Chp 864. Hello OnePlus 9R

Last month, my OnePlus 6 phone suddenly stopped charging. No matter how many different OnePlus chargers I used, my phone absolutely refused to charge. Even with the phone kept on airplane mode and a charger continuously connected to it, the battery kept draining and draining...

20%... 10%... 5%... 3%.. 1%... Finally, dead.

And so that was it. The end of my 3 years old beloved OnePlus 6 phone.

I've been a OnePlus fan since its launch in 2014. I know I've mentioned this on my blog before, but I'll say it once again - I'm one of the first persons in India to own a OnePlus phone. :D

When OnePlus One phone was first launched globally in April 2014 through exclusive online invitation link only, the phone wasn't available for purchase in India yet, even if you're one of the very lucky individuals to get an invitation code.

My dear friend and boss Sidharth, CEO of Dentsu Webchutney, through his vast contacts and financial reach, managed to find a seller at eBay, somebody from USA who had just purchased it and was re-selling it at almost double the price! Sid was really curious to know what the big fuss was about the "flagship killer" phone that everybody was talking about, and since he was the leader of an IT industry with lots of money, he purchased it from that person.

Now remember, that was way back in mid 2014. The top phones of that time were the iPhone 5S, Blackberry Passport, Moto X, Nokia Lumia, Samsung Galaxy S4, HTC One and Google Nexus 5. And so it was very intriguing to read about an unknown and "unbranded" company called OnePlus entering the market.

Sidharth transferred the money to that eBay seller (while joking in his usual style, "Bh*nchod better not be ripping me off") and the much anticipated phone reached India within a week.

We toyed around with the phone for 2 days and finally Sid said "Cool", and then went back to his iPhone and Blackberry :D. Knowing how crazy I am about Androids, he sold the phone to me for the current market price, ignoring the extra amount he had paid to that eBay seller. Such an amazing guy Sid is! Best CEO and flatmate ever!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how I became the proud owner of a OnePlus One phone when it wasn't available for purchase in India yet.

By December 2014, people in India with invitation codes could purchase the phone online, and by then I was already using it for a couple of months. By early 2015, anybody in India could purchase the OP1 from Amazon and OnePlus website.

I remember how much I loved the OP1. It was way ahead of its competitors (of that time) in terms of processor speed, display, storage, camera, etc etc., while at the same time being sold at a much cheaper price, hence truly earning the tag "Flagship killer".

All the other top phones of that era were filled with bloatwares we couldn't remove, designed with clunky UI and prone to random crashes, whereas the OP1 was super clean and extremely easy to root and customize the way we wanted.

Ahhh... those golden years.

As time went by, I eventually bought the OP3 as my next phone, followed by the OP6, and now I have the OP9R. Here's my OnePlus family as of today. :)

Am I still a OnePlus fanboy today?

Actually, not anymore. I mean, I was crazy about the OP1 of course. But all other new OnePlus phones after that slowly started losing their charm over the years. It was no longer inexpensive, and in fact it became a "flagship" phone, rather than the rebellious "flagship killer" phone it once was. It had joined the dark side.

There wasn't much of any ground-breaking innovative feature or advanced technology in their new productions. Many new "features" were more gimmicky than serving actual purposes. And the most disappointing part was that, every new model was just slightly better than the previous. That was it. An utter anti-climax.

Plus, there are now many phones in today's market that are as good as the OnePlus phones, if not better. Even OnePlus' sister companies like Oppo, Realme, Vivo and iQOO (all owned by the same phone manufacturer, in cases you don't know) are as good as the OnePlus phones.

And so, I decided not to purchase a OnePlus for my next phone. It was finally time to divorce and explore other brands.

The ONLY reason why I bought the OP 9R was because of the sudden demise of my OP6. I panicked. I didn't have proper time to research on which new brand to buy, especially since Amazon had JUST opened its delivery to Mizoram again.

For my privileged Indian brothers, let me inform you that ALL online e-com portals in India had discontinued their services to Mizoram for many months since the pandemic started. Every single item on Amazon was marked with a cautionary text in red - "This item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location. Please choose a different delivery location."

Every. Item.

And then on 29th June, just after my OP6 had died, our state government finally allowed online deliveries again! What timing! I went to Amazon immediately and clicked on the first random item on my screen. The message "This item cannot be shipped to your..." was no longer there!!!

