Chp 494. A Funeral of Hearts

Below are photos of dad’s funeral, taken by “Ainawn Photography” Studio. This is just a photo blog update of his funeral, and I will update my blog later with our Mizo customary funeral process, which I’m sure many of my non-Mizo readers will be interested in knowing. It is very different from how Christian funerals are conducted in the rest of India.

In our Mizo society, the whole neighborhood community and YMA (Young Mizo Association) play very important roles during a funeral. And since dad was quite well known, there was a huge turnout at his funeral, with many people from near and far coming to pay their last respect.

I will explain all about our Mizo funeral process in my next update including how the community gets involved, so please do watch this space for more. In this post, I’ll just post the photos of his funeral with short captions and brief explanations. Do click on the photos to enlarge.

On dad's funeral, black flags were raised and posters were displayed by the YMA outside our house with his photograph and brief description of him and the reason why he passed away.

People started arriving and they were each handed a program sheet by the YMA volunteers

My dad’s younger brother, with my cousin Mimi Hrahsel assisting him towards our house….

Inside the house, dad laid in his coffin, an open casket funeral.

Our immediate family members sat right next to his coffin

As mourners walked in, they presented flower wreaths to our family…

…or a bouquet

…or our tradition Mizo “puan” (clothing that women wear, like a long skirt)

Before the actual funeral program started, a few people who knew dad well stood up and talked about him, his achievements, his childhood days, his history, the things he had done for our community… basically his eulogy. They mentioned how Chaltlang (our locality) benefited a lot from dad when he was the Chief Engineer of Power & Electric dept years ago (by the way he was the first Mizo Chief Engineer in this dept), how he donated this and that to our community, how he oversaw various self governing bodies like Chaltlang Sporting Club Council, Christmas Fatu Committee etc. Here are some of his friends who got a chance to speak:

Upa (designation for our Church elder) Vanhela, IAS retired and chairman at dad’s funeral program -

Pi Chhawni, Founder of Bethesda de-addiction Center, located at our farm in Neihbawih -

Upa V.Thangliana, President of Civil Pensioner Association -

Pu Rohmingthanga, IAS retd. -

Pu Liannghinglova Pachuau, Engineer-in-Chief, Power & Electric dept. -

Pu Dunglena, PWD dept. Secretary retd. -

Pu Zahlira, Chaltlang MUP (Mizo Senior Citizens Association) leader -

Meanwhile, outside, the YMA brought in more benches for mourners to sit outside since our house was already packed.

There had never been that many people inside our house at the same time, so that was indeed a great honor for dad. It was the perfect sending off. Every room, every terrace, every corridor inside our house was packed to their limits.

Those who didn’t fit inside our house sat outside on the road. Traffic officials blocked all roads leading to our house and diverted vehicles to other routes.

Soon, at 1 PM , the official funeral program started and Upa Vanhela stood up to start the program as the death knell chimed across the entire locality.

My mom delivered the “family message” to the masses, talking about dad and thanking people for turning up

As mentioned in my previous post, I too decided to say a few words in the last minute to honor dad. That wasn’t actually allowed but they made an exception in my case…

Our locality Presbyterian denomination Pastor Rev. J.Lalhluna presided over the program and later sent off my dad…

We ended the funeral function with more singing and prayers…

After that, it was supposed to be a Photo session, but again the YMA allowed us more time since my sister Mazami who flew from UK the previous day the moment dad died had just landed in Mizoram and had almost reached home from the airport.

Later, my sister reached home and got to see dad’s face one last time before they covered his coffin. Her husband Nick flew home with her.

Meanwhile, the coffin cover was being prepared at my uncle’s house next door…

Our neighbors and friends carried the coffin cover into our house after my sister Mazam had spent some time sitting next to dad’s body. They covered him as we saw his face one last time…

The last part of the funeral program was the photo session. This was done systematically, with the MC announcing which group was next to take a photo with dad’s coffin. We do this to remember the dead. Here are some of them:

With leaders of our Chaltlang South Presbyterian Church -

With dad’s family (wife, kids, in-laws and grand kids) -

With dad’s brothers and sisters with their kids and grandkids -

With mom’s brothers and sisters with their kids and grandkids -

With dad’s closest friends (and wives of those who are deceased) -

With top officials and retired officials of Mizoram’s Power & Electric Department and those who personally worked under dad while he was the Chief Engineer -

