Chp 753. Misheard.

You know, it's pretty normal to mishear some words and assume that is the correct one until years later when you realize you have been wrong all along. It can be such a shocking realization, right? Like, as if your whole life had been a lie?

This is especially common with song lyrics.

For a long time I thought the lyrics of Saigon Kick's "I love you" was "I may not have the grace of bread is stale, I may not have the mind of young". After all, those were the days when we used to write down lyrics of our favorite songs by listening to the song repeatedly on our Walkmans. And to rewind some parts, we would remove the tape cassette and wound it mechanically with our Reynolds pen and put it back in to save battery life :D

It was many many years later that I realized the correct lyrics of that song were actually, "I may not have the grace of Fred Astaire, I may not have the mind of Jung". In my defense, I didn't know who Fred Astaire and Jung were, and it made sense to have "the mind of young", though I did wonder why stale bread was considered graceful :P

Likewise, I can go on and on about many of my notoriously misheard lyrics. However, this post isn't about song lyrics.

This post is about my all-time top misheard sentence, and it is regarding a very common Mizo announcement that we hear frequently in Mizoram.

In our Mizo society, whenever somebody from a particular locality passes away, an announcement is made over the community loud speaker to inform everybody in that locality about the deceased. All this time, I have been hearing that announcement wrong!

So, during my recent vacation, my dear friends Jaqueline, Jerusha and Josie came over to my house. As we were just chilling and having fun and joking, I joked about one of our friends dying and mimicked the announcement of her death.

It was then that all three of them suddenly burst out laughing. They even asked me to repeat what I had just said, and when I did, they laughed even louder!

So you see… :D Here's what I ALWAYS thought that Mizo announcement said…

"Hriat tawh chungchang a…"

I just learnt after almost 40 years of existence that the correct announcement was actually, "Chhiat tawh chungchang a…"

For my non-Mizo visitors, "Chhiat tawh chungchang a…" means "Regarding the demise of…" whereas "Hriat tawh chungchang a…" means "Regarding what we've just heard…"

And so that was what I ALWAYS thought the announcement used to say - "Hriat tawh chungchang a…" Because by my logic and understanding, the PA announcer was informing the public with news that he had just heard, hence, hriat tawh chungchang a.

If he hadn't heard that news, then he wouldn't have been able to inform the public naw? And as he informed the public, he had to let them know that it was a news he had just heard, hence the reason why he was informing them in the first place. See, it all makes perfect sense. :)

Without hearing, Watson would have never heard Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone wouldn't have been invented (imagine no cell phones today!!) or… Horton would have never heard a Who! or… The Heights would have never sung "How Do You Talk To An Angel?" because he couldn't have heard her voice in his mind :)

See the importance of hearing!

Hence, "hriat tawh chungchang a" makes total sense now. In fact, I think our YMA should change it to this because of the amount of sense it is making. It is the most sensical thing to say in the history of senses! :D

Plus, "chhiat tawh chungchang a" sounds very… sad and depressing. We know the announcement is going to be about somebody's unfortunate demise. Do we really need to be blunt and direct about it? Instead, saying "hriat tawh chungchang a" sounds more soothing to friends and family of the dearly departed, don't you think?

My friends Jerusha, Jacqueline and Josie said they will start a petition to ask the YMA to change it to "hriat tawh chungchang a", and I wholeheartedly support them. Do they have your support too? Let me know.

Until then, cheers.

Chp 752. Montfort Mizo Reunion

During my recent vacation in Mizoram, I managed to find a free evening to have a reunion with my Mizo classmates of Montfort School, Yercaud, TN.

Ahhh our 20th year reunion!

Time flew that fast! It seemed just like a few years ago when we were all just playing football together at our school playground in Tamil Nadu, hanging out and having fun while trying to experiment on all sort of weird stuff.

That was us. Paul, Tlawmlova, Francis, Azuala, Notea, Byron, Hminga, Rempuia, Stephen and me. The 10 wicked Mizos of our Talofian batch of '99.

Much credit to Hminga (Mama) who planned the whole reunion in the last minute. He reached out to everyone and arranged the reunion venue at his own restaurant, Pemarin, at Millennium Centre.

I happened to forget I was in Mizoram time, so I reached the venue right on the dot, 6:30 sharp, and nobody else was freaking there yet!

Really nice of Hminga to book the private room of his restaurant for our occasion. I broke the rules and brought out my booze since nobody was there yet (kids, don't try this at home).

Just to be clear, this was my own doing and Hminga had no role in this and he wouldn't have appreciated of it. But I just feel like putting this pic up since Mizoram is now currently back to Prohibition. Wicked me :D

As soon as Hminga turned up, he was like, "Get rid of those damn bottles, the source of all evil and perversion, how could you stain the good name of my restaurant!" And so we broke all the bottles right there and no alcohol was consumed that night.

After Hminga, Azuala was the next to reach.

And then came my bro Stephen.

Notea too turned up, surprising everybody since we all assumed he would be more interested in playing his PC games :D

Tlawmlova and Rinpuii soon joined our merry crowd.

And finally, the red carpet for our much much beloved Paul!

And so, that was us that night. Hminga, Azuala, Stephen, Notea, Tlawmlova, Paul and me.

Francis was terribly missed as we talked about all the good times we had with him, may he always rest in peace, see you soon on the other side brother. Rempuia, now known as Edward, was super busy with his glamorous successful career and none of us had actually any idea on how to reach him. It would have been great if he could have been there as well. And then there was Byron, who could have made it for the reunion except he had passed out and didn't see Hminga's messages until the next morning. He regretted so much the next day for not being able to make it for our reunion. Typical By-a :D

The food and service were awesome that night, probably due to the fact that the owner of the restaurant was in our group :D :P

As Hminga mentioned, he had recently acquired a new Italian chef (to be precise, an Indian chef who specializes in Italian cuisines :P ) and even though he was expensive, it was worth the investment because the dishes he made for us that night were absolutely amazing!

Notea brought along his small digicam and the pictures came out really well.

As I have mentioned in my previous blog post, my dear cousin BTi got married the previous day. Her new home was just a stone's throw away from where our reunion was held, so I briefly left the restaurant and visited her. She and her in-laws were busy unwrapping all the wedding presents.

Like a good relative, I helped them shift some of the stuff up to their bedroom. :D

After that I went back to Pemarin restaurant and re-joined my bros. I don't think they even realized I went missing for a couple of minutes :P :D :D

We talked so much about our wild days back in School, all the crazy things we did, how we used to travel together by train (Coromandel Express) from Kolkata to Chennai and vice-versa, our holiday trips to Bengaluru, the surprise dormitory raids from our wardens, the most embarrassing stuff each of us did, bunking classes and even sneaking out from hostel, smuggling contraband back into hostel and so on. What a memorable night indeed.

One last group pic together before leaving.

We all went to Hminga's house after that, where we could finally drink. :P

We continued trading old stories there as well, while laughing our asses out most of the time.

Before leaving, Daduhi gave us all this really awesome detox concoction made from tamarind and lemon.

And as we all bid each other an emotional goodbye, I walked down to my rendezvous point below Hminga's house, where my other partners-in-crime Esther and Joe Mualchin along with Goosh came to pick me up…

We went to many places that night, but that is for another blog post :P

Even though I had a very tight window frame, it was such a momentous occasion to have a reunion with my bros after 20 long years. So many things had changed between us, but what remained strong even after all these years is the bond that tied us all together. Looking forward to our next reunion again.

Take care everyone, peace out. Cheers!