Yes, we were finally allowed to place an order! I bought the phone immediately. My payments too were confirmed. Having worked in the IT industry for many years, a part of me was praying that it was not some bug or an oversight, like some regional sales manager of Amazon got drunk and forgot to toggle off the switch for delivery to Mizoram, lolz.

The next few days were unbearable. Will my phone be delivered or not, was all I could think about. It felt too good to be true, you know. I mean, it was such a coincidence, what are the chances of online shopping being disabled for months after months and then suddenly being activated again just when my phone had died? :D

Finally, on 5th July, my OnePlus 9R was delivered! Yayyy.

And yes, talk about luck and timing. Mizoram is now currently on a lockdown again with all online deliveries prohibited, so if you visit Amazon website now and select any item, you will see the same "This item cannot be shipped to your selected delivery location. Please choose a different delivery location." message once again! Phewww!

Yup, the same OnePlus 9R I had ordered just 2 weeks ago is no longer available for purchase today if Mizoram is the delivery location. I guess you can say, Lady Luck from Dehradun smiled on me. :D

Even though the OnePlus 9R isn't my ideal dream phone, I am happy with it so far. I really did like the specs of the new OnePlus 9 PRO, but no way am I going to spend freaking 70K on a phone, especially now that I am unemployed.

Hence, I'm content with my 9R. For the uninitiated, OP 9R is nothing but the OP 8T with a few firmware and hardware improvements (slightly upgraded processor and GPU but the same display, RAM, storage, battery, camera, dimension etc). Hence, an OP 8 or 8T user may not notice any difference.

However, for an OP6 user, it is a good upgrade. The features I like the most so far are the "wide angle" camera view option which my OP6 never had, and the on-screen fingerprint sensor. Initially, the rear fingerprint sensor of my OP6 was cool, until you realize you have to grab the phone or lift it every time to use it. I eventually disabled it because of that inconvenience. OP 9R's on-screen fingerprint scanner makes life so much easier.

So here's to the OnePlus 9R and hoping it will serve me many wonderful memories and take lots of wonderful photos for my future blog updates. :D

To end this post, here are a few photos of my OP 9R unboxing, taken with my spare OP3 phone.

[The last pic above was taken with my 9R]

Chp 863. Marketplace during Lockdown

In my previous post, I wrote about how villages in Mizoram are sending truckloads of free vegetables to different localities in Aizawl and other district headquarters to help with the ongoing pandemic.

It is truly heart-warming to watch these villagers, already crippled financially due to the lockdowns, sending their hard-earned harvest with no charge to complete strangers, all for the sake of helping out a fellow Mizo.

Here's a big salute to the farmers of Mizoram.

I took the above photo from our farm at Neihbawih. You can see small patches of terrace farms in the image - those are how a typical village farm in Mizoram is like. Here's a magnified part of the above farm section -

Due to the terrain and soil composition, it is difficult to build large terrace farms (like those humongous large-scale terrace farms of China and Vietnam we see in National Geographic) and so for a Mizo farmer to donate even a part of his small harvest in spite of such unfavourable conditions is extremely touching!

Salute once again to the farmers of Mizoram.

In this post, I want to write about the current vegetable market scenario in Aizawl. Obviously, a Mizo farmer cannot keep gifting free vegetables to the more privileged population because he too needs to make a living at the end of the day. So what happens in urban areas once he sells his fresh produce to the vendors?

Yesterday, I read this tweet by Hindustan Times, announcing that Karnataka has lifted their lockdown.

I mean, just seeing the above congested market itself is making me uncomfortable, because we have been so accustomed to maintaining social distance, at least here in Mizoram.

My friends from Dehradun, Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru and other metros have been telling me about how they've stopped going out to buy vegetables and instead have them delivered directly to their apartments. They do that by calling up their local sabjiwalla or departmental store, or using grocery apps like Grofers and BigBasket.

I think that is quite convenient and very safe. It minimizes contact with the general public and prevents the spread of CoVid-19.

However, over here in Mizoram, we do not have such services or facilities. I guess it is fair enough to say most of these Corporations don't think it is worth investing in Mizoram because of our miniscule market size.

But what we lack in technological infrastructure and digital market penetration, we make up for it through our tlawmngaihna and community organization.

In Aizawl, most localities have closed down their local vegetable marketplace. I say "most" because there are a few localities whose marketplace still functions, like Mission Veng for example.