With members of MUP (Mizo senior citizen association) -

With members of Mizo Civil Pensioner Association -

With friends and colleagues of my eldest sister Lapuii -

With friends and colleagues of my sister Dinpuii -

With my sister’s friends –

With my childhood friends from our locality (just wanna add here that you see only a few of them in the photo because a lot of my friends were busy with the funeral program like fetching benches, making tea and snacks for everybody, valet parking, grave digging etc which they’re expected to do according to our Mizo traditions, I’ll talk more about our Mizo customary practices in my next post) -

With dad’s High School classmates -

With mom’s two bridesmaids when dad and she got married -

With mom and my three elder sisters –

With everybody else who wanted to be in one last group photo -

After that it was time to lay him to rest. Neighbors, friends and YMA volunteers again carried him out from our house.

Unlike those Christian funerals you might have seen in Hollywood movies, according to our Mizo tradition, not everybody goes to the graveyard, just close relatives and friends of the deceased, mainly the youth follow the body to the grave. The rest of the mourners either go home or remain at our house to console grieving family members and sing worship songs.

Our pastor along with our Church elders led the procession, stopping all traffic along the way. The march was silent. My closest friends walked by my side.

Once we reached the graveyard, neighbors, friends and YMA volunteers again carried his coffin to his designated “spot”.

A short final prayer ceremony was conducted at his grave once his body was lowered into his grave

Upa C.Sangzuala said the final prayers…

After that we bid dad our final goodbyes…

While we proceeded back to our house, our friends and neighbors covered his grave. Since we all knew each other personally, according to an unwritten law, family members of the deceased weren’t supposed to be present while the grave was being covered as the volunteer workers didn’t feel good about it…

Dad’s final resting place. Cement, bricks and plaster were fixed the next day, which I’ll write about in my next update.

And that was the end of his funeral. On my next update, I’ll write more about our traditional funeral practices, the involvement of the YMA, the “khawhar in” norms and “mitthi in tlaivar” customary obligations. I’m sure you’ll be interested in knowing about, especially if you’re a non Mizo.

Until then. Take care. And once again, thank you all for your kind words and condolences here on my blog and on social media.

Chp 493. Dear Dad, goodbye.

My first blog post as a paternal orphan. 16th Feb, 8:40 AM.

Exactly a week ago, 9th Feb, 2014, 8:40 AM, my father breathed his last.

I flew home from Mumbai on 26th January when dad got admitted to the ICU. For two weeks, I stayed with him in the hospital, sometimes spending the night in the cold ICU corridor floor shivering beneath a blanket and waiting for any news from the night duty nurses, and other times staying with him in a private ward above, feeding him through a tube every three hours with no time for proper rest or sleep, only to be relieved by mom or one of my sisters during the day for a few hours so I could go home and shower. We kept shifting from the ICU to a private ward and back to the ICU again depending on his condition.

On 9th Feb, 2014, 8:40 AM, he left us.

Dad had always been known for his sharp witty humor, a trait I had inherited from him. And so on his funeral service, a lot of people turned up and I decided to deliver a short eulogy in the last minute to honor him. Since the funeral service was already planned by the YMA (Young Mizo Association) and our Presbyterian kohhran (denomination of Church we belonged to), people weren’t actually allowed to make any changes to the fixed program, but the leaders understood and allowed me to say what I wanted to say.

I was indeed very nervous since I had never spoken in public in Mizo before in my life, that too in front of such a huge crowd and esteemed mourners who had been close friends of dad, including the Chief Minister of Mizoram and his wife.






I did manage to bring in a few laughter during my short speech, and a lot of dad’s friends congratulated me later, telling me that I was indeed my father’s son. That was the highest honor and compliment I had received in my life.

On a lighter side, people too joked about how similar we looked and why I had put up my photo instead of his :)



I will update my blog later with the funeral process and stories of dad. I’ve been busy the past one week due to many functions and programs taking place in our house, and I didn’t have proper net connection at the hospital so I never had the chance to participate in the comment section of my recent answer at Quora: What do people of Mizoram think about the rest of India? which I also cross-posted on my blog. I was extremely overwhelmed to see that my Quora answer had received more than 1500 upvotes and 30,000 views.

