Viktor E. Frankl no pi keu tsa qo hami ni tsaw no phi ju ni

Ti khikhi no aküvu tsu ani keno shukuthu pithiqhi keu ghi pulu ani ke.

Timi kümtsu pututa makho eno pututa küxü kimiji anie. Timi kümtsu pututaw kuchou kümlapu saje kiu keno pekupulu masae. Milakhi küxü no timi kütami lakhi küxü kili vemla momu timi lakhi küxü hipau ye itaghi akiniu xü kide mulaie, kughengu timi kümtsu pututa kümlapu saje ye kütuta ke eno tipau shi kupuluni keu ghi aghola eno alaghi kütuta ke.

Küghono ninguno ayeghi lo aküxü hipau kimiji kuchou cheju eno kümsu thonei ju ghi xü ni keno ti no aküxü xü pivi lu akeu kuchou ke.

Ningu küxü lo sholu chekeu eno ninguno kiu toi khochile cheni keno ti kuma dolo kumüsuktoju lu kepu do anie. Eno ado hipau lo ningu ye kiu toi aküxü no saghi tsu akeu akivi momu akusa suchedoqo  kiu toi khochile kepu keno aküka ninguw lo anie. Ike ninguw khokichile kiqhi lono ninguno thuwu lu kepu eno ningu tsughape akeu lono khaqhiphe lu kepu ithulu nani.

Ningu ye aküxü vilo aküxü kimiji ye kiu kea ipi iniju akepu do kumo vae ikemu ninguno kumsulu masa keu ye aküxü no ningu vilo tsala kipe tsü asüche do kumtsulo hipau iniju ani ke ipi ithi masai. Ninguw khokichile ye asta eno akükümsu likhi no kumoe ikemu achipiu kumla eno achipiu ghushoghili no ke. Aküxü kimiji kiqhi kuchou ye  bemakho ikhilu no aküxü hipau wu aküküpuna eno aghime jeliqo kiu toi puqhe lu masa keno kuchou khokichile phuni keu ke eno pututa no pututa kumlapu saje shikupulu ani keu ke.

Music of the day

Nagaland Wild Bird-Eating Market

1800: Lots of birds and no guns, traditional traps

1900: Lots of birds and few guns, catapults, traditional traps

1970: Some birds and more guns, catapults, traditional traps

2011: Hardly any birds and all types of guns, chemicals, bird-poisons

2015: No birds, only guns and chemicals

Just visit a local bazaar and you're sure to be greeted with this type of spectacle:

Dead birds waiting for customers at Dimapur Supermarket. March 2011.

Nagaland: Summer rain and more rain everyday

Angry rain, yesterday.

and soaked villages and hills.

                                                                                    

Last local plums of the season

and  the scariest, fattest worm ever !!

some illegal plants and banana trees ...

and perfectly legal and healthy organic summer vegetables from villages. :) 

Today's rain

approaching Zunheboto

looking at the rain from the kitchen window.

                                 

Sunset, a few days ago

Rural Action: Environmental issues, women leaders from villages & towns, Green Club Zunheboto - Garbage-cleaning, tree-planting

Green Club Zunheboto: A group of young people, mostly students contributing their time, effort and own resources to bring about some change in their town. In the pictures are students of Nito Theological College, Zunheboto Government College, Cornerstone School and some members of the club joining hands to clean the garbage-ridden public area, planting trees and flowers at 6:00 AM in the morning.

22nd July 2011: Women Leaders' training on holistic leadership : Organized by the SBAK Women's Department networking over 140 villages and towns in Zunheboto District and surrounding areas through local churches. The local churches irrespective of denominations are the most enrolled and strongest social bodies in the villages and towns of this region. Women leaders from their respective villages and towns attended a two-day seminar on a number of topics ranging from 'Impact of Women's Self-Help Groups' to ecology. The Village Microscope was invited to discuss about Current Environmental Issues and Climate Change. These enthusiastic and talented women leaders of all ages learned about environmental pollution, the need to protect our wildlife and forests, which countries are making the most carbon emissions and why, plastic bags vs cloth bags, and why women and children in rural areas of developing countries are more vulnerable to extreme events and effects of environment pollution.

