Chp 235. My tryst with Tehelka

Some love her. Some loathe her. Some admire her guts, while others cry out for her blood because of those very same guts.

Meet Nisha Susan, reputed journalist and reporter for Tehelka - my favorite Indian magazine for the past 3-4 years that addresses social issues directly at the core with no bullshit nonsensical crap.

But Nisha is more widely known in the recent months as founder of the popular “Pink Chaddi” campaign, which resulted in both a National and International wide response - over 5000 pink panties sent to Sri Ram Sene chief Muthalik on Valentine’s Day as a mark of protest against his goons mercilessly beating up women in WWE style so as to promote “Indian culture”.



A controversial campaign no doubt, which deeply divided the netizens into three main camps – those who endorse Nisha, those who endorse the SRS, and those who endorse neither. Hence with three different ideologies, the flame wars were quite interesting albeit detestable on many occasions.

So you can say it was one of those “I will definitely blog about this” moments when Nisha Susan herself suddenly calls you up in person and says she wants to meet you!

Red Box at Turner road, Bandra. That was the destination I recommended as it wasn’t too expensive and yet seemed a little bit more professional and appropriate than a typical CCD/Barista coffee house appointment.

I reached an hour early! But then again, I’m not the type who keeps a lady waiting (*wink*) and it gave me ample time to relax and have a clear state of mind. After all, you never know what journalists are capable of throwing at you

So there I was, meeting Nisha Susan face to face for the first time.





Oh she was sweet and charming. And extremely humorous. She laughed to all my (corny) jokes and we even chatted in tamil and malayalam! (Yeah I do speak konjo konjo tam and mallu, definitely not much but enough to widen the eyes of anybody )

She got to the point immediately. She’s working on an upcoming cover story for Tehelka about the lives of North East Indians who have settled in the Metros like Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi, and the difficulties/experiences they have faced.

I warned her that I have more or less assimilated with this so called “Indian culture” due to my upbringing and so I may not be the person she is interested in meeting, but she told me that my blog posts say otherwise.

I spoke my heart out, about everything that I wanted the rest of India to know about us North East Indians. No we are not freaking CHINESE. Yes we are Indians. No we will not bow down to forced imposition of “Indian culture” and “Hindi” on us but yes we will definitely imply with them as long as they are done warmly and friendly. I learnt tamil because of the unconditional love shown to me by my tamil brothers, but I know many people from the South and NE (people outside the cow belt) who stubbornly refuse to learn Hindi because of the way some Hindi speakers have that holier-than-thou attitude over those who don’t speak Hindi.

She was well aware of the fact that Indian school text books had NOTHING to say about North East India and my sentiments echoed the fact that we’re all nothing but some convenient BUFFER that India wanted incase China suddenly decided to invade India.

She asked me a very important question: What do I want the rest of India to know about us that they don’t, apart from the fact that we are also Indians and struggling to prove our identity and patriotism to them.

I thought for a long time.

Finally I told her a few points, mostly misconceptions that the rest of India have about us.

One. Mizoram is not some right-wing fanatical state where Christian missionaries armed with AK-47s are shooting “non-believers” in cold blood, contrary to the many false accusations about us floating around on the net. Yes, many of us have subscribed to Google alerts for “Mizoram” and we have saved all such pages and caches, and we’ll be filing an FIR soon against all those who have grossly defamed us.

Just like how many of you “seculars” are fighting the fanatics within your own society bravely, there are many of us too who will stand up against the all-powerful YMA, the bureaucrats, the politicos and even the Church if we find their actions to be detestable or against humanity. Our biggest success was when the vox populi spoke out and disbanded the SRS (err… No, not that SRS. Its “Supply and Reduction Service” here but they shared the same method & style of “wrestling” tactics just like the Sri Ram Sene). We don’t keep quiet against injustice and you will know what I’m talking about if you listen to the voice of the people at misual.com and lawrkhawm.com.

Two. The insurgency in Mizoram, which many experts claimed to be the biggest revolt in the Northeast, was all started because of a rat. After the bamboo trees in Mizoram flowered, millions of rats reproduced and they ate up all our food stock. Hence there was a HUGE famine in the Lushai Hills (now Mizoram) and India didn’t give a shit about our plight.

