am, would you please show me where officer (So-so) is”. She gave me a sympathetic look I assumed must be for my frostbitten, flushed face after all the adventure. “Oh, he was transferred to Dimapur main branch three years ago!”