23rd July 2011: Green Club Zunheboto: More Tree-planting and Cleanliness Drive

We need help to mobilize young people and the local community especially to organize Environmental Awareness Programs, training for women on various gender-related issues, Sustainable Agriculture (slash and burn is still the dominant agricultural practice), building civic sense and preserving cultural songs and stories and other oral tradition. Your ideas, resources and suggestions and constructive contribution of any sort will be most welcome.  Thank you! Please contact at lushella.gimms@gmail.com

Music of the day - Happiness :)

Love Local, Grow Local, Eat Local

WHY EAT LOCAL? 

 Local berries

                                                     Local veggies

Whenever we talk of Nagaland, the first thing that comes to our mind is 'rich natural resources', 'organic by default' and fresh green local vegetables region however, statistics and observation of  buying habits of households and our own shopping trends show that majority of our consumption needs come from outside the State. In fact, it must be 99% of imports: from plastic chappals, plastic chairs, RICE, milk powder, tea leaves, fruits, onion, tomato, chili, oil, sand, bricks to even bread and jam!!! We hardly produce anything at all. We do not even make match sticks or candles locally despite the poor supply of electricity torturing us every day and 99% of trade in Nagaland is owned by non-locals.

Locally produced summer crops

We boast about local produce but we don't really produce the quantity required. Most farmers in the villages i met are contemplating on giving up farming all together. When I ask them why this is so...they say that it's better to buy directly from the market because they don't want to toil in the fields any more. They'd rather earn a daily wage of Rs 150 to Rs 200/- building someone's house or selling pork imported from other states (also check out recent news about imported dead pigs...uurgh!!) So where will all the products in the market for our to-be-ex-farmers come from? Not even a piece of biscuit or a lump of sugar from our own State.

I think it's important to understand who is really benefiting? How does that help us and our economy and food security in a long run? Food not produced locally cost more - labour, transportation, inter-state transportation tax, fuel, wastage, storage and high carbon emission. Local food is more fresh, more healthy, less cost for transportation, storage, packaging and marketing, more variety, tastier, juicier and  as our label rightly suggests 'organic by default' (i hope it remains so forever). There is every reason why we have to grow our own local food, love local and eat local, the advantage is all ours and at the same time we make an impact on the larger world by lessening the burden we put on the environment and our planet earth. The more the distance our food travels to get to us the more the cost, both for us and our planet.

We work hard, fight hard, play dirty to amass wealth just to pay our invisible producers. We depend on government salaries, government subsidies, government funds and we use these resources to pay everyone else except ourselves. Everything we earn from our salaries, extortion and public-fund-snatching is paid to producers far away. We are under the mercy of producers, importers and non-local traders.

If the producer States and companies we depend on suddenly were to stop producing rice for whatever reasons besides the deterioration of soil structure which will definitely happen due to indiscriminate use of inorganic inputs, we would literally starve, besides 200 million of India's population is still underfed (http://envfor.nic.in), and that gives us a guilty mental kick to produce our own food because we have the land and the resources unlike some places where they can't even grow a balde of grass. Before the beginning of 1990's food was scare especially during road blockades, road damage and bandhs and military curfew etc...people in towns who had no farms would desperately run to non-local dukanwalas to buy rice and even maida, atta as much as their savings permit and eat the provisions very sparingly fearing the worst. We don't see these kind of situations these days thankfully but I don't know if this  abundance of imported food will continue for the next 100 years?

The only industry we depend on is farming since some light years ago and if we give up even farming, the only solution is to import a spaceship (by selling our land) to immigrate to outer space and search for a planet that has plenty of food that gets manufactured automatically. 