It is stuff like that that brought in a brief ray of light amidst a dark cloud. For a moment it made me appreciate the beauty of life rather than mourn about it, and brought in the much needed distraction. That, and humor. During my two weeks stay in the hospital, I was updating my Facebook status with a lot of cheeky posts and photos. It’s not just about using humor as a defense mechanism, I’m sure dad would have appreciated that too knowing how he always managed to make people around him laugh.

















But apart from the humor, it was not a very easy life living in the hospital. For example, we had to occasionally take him to Trinity labs to do his CT Scan since the hospital didn’t have that facility. Moving him required an ambulance and seven full grown men! Four men to carry him in the stretcher, two people to carry the oxygen cylinder, and I carry his ventilator connecting his body and the oxygen cylinder. I had to make sure the portable ventilator, the oxygen and dad stayed connected all the time. Along with the manpower, a doctor and a nurse had to travel with us in the ambulance incase of any emergency.



But it is in times like this that family played a very important role. My cousins Hriatpuia and Sangtea stayed with me occasionally in the hospital along with my brother-in-law, and sometimes my niece Eunice and nephew Sawmtea too slept over in our hospital cabin during the nights. I do not have enough words to express my gratitude for all the help our family, friends and neighbors offered, even till today.





When dad was shifted back into the ICU, I was allowed to visit him only thrice a day, for a brief moment, wearing sterilized ICU slippers and lab coats...





And every time I see him, I would take photos of his vital stats and send them to my sisters and cousins who are doctors and nurses, just to update them on his condition. We weren’t allowed to take any photos inside the ICU, but all the nurses knew me pretty well by then and pitied me, allowing me to take photos.





I took one last photo of dad on Sunday morning, when the nurses rushed to tell me that his condition deteriorated and his breathing was extremely heavy even with the high concentration oxygen mask. But I’d rather not put that photo up on my blog as that is personal. I held his hand one last time…

As my cousins, sister, aunts, uncles, friends and neighbors rushed to the hospital, some stayed at home to be with mom and to start “preparing the house”. Minutes after my sister reached and rushed in to the ICU, dad breathed his last.



Even though it was inevitable that his end would eventually come one day, it was extremely hard to face the fact right then. 8:40 AM, I will never forget that time.

What was harder was signing his death certificate and filling other formalities, knowing it was time to be the man of the house and take care of mom and my three sisters…





We left the hospital in an ambulance. My sister and aunts sat with me next to my father’s body while my cousins and friends followed the ambulance in a long convoy of bikes and cars.

I’ll update my blog later with our Mizo customary funeral process. Today is the one week anniversary of dad’s demise and there is going to be a huge function held in our house again, which means I’m going to be busy the whole day…

Unlike most people, I know I’ve not been around much for dad since I live outside Mizoram. But at least having spent two weeks in the hospital for dad, facing hardships and other obstacles, feeding him when he initially came out of the ICU and making faces at him and tickling him, talking to him and covering him properly with the blankets, making him breathe through a nebulizer twice a day, carrying him whenever it is needed… I’m sure glad I got to do all that before bidding him goodbye.

RIP dad.

Chp 492. Quora: What do people of Mizoram think about India?

This is my answer to a Quora question: What do people of Mizoram think about India?

www.quora.com/India/What-do-people-of-Mizoram-think-about-India

There are no answers to the question yet, so I decided to give it a shot. There are two comments from other Quora users embedded with the question:

Anonymous:Is it true that people of Mizoram don't consider themselves to be Indian? Or is it just one of those myths? I really want to know what Mizos really feel about India.

Benjamin Rualthanzauva:We do feel like Indians as a Citizen but culturally we don't. Because we are just too different, to keep a long story short.

...

Well, here’s the long story -

Culturally, yes, we feel very different...

...but then again, India is a land of diversities, consisting of many different cultures and traditions. Here is my attempt at answering your question.

First of all, let me state that it is difficult to answer such a blunt and direct question that will have different answers based on the perspective and background of the person answering. And I will need to generalize a bit here in order to simplify my answer, so I’m just grouping the entire Mainland India (that is, excluding the North Eastern States) as one group. Of course there will be aberrations and exceptional cases here and there which I hope we can ignore during this discourse.

I'm a Mizo, a person from Mizoram, but I was brought up outside Mizoram since class 3 (1992 onwards) at various boarding schools and colleges across India, and I travel back to Mizoram once or twice a year for vacations to be with my friends and family. Apart from Hindi and Mizo, I speak a bit of Tamil, and also understand a bit of Malayalam, Bengali and Marathi. I have been exposed to different Indian cultures and cuisines, so the way I think of India may be a bit different from a Mizo who has never set foot outside Mizoram, hence let me try my best to give a balanced and generalized answer.