The MNFF (Mizo National Famine Front) was formed where every Mizo looked after another with NO help from the Indian Govt. Soon the MNFF became the MNF (Mizo National Front) under Pu Laldenga and the entire Mizo community rebelled against India because of the neglect and it became so intense that it was the bloodiest battle in the North East so far. But do Indians know about this story? No. Do Indians even know that Aizawl is the ONLY city in Indian history where the Indian Air Force bombed the city day in and night out? Yes, we are talking about a possible genocide here, where entire generations of Mizos were completely wiped out because of this.

But no. People are oblivious to this and we are criticized for not being Indian enough and jeered as a “Chinese” or “Nepali” wherever we go in India. Seriously, tell me, can you blame those who were fighting for autonomy back then?

Three. I have come across numerous posts where fanatics say they want to take back Mizoram from the clutches of evil Christianity. They want to revive Hinduism back there, which is really absurd because Mizos were never Hindus before the missionaries came! We were war-mongering animists fighting with each other to the death, and headhunting was an intrinsic part of our culture. Sure, if you want us to disown Christianity and go back to our roots, I really don’t mind - May I please chop off your head?

Four. Spelling mistakes!!! Aaaargh. I can understand some old timers referring to Aizawl as Aijal because that was the way non-Mizos used to pronounce it those days. But that was a loooong time ago. What really peeves me today is when I see “Aizwal” instead of Aizawl on so many official documents and diaries even today. So many times have we protested but the Indian Government just doesn’t care enough to correct this. I mean, why should they care, after all, the Election Commission of India website itself has spelled Mizoram as Misszoram, right? And yet WE are expected to learn all the names of Indian cities and states correctly, and if we make a mistake in this case, we are either punished (in school) or given that dirty “you shameless unpatriotic fellow” looks.

Five. Seven of my cousins are serving in the Indian Army and Navy. And yes, a large number of people from the Northeast are in the Armed forces protecting this great country and ready to sacrifice their lives in the line of duty. Why must we always be asked to prove our patriotism in spite of that?

Six. Yes we can make out if a person is from the North East or some South Asian country to some extent. And even you will be able to make this distinction if you spend more time with us. It is not that difficult and many of my non-Mizo friends can do this. Likewise we can’t differentiate people from the NE sometimes just like how you guys won’t be able to differentiate a tamilian from a kannadigan or a UPiite from a Bihari on many occasions. Sometimes there are prominent distinctive features and sometimes there aren’t. Simple as that. Making an “educated guess” makes no sense when you are not educated about us.

Here’s a great blog post by my friend “The Chhamanator” entitled: Frequently Asked Questions about Mizoram which I’m sure you’ll love too. Hilarious!

Q1. Do you know martial arts?
Q2. (Brings some chinese, japanese etc. writing) Can you read this?
Q3. Can you write my name in the Mizo script?
Q4. Are your politicians as bad as ours?
Q5. Are you veg or non-veg?
Q6. What is the main industry of Mizoram?
Q7. Are Mizo girls hotter than other Indian girls?
Q8. What curse words/insults do you use in the Mizo language?

Last but not the least, I have seen many people criticize people from the NE for “sticking together” and hence blame that for the reason why we feel alienated or why we are stereotyped.

Believe me, whether we mix or not, we will always be stereotyped. We Indians love to stereotype one another right from the northest North to the southest South, and it is one social evil that will never be eradicated from our system. But we can correct those at least in the media and other public platforms.

Secondly, we stick together because we are insecure and hence feel more comfortable with our own kind. Indians who migrate to UK or USA too stick together FYI, just like how Chinese emigrants make their own “China Towns” wherever they go. It’s a normal human behavior. Likewise there are many of us who have come out from our comfort zones and stereotype moulds too and yet still feel alienated on many occasions. Hence justifying the reason why we are alienated by mainstream Indians with the fact that “we stick together” is plain wrong and misconstrued.

With that, we ended the day. I know many of those sentiments that I poured out will not appear on Tehelka as I have diverted way off from the main topic. But it is always good to inform and educate reputed journalists with such information because you never know what they will write about next, or who they will tell about us in their large journalist network.

Here’s me raising a toast to those journalists who actually go all out to meet people and interact and learn, rather than sit on their fat asses copy-pasting from Google search results. Cheers y’all!