In Nagaland, we look down on farming as primitive and un-posh, also in Nagaland a person who is a farmer and lives in a village belongs to the lowliest of the lowly, just one level of existence above cows and pigs. Every parent in the village wants children to grow up and become VERY BIG Government Officers with cars that has red-blinking lights and a golden name-plate. Every village I visited usually included in their 'prayer list' a request to God for some one in their village to qualify the UPSC or NPSC so that they can give up farming and live a happy government-fed life. I am not against these villagers, I am against the perceptions and the self-destructing outlook we've developed over the decades. Another scary trend besides the traditional slash-and-burn ravage is the idea of the recent tree and crops monoculture that people are gradually beginning to love...

Agribusiness is big in many developed countries, we can take examples of some advanced States even within the country how they produce and trade food. However, sustainable agriculture that integrates environment conservation, social and economic equity enhancing the lives of local people, protecting our environment and ecosystems is what is relevant to us. Many conscious people around the world are opting for and promoting local produce and a thriving local economy. We can produce our local food for sure and perhaps we can even send some of our products and exotic produce to the current producers. With our 'organic by default' soil  it is comparatively easy for us to practice sustainable agriculture for sustainable development especially for indigenous people like us.

"Like a tsunami, consumerism has engulfed human cultures and Earth’s ecosystems. Left unaddressed, we risk global disaster. But if we channel this wave, intentionally transforming our cultures to center on sustainability, we will not only prevent catastrophe, but may usher in an era of sustainability—one that allows all people to thrive while protecting, even restoring, Earth." (Transforming Cultures, worldwatch.org)

Music of the day

Fred <3

Music of the day

Belling the cat or musing about the bell?

We all know the classic Aesop’s fable about a group of mice whose rotten, gutter-born life became rodently intolerable due to the constant threat posed by the ever-looming presence of a fierce, menacing, blood-sucking, fanged and poison-whiskered cat and that made a plucky young rat suggest the brilliant idea of belling their predator. This idea was so sound but the prospect of meeting and belling the mighty cat became eternally unsound.  

   

This pathetic situation reminds me so much of our situation living with these guttery roads, tormenting landslides, rotting garbage, irregular electricity, desert-like water scarcity in a heavy rain-fed area, lawlessness,  remorseless vandalising agents, resource-rich employment starved region, guns and factions, overground and underground issues and the pain to make sense of things, substitute employee-keeping, absentee government employees, paan-chewing board-game-playing customer care officials, the steep and dangerous deepening gorge dividing two distinct groups of people, general apathy and the hopeless acceptance of ‘that’s the way it is’.

No doubt, there is also so much going on about what size the bell should be, what brand, what type of sound it should make, how loud its decibels and whether it should deafen and petrify the cat and his mates as well. Everyone has an opinion about how things should be and this is not new, for decades and decades we’ve all had these brilliant ideas but it has become impossible to bell the monster. Someone should do this, somebody should speak out... why can’t they make this better? They should start doing this, they should clear these roads, they should oil that machine, they should, they should and they should!

I wonder who are the mythical ‘they’ and ‘somebody’ who are going to do this and that and that?

Music of the day

Sümi War Dance (Aphilakuwo)

The war dance is one of the most important cultural dances of the Sümi usually performed during feasts of merit and after a great head-hunting victory in the days of old. Only those who had taken heads or at least speared an enemy could wear these colourful dancing gear. Each piece of jewellery and cloth worn for this dance has a meaning and every piece has to be earned. It is genna to wear this attire without gaining the required achievements, it symbolizes victory at war like the laurel wreaths worn by victors in ancient Greece as symbols of victory.

The story behind the origin of this dance is interesting. The dance is not of earthly origin but was learned from the Sky People or sky spirits according to legend. This story can be traced back to Chisholimi village in southern Sümi area to a man named Rotoki whose only daughter Eli was taken up to the sky by Kungumi (Kungu=Sky, mi=people, probably ETs :-p) and she married a Kungumi. There are different versions of this story but all stories mention the Sky people, some tells about Kungumi descending from a red burning star to take a wife from Earth. I'll make another post for the full story meanwhile these are men of Khukiye-Lukhai village - one of the best dancers in the region doing the Aphilokuwo in their 'Kungumi-inspired' finery.