Covid management in Mizoram is decentralized to some extent, so as to better micro-manage the people. The Local Level Task Force (LLTF) of each locality has certain power of jurisdiction, like deciding whether to keep their local marketplace open or assigning a new location for it.

The LLTF of Mission Veng probably had a meeting and discussed the pros and cons of each scenario while taking into account the welfare and concern of their people, and finally decided to keep their vegetable marketplace open.

In my locality Chaltlang though, our LLTF had closed down our vegetable marketplace (at Darkawn) since the beginning of this pandemic. Instead, today, our locality vendors sell vegetables on the main street.

Every Friday, a stretch of road in my locality is designated a marketplace. Vehicles are prohibited from entering this area between 7 AM and 4 PM.

You can see the temporary barricade in the image. LLTF members are on duty at both ends of the designated street during this entire period, diverting vehicles to a bypass.

A POV video was even circulated on our locality WhatsApp groups, informing vehicle drivers on which route to take during this shopping period.

Spots are clearly marked on the road with a serial number, and each vegetable vendor must report to the LLTF prior to occupying a particular spot, pretty much like a license to sell.

Each spot is vastly spaced out with a large "X" marked in between two adjacent vendors, so as to maintain optimum social distancing.

Aizawl DC (District Commissioner) had earlier released a price list of all vegetables and meat. Any vendor within Aizawl who disobeys this rule is penalized and the LLTF can even confiscate their license to sell. [Source: DIPR Press Release].

Regulating the price ensures that no vendor takes advantage of this ongoing pandemic by fleecing the common man.

And so, on Friday mornings, vendors in my locality Chaltlang set up their makeshift stalls on the road, in anticipation of the day's shopping. I took the pic below at around 4 in the morning, just before the break of dawn.

I am extremely fortunate because the stretch of road designated as our local marketplace happens to be right in front of our house. :D So yeah, we can just walk outside our house to shop and scramble back inside quickly before covid ever realizes we're outside. :P

Here are a few more photos I took on this same stretch of road. As you can see, the evenly spaced roadside stalls prevent people from crowding up at the same location, hence minimizing the spread of CoVid-19.

At the far end, we have the non-veg section selling beef, pork, smoked pork, chicken and fish, all abiding by the price-list prescribed by the government.

I sat with one of the vendors who happened to be my neighbour too, and he told me that a majority of the vegetable vendors of our locality are middlemen who had purchased the vegetables and fruits in bulk from their respective contacts outside the city (farmers). He told me that there were probably around just 4-5 people among them who were actually selling their own harvest.

So what happens if at the end of the allocated shopping period, some of the vendors aren't able to sell off all their vegetables?

My friend Tlantea who's a part of our LLTF told me that some of the vendors sell their remaining vegetables to people they know since they will be spoilt by the time the marketplace opens again, while some of them donate their leftover vegetables to the LLTF who in turn distribute it to the needy (our LLTF has a list of households that are struggling financially because of the ongoing lockdown).

I know, many people are struggling because of the pandemic. There will come a day soon when all this will be over and things return to normal. I really miss shopping at our regular vegetable marketplace at Dawrkawn on a Saturday morning, brushing shoulder to shoulder with people of our locality and haggling over the price with different vendors. Ahhh, the normal life.

Perhaps then, I may even miss this sight of seeing a vegetable market right in front of my bedroom window as soon as I wake up. :)

It's kinda more convenient for me, but less convenient for the vendors, especially when it rains!

My cousin's husband U Hruaitea from Chanmari locality sent me a couple of photos of their current roadside vegetable marketplace too, and it looks quite similar to ours.

Perhaps this is the best we can do for now to make a living while battling this pandemic at the same time. One day, my friends, when this is all over, we will look back at this and go, "Sigghhh!"

Until my next post then, take care everyone.

Chp 862. Vegetables in lockdown Mizoram

What is the current situation of vegetables in Mizoram during this ongoing pandemic? How are people, especially those living in the city away from farmlands, receiving essentials like vegetables and fruits?

As the second wave of CoVid-19 swept across India, Mizoram too was on lockdown again from April this year.

Mizoram probably has the longest or most number of lockdowns in India since the outbreak last year. The result of all those lockdowns, restrictions and night curfews is that Mizoram currently has the lowest CoVid-19 fatality among all Indian states.