How do Mizos think of India?

The first thing most Mizos experience when we leave our state and come to this side of the country for education or jobs are the racial abuses. This is a problem faced by most North Eastern Indians with mongoloid features. Being called “chinkis”, “ching chongs” and being jeered at on the streets in public (even after the SC prohibition) is still a common experience for us even today. So yes, somebody experiencing that for the first time will definitely have a bitter opinion about Indians in general.

But does that mean we Mizos are just victims and we aren’t racists ourselves?

In Mizoram, we call mainland Indians (people having the Indian majority “Indo-Aryan” and “Dravidian” looks and physical features) as "Vai". The word “Vai” originated from the Hindi word “Bhai” which means “brother” and it is used to describe a non-Mizo, an outsider.

According to one legend, when Mizo warriors ventured from the mountains to the plains for the first time and met the plains-people who had completely different facial features, cultures and languages, through the use of sign languages and colloquial words, those people introduced themselves to the Mizos as “bhai”, to indicate their friendliness. Another legend stated that it was the British who brought people from Mainland India to our land and introduced them to us as “Bhai” so as to bring in a feeling of goodwill between our two groups.

Since we didn’t have a “bh” in our Mizo vocabulary, we ended up pronouncing it as “Vai” instead of bhai, and henceforth, people with such facial features, ie, ANI - Ancestral North Indians and ASI - Ancestral South Indians (refer: Wikipedia: Indian People) came to be known as Vai’s.

So that’s what most Mizos think of India, that a majority of its population are made up of Vais. And calling somebody a “Vai” actually means calling that person a brother and it was never a derogatory slur.

The word “Vai” took an ugly turn after India's independence from the British. Mizos, unlike the Nagas and a few other North Eastern ethnic groups, decided to remain a part of India when the British said they were leaving. You should know that what is now Mizoram, a land once governed by various warring Mizo clan chiefs, and most of the other North Eastern states were never once a part of any Muslim dynasty or Hindu ruler that ruled over what is now India before the British took over the entire area.

But soon after India’s Independence Day, Mizoram (which was known as the Lushai Hills district back then) experienced a terrible famine in 1958 due to the flowering of bamboos (known as mautam in Mizo, which means “Bamboo death”). The flowering of bamboos led to a boom in rat population, that in turn ate up all the food stock of the people.

Hundreds of Mizos died every day, but all pleas sent to the Indian Government were ignored. Finally, Pu Laldenga formed the MNFF (Mizo National Famine Front) where every Mizo took it to task to help a fellow Mizo member, sending food, no matter how scarce, to those who needed it more. After many more casualties, the famine finally passed. That was when many Mizos said enough was enough, that there was no point in being a part of a country that didn’t care about its people, and the MNFF became the MNF (Mizo National Front), demanding a sovereign Mizo country.

The Indian army moved in, and life became difficult for those caught in between. Then came “Operation Jericho” in 1966, when the MNA (Mizo National Army), the armed wing of the MNF, overran various government institutions in one swift and well coordinated attack across different cities, beating back the Indian army and executing officers and other Mizos suspected of being informers to the Indian army. That was when Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, ordered the Air Force bombing. On March 5th and 6th, 1966, Hunter and Toofani jetfighters deployed from Tezpur IAF base continuously bombed various cities, indiscriminately killing anyone and reducing many villages and towns to ashes. (TimesCrest: Gaddafi in Mizoram)

Till now, the Indian Government has denied bombing its own soil that resulted in the loss of many innocent lives, including many civilians who actually didn’t support the MNF’s aspiration of a sovereign nation. The MNF was pushed back to the forests and more Indian soldiers were deployed in the area. From the 764 villages governed by various clans and chiefs, the army demolished 516 and converted it into 110 PPV (Protected and Progressive Villages) described as "something like the concentration camps of Auschwitz, minus the gas chambers" by researchers. (Air attacks in Mizoram, 1966 - our dirty, little secret)

There were many allegations of Mizo women being raped daily by the army officers, as most of the Mizo men were in the forests engaged in guerrilla warfare with the army. There was the dreaded "black diary" every Mizo women feared, where top army officers would write down the names of village damsels, and such women had to report to the officer's quarter in the night to spend the night with him. That happened in rotation and it only provoked more youth to join the rebel cause.