     The leader (Atou) leading the dance: dancers will follow his commands for foot-tapping, change in steps and when to stop. They sing the 'ho-e-ho-e-ho-o-ho-o' song as they dance.

Spears and Azhtaqo are kept in a circle as they began their dance

 One of the oldest dancers with his Akinisupha (cotton ear decoration)

                                               Young warriors holding their Spears and Azhta

Music of the day

Britishmino Rotomi Hakiphe Le (A song about how the British burnt Rotomi Village in 1883)

( Source: Apu Asu Leshe, Sema Literature Board, 1988)

In the month of June 1883, the people of Rotomi village head-hunted one of the Tsungukimi. Some of the neighbouring tribes informed the British Government about this incident and consequently Lt. Boileau with 42 soldiers and officers of the 44th Sylhet Light Infantry came to Rotomi and set the village on fire killing 50 to 60 villagers, all livestock and granaries were brunt to ashes. Till today people can dig out remains of burnt paddy in and around their village. This was during the administration of Mr. R. B. McCabe, ICS , the then Deputy Commissioner of Kohima and under his command this order was carried out.

This song was composed by Inaghi Yepthomi sorrowfully remembering what happened to Rotomi Village.

Britishmino Rotomi Hakiphe Le

Sheho ishe Sumi Chopi Chuwo sasu kupughuyewo

Kucho thikuzuu kujono shi oshikuphu oyikughe

Kivi pesu ayina lashou Ghoshepuu kivi shi aye

Ileni ti shokitheuye ayina chhiliu sasu kimiveni

Aye anan-chumi nono alhi shini aye azughi mukulo

Cheiloghiye pano akusa showo cheniye

Pina-imu nighi anachumi pa mughuye katsumonikeno

Ananchumi nono alhe ghopu aghu lewu penike pi ayewo

Nighi atsalaye tuqu tsala kishilo ye apu amu

Kichimino phepuumo aye kivi shi aye Tapu azughizu

Atsuni suqo aye nino anivumi nono alhe ghopu

Aghu lewu penikeno anivumi kutsu cheqhoghiye

Timi ghili mthayewoe

Thayeoe Yepthoumino chehu ashe lono timi

Shoinau sutsa chikuluye nighi timi hasu

Wokighilo axamunu jukivi ni yethaluye suwo

aghuno kuzu shi kichi itino chumi shewoye

Ishe Chuwopumi ye akithilaqholo kughuna kuami

Pano isuchuni ayewo khalauye tughauno Chopi

Choli Sumi le kumthami sasu lepi kumtsa lauye

Inakukhu ni hani pi aye Tapu azukupu ghe aniye

Pi aye nighi Apu amu kichimino nivilo alhe ghopusu

Aghu lewu chekemi shijulo pi ayewo

Nighi Zutapali angupali ki shika aye nighi

Ghulo lakhilo aghami khalu anikeno atughalo

Mashihu kipemiye

Ni pa sumusa aye nighi kijili aghakuzuno

Nono kuwo kheloqhiyi popeghiye, nino phu

Puhaleve puzuno inakukhuno ile niphulo anikeno

Ile niphu kupukhami kujolai shenilae.

Ashopu agha kuxuuno hayewo, eleni Hozuxu

Papuno kichili shiveqhiye shi kughuna luaye

Ale phesu veqhishi kughunalu aye

Izu papu kimiye mulo ani yewo.

Nighi kusa lakhi ka aye apu amu lau

Ile pekikishe pesu chua junikeno pano

Khabumi Jumino qhakusu shelono poipeghiye

Niphu puhalevetsu puzuno nighami

Kichi iti mulo aniwoe.

Music of the day

Colours of Summer - Nagaland

Local organic beans

Red Earth: Repairing summer rain-soaked roads at Nito Mount

Tea in the kettle - in the alu at Khukiye & Lukhai village

Maize in my garden

Organic local chilli

Eeeskus :-) Chow chow

Naga Chilli/raja mircha/Bela Ghumsu - the hottest chilli in the world (used to be?).

Summer veggies

The first kholakithi of the season