[Source: DIPR]

However, lockdowns have a serious effect on the economy and one's livelihood. People have a tough time procuring basic essential items like vegetables and fruits. The state government along with the Local Task Force and YMA have done great jobs tackling these issues.

Apart from them, villages and towns across the state have stepped up to help their fellow Mizos living in high density areas where lockdowns are more strictly enforced.

Every day, some far-flung village or town in Mizoram would send a convoy of trucks filled with fresh vegetables and fruits to different localities within Aizawl, Lunglei, Kolasib and other district headquarters.

Those vegetables are completely free of cost, and are handed over to the respective locality's Task Force, who in turn distributed them within their areas.

Here are a few recent examples:

[North Vanlaiphai to Aizawl Dinthar Veng]

[Buhban Khua to Aizawl Chhinga Veng]

[Sialhawk Khua to Aizawl Tuikual South Veng]

[Lungrang South & Rangte Khua to Lunglei Electric Veng]

[Saikah Khua to Lawngtlai Thingkah CCC]

[Ṭhaizawl Khua to Lunglei Electric Veng]

[Sumsuih Khua to Aizawl Electric Veng]

[Dungtlang Khua to Champhai Zokhawthar]

[Saipum Khua to Aizawl Saron Veng]

[Kawlkulh Khua to Aizawl Govt Complex Veng]

[Pehlawn Khua to Aizawl ITI Veng]

All the vegetables above are FREE, and they all happened during this past one month alone. There are many many other similar benefactions like the ones above not mentioned too, simply because I have to cut down the length of this post.

As I mentioned in my previous post, my OnePlus 6 phone suddenly died last week and I didn't back-up my files. Hence, I lost all the images I had collected earlier for this blog update. A few friends like Muantea Chinzah and Lal Jo-a (father_sphinx) had sent me their images again on my gmail, so I'm truly thankful to them for all the photos above.

An entire village or town sending free vegetables to a city might sound unbelievable to many of you, but this is actually quite a common occurrence in Mizoram.

For my non-Mizo readers, let me put it this way. Imagine you're living in an apartment in Bandra (Mumbai) or Koregaon Park (Pune) in Maharashtra, slowly running out of vegetables to buy because of the pandemic, when suddenly you see truckloads of fresh vegetables entering your locality and being distributed to everyone, completely free of cost!

You ask the people around you if those vegetables were sent by the government or a local political party or an NGO or even some super-rich industrialist, but instead they tell you that it was a gift from the people of... say, Gujarwadi village of Shrirampur taluka, Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra.

How would you react?

Probably awestruck, right? Or even sceptical, thinking, "What are the villagers of Gujarwadi smoking?" I mean it is something that we would never experience in the metros.

However, for us Mizos, this is not something new. We can trace back such acts of altruism even during the great famine of 1958 (Mautâm) when Mizos shared even their last remaining morsel of food with those who didn't have any. That's why many people survived that famine.

In fact this act of selflessness is deeply ingrained in all of us. We have a very popular Mizo proverb that goes - "Sem sem, dam dam, ei bil, thi thi" which translates to, "Those who share will live long, those who don't will die soon", and this forms the very ethos of our Mizo society.

However, such an act of generosity is not completely a one-way street. There is reciprocation as well. The different localities receiving the gifts in return help out these villages and towns on many occasions too.

Such assistance can come in different forms, from gifting them computers and inverters to sending them PPE suits and masks, or sponsoring their village's football field construction or a public well. And most localities have one or two villages they focus on, and sometimes we tend to get very possessive too when we hear that another locality is sending gifts to a village we're currently associated with. :D

[Chaltlang YMA members travelling to Champhai Zote, Ngur, Hnahlan, Khuangthing, Vaikhawtlang, Diltlang, Mimbung, Teikhang and Hrianghmun villages to distribute goods]

Sometimes it's not just about gifting material items or financial aid. For example, the people of my locality Chaltlang would rush to this village called Mualkhuang every time there is a forest fire in that region, and sometimes we would even spend 2-3 days in the forest helping the villagers of Mualkhuang put out that raging fire.

[Chaltlang volunteers camping in the forest to put out the wildfire at Mualkhuang village]

Even though we firmly insisted that they should not give us anything to show their gratitude, they always send us a couple of truckloads of fresh vegetables on their next harvest, which we accepted hesitantly and distributed to all the residents within our locality.

In a way, such mutual connections between urban and rural regions not only prove beneficial to both parties but they also build rapport between the two divides.

But of course, we city folks do not receive free vegetables ALL the time. We're not living in some Utopian socialist dream. The capitalist part of our economy too needs to earn their daily bread at the end of the day. And so, we have our normal vegetable markets functioning at the same time as well.

However, due to CoVid-19 restrictions and lockdowns, a lot of changes were made about our local markets, which I will cover in my next post tomorrow. You'll find it quite interesting the way our community worked together to create a safer environment in the marketplace without compromising (much) on one's livelihood.

So I hope you find this post about our Mizo "sem sem dam dam" principle fascinating. I'll end this post with a music video by the talented Leitan Branch YMA (Vanapa Section) performing the song "Sem sem dam dam". Enjoy.

Chp 861. Goodbye OnePlus 6

Hello July. And hello, CoVid-19 pandemic and lockdown.

Last month, I was about to update my blog with a topic on how Mizoram is currently coping with the vegetable demand and supply during this ongoing lockdown. I asked my friends on WhatsApp to send me photos of the vegetables they've received from nearby villages and hamlets, free of cost, as I wanted to write about our Mizo altruism and tlawmngaihna for my blog readers.

I did manage to collect a good amount of images for my update, but then suddenly, my phone conked!

My OnePlus 6 battery had been slowly dying during the past few months, so much so that I had to always keep it on charge the whole day. But 5 days ago, even with the charger continuously connected to it, my phone battery kept depleting... and depleting... and eventually died.

RIP OnePlus 6.

That was it. So sudden. Just like that, my precious phone was no more.

I managed to dig out my old OnePlus 3 phone from my storage, and it was still "bricked", because I had played around with so many apps, installing them from questionable sources and flashing my ROM for the umpteenth time. It took me around 2 hours to "unbrick" it and reset it back to factory settings.

So, as of now, I am currently using my OnePlus 3 again. Thanks to various cloud services, I was able to retrieve all my contact details and other important data as well.

However, I haven't installed WhatsApp yet because the last time I did a WA cloud backup from my OnePlus 6 was more than a year ago because since the pandemic was going on and we were all staying at home, I never thought it would be important to do a cloud backup as chances of me losing my phone at home was zero. I'm regretting that decision so much right now.

And obviously, I cannot access my WA local backup because my OnePlus 6 is completely dead. I'm still trying to figure out how to access that backup file, maybe through battery change etc., but until then, I'm not going to install WhatsApp.

Hence, I am currently not on WhatsApp, so if you have messaged me or mentioned me in a WhatsApp group during the past one week, please know that I cannot see your messages.

Similarly, I didn't have time to backup any of those vegetable images I had collected for my next blog update too. I thank all my friends, especially those in our misual.com WA group and Mizo Bloggers WA group for taking the effort to send me all those photos, and if you're reading this post, it would mean so much if you could send me those images again on my email: mizohican@gmail.com.

Thanking you all again. Take care.

Chp 860. The demise of Pu Ziona

Today, Mizoram mourns the loss of a formidable man, an iconic leader to some and an exemplary role model of self-reliance and perseverance. A brave man who took up the reins of a cult that had broken away from social norms and survived through sheer determination, inspiring thousands of followers across the state. Rest In Peace, Pu Ziona.

This is my obituary to Pu Ziona, who passed away on the 13th of June, 2021.

An obituary befitting the person that he was.

How I wish this could have been the obituary tweeted by our respected Chief Minister as well. Not the exact words, but somewhere along the same lines. Instead, our CM's obituary tweet seemed to focus on the fact that Pu Ziona had 39 wives and 94 children.

I cringed a bit.

In all fairness though, our respected Chief Minister was just merely parroting the thoughts and sentiments of many Mizos, that Pu Ziona was known for just one thing - polygamy.

Enforcing this type of mindset can have serious implications.

By focussing on Pu Ziona's polygamous relationship, we tend to disregard the success achieved by his family and followers. Shunned by society and even considered as outcasts, Pu Ziona's clan still managed to prosper through hard work and determination, which in itself is an admirable achievement.

Their innate ability to completely adapt and depend on self-reliance is noteworthy. Their relentless pursuit to operate various cottage industries and turn their hard work into self-sustainable income is truly admirable, earning praises from the same people that had earlier ostracised them.

Whether it is about their affinity to cleanliness and discipline, or their impressive division of tasks and distribution of labour, or the fact that his followers had never created any nuisances with the public, we as a community have a lot to learn from them. Therefore, we are belittling all their achievements and qualities when we focus on just the polygamy part.

Polygamy is a controversial topic and it isn't something that should be promoted or condoned in today's society, especially by the leader of a Christian majority state like Mizoram. Apart from the religious aspect, polygamy also raises a lot of questions when it comes to ethics, health, stability, equality, legality, morality and even sanity.

I'm not going to cover those points in this post, nor am I qualified to do so, but a quick search online will churn out many results about polygamy.

One of the most common justifications I've seen people make online about Pu Ziona's practice of polygamy is, "Hey, whether you agree with polygamy or not, at least he made it to the Guinness Book of World Record as the World's largest family. He had put Mizoram on the global map and now the world knows about us because of him!"

Urrrmmm... I have a couple of things to say about that.

First of all, no, Guinness Book of World Record DID NOT proclaim Pu Ziona to be the "Largest family in the world". There is no mention of him anywhere in their books or website. In fact, Guinness Book of World Record has no record for the "Largest family in the world" as of today, although it has records for the Largest Royal family and the Largest family reunion, among others.

The title "Largest family in the world" was coined by different media outlets in their headlines to attract more traffic to their websites. You are more likely to click a link that has a sensationalised headline than a boring one. Pure click-baits. However, none of those websites have mentioned any official sources for this so called "record".

There was an article or two by "Ripley's Believe it or not" featuring Pu Ziona's family, but then again, they never claimed that he had the largest family in the world either, they only mentioned the sheer size of his family, and that was it, nothing else. So we really need to quell this false rumour that he was a world record holder.

Secondly, even if I'm mistaken and Pu Ziona is indeed the "Largest family in the world", do know that he is not the only one to make Mizoram famous when it comes to world records. Remember when we became the "Largest Bamboo dance in the world" record holder on 12th March, 2010?

10,736 Mizos danced their way to the world record hall of fame under the watchful eye of Guinness World Records Adjudicator Lucia Sinigaliesi. That was indeed a jubilant moment for all of us. [my old blog link]

This is the type of world record that should really matter, but many of us have already forgotten about it, sadly. In fact, do you know that we are no longer the holder of this particular record? On 28th April 2018, our record was broken when 11,914 dancers organized by the Committee of Bamboo Dance Performance in Hainan, China, replaced us as the new world record holder for this title [LINK].

Thirdly, many people today no longer consider the Guinness World Record (GWR) to be as prestigious as it once was. One can become a "world record holder" for even the most basic and frivolous action, like "Most hugs given in one hour" or the "Oldest male stripper" (my aim in life when I get older :P ).

I'm not dismissing those who had created impossible records to break, nor am I trivializing their effort in any way, there are indeed a lot of impressive world record holders, as well as a wide array of interesting titles out there, but the whole flair of being a world record holder has lost its charm over time. Today, you can apply to create or break any record you want, just as long as you have the money and influence.

According to "The Complete Guide to Getting Your Own Guinness World Record" [LINK] GWR offers three types of services: (1) Account Managed Service - This is the most expensive type and an official Adjudicator will come to your event. This costs thousands of $$$ and this sounds like the one we had experienced in Mizoram. (2) Priority Service - This costs $800 USD for an expedited application review to break an existing record, $900 USD to create a new record, and $650 USD for expedited evidence review. (3) Standard Application - This is the cheapest and costs $5 USD to apply, but you'll have to wait forever as they receive more than 50,000 applications every year.

Fourthly, there are many articles and news report of people claiming to have a much larger family than Pu Ziona, from Nigeria to Argentina and Chile. In fact a quick Google search will show you that there's a man from Ukraine with 346 living relatives (13 children, 127 grandchildren and 203 great-grandchildren). And yes, he has just one wife. :)

Last but not the least, even if all the points above are true, that Pu Ziona along with his 39 wives and 94 children are indeed officially the largest family in the world, is this really the record that we want to be known for? Is this how we want the world to perceive Mizoram as? As a hard working and disciplined community, we have so much more potential than to be infamous globally as a large polygamous family, no offense intended to the late Pu Ziona and his family.

Be careful of what you wish for. Once a community or a region gets a particular label, it will take a long time to break away from that stereotype. Just ask any Sikhs about "sardarji jokes". Or ask the French about "surrender jokes".

The French had one of the most successful military campaigns in all of Europe and transcontinental, winning most of their battles against other nations. And then that ONE time they surrendered against the Nazis, they somehow forever got meme'd in the online world as a nation prone to surrendering. Sad.

Likewise, I don't think many of us too would want to be known as the land where a guy with 39 wives and 94 children lived. At least I won't be bragging about it.

Instead, let us remember the man as a person with great leadership and charismatic quality (a known trait of all cult leaders) and be inspired by his family's dedication to self-sustenance and independency. We can do all that without whitewashing polygamy or being apologetic about his other religious doctrines.

Rest In Peace, Pu Ziona.

This is my short update for today. If you are reading till here, then I would like to end this post by sharing a short video by one of my favourite YouTubers Cogito, where he talks about a Cult. Do have a look.

Take care, everyone.

Chp 859. Tiger in Mizoram!

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Rumour has it that when William Blake wrote those immortal lines, he was a young Lance Corporal garrisoned at Calcutta HQ of the East India Company. He was sent to the Lushai hills as a part of the British Expedition to rescue Mary Winchester, and on his way to Chief Bengkhuaia's village, he saw a magnificent tiger, thus inspiring him to write the iconic poem.

Ok just kidding, William Blake died much before the first British arrived in India, but his poem lives forever in our school syllabus. I've been thinking a lot about this poem because there is now officially a tiger in Mizoram again!

This is absolutely great news for Mizoram, especially for those people in the Wildlife and Conservation sector, because it became a grave concern over the years as tigers were no longer spotted at "Dampa Tiger Reserve", the largest protected area in Mizoram.

The prayers of many, including Wild Life Guard and naturalist Zakhuma, were answered as one of the cameras he had planted across the forest, sanctioned by WII (Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun), detected a tiger on 16th May!

When Zakhuma sent the camera files to Lalani at WII on 30th May, it was like any other routine inspection. She casually opened the files and exported them to her computer, expecting to see the usual mix of Barking Deer and Spectacled Monkey.

Imagine her surprise when she noticed an animal that looked like a tiger! She immediately forwarded the image to her colleagues at WII. Dr. S Sathyakumar (Scientist-G, Department of Endangered Species Management) confirmed that the image was indeed that of a tiger! A small celebration took place at WII that day.

When Zakhuma, who was still unaware of the groundbreaking image his camera trap had captured, heard the good news, he was ecstatic as well! Here is the image of the much celebrated tiger caught on that camera.

I know, the resolution isn't very clear, but as I have mentioned in my earlier blog posts about "Dampa Tiger Reserve" (links at the bottom), people face a lot of problems when it comes to installing camera traps because many of the locals, poachers and insurgents remove or destroy any cameras they come across.

Hence, the guards and researchers sometimes use low budget cameras due to diminished funds. Imagine if the image above is as clear as the one below, where I bravely posed for a photo with a ferocious hungry tiger!

Lolz, the above photo was taken by Natalia at Lengpui airport when we went to see off Lalani as she was returning to WII. I love how the tiger statue above is still kept inside a cage, you know, for extra protection just in case! :D

Since this news about the tiger is now making headlines across our Mizo community, a lot of people are asking why there were no tigers at "Dampa Tiger Reserve" in the first place.

As a layman, I scoffed when I first heard the news that there were no tigers there. I thought immediately, "Are you serious? No tigers in a tiger reserve? Then why the hell do we call it a tiger reserve, this is sooo embarrassing for Mizoram!"

I'm sure you had similar thoughts as well. :)

But then I got to learn more about wildlife preservations, national parks and biodiversities across India, all thanks to my wonderful girlfriend Lalani, and I realized that "Dampa Tiger Reserve" wasn't actually the only tiger reserve with no tiger! Many bigger tiger reserves across India, like the Sariska Tiger Reserve (Rajasthan), Panna Tiger Reserve (MP), Buxa Tiger Reserve (WB) and Palamu Tiger Reserve (Jharkhand) had all seen the disappearance of their respective tigers.

You see, tigers, in spite of their sheer strength, power, ferociousness and majestic looks, are actually a very vulnerable and endangered species!

The main reason for this is because we kill them. The first instinct most people get on suddenly encountering a tiger is to either run away or kill it. You'll pick up whatever "weapon" you can find around you, be it a stone or a nuclear bomb, and chuck it towards the tiger. Kill or be killed, our consciousness screams out.

Doesn't matter if the tiger was just passing through with no signs of aggression, maybe it was just taking a casual evening stroll, or maybe it was trying to meet its fitbit daily target of 2000 steps, we don't know and we don't care, we're not going to gamble with our life! Kill it, kill ittttt.

And so, to consecrate our survival, we started wiping out the apex predators slowly. No wonder tigers are disappearing fast. Three of the eight sub-species of tigers (Balinese, Caspian and Javan) were already extinct by the late 70's.

And then we have the trophy hunters, whose sole aim is to kill a tiger, not as a defence mechanism, but to masturbate their fragile ego as they show off the carcass of a tiger they had killed.

Back during our glory days of head-hunters and pasalṭha when killing a tiger was considered as an act of bravery, homeboy at least used to fight a tiger with his bare hands, or using an unreliable musket or ulhbun (single-use breech loading rifle), whereas today's hunter is equipped with the latest automatic rifle that can mow down an entire ambush of tigers without even breaking a sweat (yes, a collective noun of tigers is called an "ambush").

Truly, there's a special place in Hell reserved for such mindless cold-hearted killers.

Tigers can also go extinct without directly killing them. This usually happens when we hunt their food. As it gets harder and harder for them to find new prey, they migrate to unfamiliar and dangerous territories, where chance of them being killed is many times higher (see first point).

That's why when I went to "Dampa Tiger Reserve", Lalani and her team of researchers were studying the ungulate (animals having hoofs) health and population because they are ecosystem engineers that play an important role in the ecosystem, like being one of the primary sources of food for tigers.

If we keep eating up the food of tigers, then the tiger has no other option but to eat us as food.

Do know that tigers very rarely kill humans for food, though.

A tiger will become a man-eater only if it is extremely hungry, and that too only if (1) it is too old to hunt, (2) too weak or sick to hunt, (3) can't find any other prey to eat. Other than these 3 points, tigers will avoid killing humans for food. I guess they too know how toxic and undesirable we are. Tigers be like, "Whoah, that dude is a Manchester United fan, no way am I going to pollute my body with that disgusting flesh!" :D :D :P

Another reason why it is so difficult to protect tigers at "Dampa Tiger Reserve" is because of insurgencies. There are at least 27 different insurgent camps active inside and near the reserve area, according to a report by Hindustan Times, and WLG (Wild Life Guards) and other forest officials are regularly harassed or kidnapped by such groups.

Last but not the least, human population explosion and encroachment are also crucial reasons that can lead to the diminishing population of tigers. Deforestation under the guise of development causes further habitat fragmentation, pushing the remaining five sub-species of tigers closer and closer to the brink of extinction.

So these are some of the many reasons why tigers have disappeared from "Dampa Tiger Reserve". However, now that the presence of a tiger is confirmed, I hope our Forest officials will take utmost care and measures to guarantee its (or their) safety.

This new revelation is not only good news for the ecology, but it will affect the economy as well. Many of these Wild Life Guards are under flimsy contract and earn meagre salary. They have given their sweat and blood to protect the biodiversity of Dampa which usually goes unrecognised. Perhaps this will open a new chapter for them and give them the resources and finances that they so badly need.

If you've enjoyed reading till here, do read my earlier blog post series about "Dampa Tiger Reserve". The links are given below:

→ How To Reach Dampa Tiger Reserve

→ Where To Stay at Dampa Tiger Reserve

→ What To Do and See at Dampa Tiger Reserve

→ Trekking at Dampa Tiger Reserve

→ Farewell to Dampa Tiger Reserve

Hope you'll visit the place soon and moreover, hope you'll get to see this famous new tiger! :)

Until my next post then, take care everyone.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

          - William Blake

Ps. Sorry for the delayed post. I've written this post the moment I heard about the tiger but I was actually waiting for the Department of Environment, Forests & Climate Change, Mizoram, to issue an official Press Release about this new tiger re-discovery and include that report in this post, as that is a basic etiquette to do.

However, till today (10.06.2021), there has been no such Press Release from our government, even though there are already many news report with quotes from the Field Director and other Forest Dept officials confirming this re-discovery, like Pu Vana's Special Report, my pal Adam's "The Frontier Despatch" issue, as well as renowned Environmental Conservation Organization "The Green Hub" among many others. I find this quite weird. So I too decided to publish this post without the official Press Release since others have already reported it, hope this won't create any problems.