Finally, through many meetings with Indian Government representatives, conditions started becoming more and more peaceful from 1972 onwards. The Mizo Peace accord was finally signed between the MNF and Government of India in 1986, bringing in permanent peace and making Mizoram the most peaceful state in North East India till today.

Why did I just take you through a brief history of Mizoram?

Because to many Mizos, especially those who had experienced the insurgency and atrocities committed by the Indian army first hand, even though there’s peace now, there is still that feeling of bitterness lingering in the air. To such people, all “Vais” are still the evil perpetrator. But this trend of generalizing all Vais into one bucket is not as common as I used to remember when I was a kid.

However, if you’re a non-Mizo and you walk on the streets of Mizoram today, you may still encounter an unfortunate incident of a few miscreants (usually inebriated ones) menacingly passing comments at you like, “Vai chhia” (disgusting outsider) etc at you. This of course happens extremely rarely today, and I know so many non-Mizo tourists who had visited Mizoram and not experienced anything like this. But I’m just giving you a heads-up in case you do visit Mizoram in the future, it’s a beautiful place there. A large majority of us aren’t like that today.

One reason why such animosity still exists even today is because of our insecurity. Mizos are threatened by Vais, the outsiders, especially since many of us were brought up with stories of what the army did to our women. And sometimes, even today, in order to discipline a spoilt child, a mother may say stuff like “Behave yourself, don’t make such loud noises, or else a Vai will come and kidnap you.” This works in favour of the mother, because the child is now quiet, scared of the so called Vai. However, this also psychologically affects him/her as that person grows up, making it hard for him or her to trust a non-Mizo. I really feel such disciplinary tactics should be stopped.

Another reason for our insecurity is because of the difference in advancement between our Mizo society and the broader Indian society (in general). For us Mizos, it’s been just around 100 years since the Welsh missionaries came to our land and converted all of us to Christianity. We were animists before that, worshipping the sun, forests, animals and spirits. Along with Christianity, they educated us, teaching us how to read and write, and giving us our own written script.

Compare that to the rich cultural heritage of various Hindu and Muslim empires that ruled over the rest of India before the British came. We know we’re no match when it comes to business or manufacturing or even agriculture, but we gave it our best shot and today we’re the second highest literate state in India. But we still have miles to go if we want to compete with other Indians, so there is always that tinge of insecurity within us because of our “late start”.

Other than that, the situation today has vastly improved. Hindi shows like Kasauti were a huge rave in Mizoram a few years ago. Hindi movies are also quite popular for a population whose mother tongue is not Hindi, and photos of various Bollywood actors can be found in many shops and houses. Songs like “Papa kehte hain” and “Pehla nasha” are iconic and when a group of Mizos sit together with a guitar (we LOVE to sing), those two songs are usually sung. Long before the arrival of Star TV network, we tried our best not to miss shows like “Chitrahaar”, just like the rest of India.

Sometimes, Mizos coming to this side of the Country for the first time find it funny how most Indians immediately get up from their seats once the plane lands, even though nobody can get out of the plane yet. In our Mizo society, you will not find us fighting with each other to get in line etc. Even when it comes to basics, like waiting for LPG gas, people politely form a queue. Here is one such picture I took recently.

In fact, whenever we fly home to Mizoram (or from Mizoram), we call that moment the plane comes to a halt after landing as “Vai thawh hun”, when all non-Mizos immediately spring out from their seats grabbing their bags and knocking over each other in spite of the flight attendant pleading them to remain seated. Every Mizo sitting in the plane just grins at the circus show.

Not to sound racist, but many Mizos are also sceptical of other Indians, finding it hard to trust strangers. This probably stems from the fact that in Mizoram, everybody trusts each other. We actually have unmanned shops in Mizoram. There are many vendor-less road-side stalls, where vegetables, fruits and other goods are displayed for sale, with their prices written next to them. All you have to do is pick up what you want, put the money in a box and leave. You can even take change back from the box yourself. And the owner comes to the stall at the end of the day to collect the money and he never sees a loss.

I’m not saying other Indians are less untrustworthy than Mizos just because you won’t find such vendor-less shops this side of the country. The reason why we trust ourselves so blindly is because we’re a homogenous group with a very small population of just 1 million (second least populated state in India). I’m sure as we grow and become less close-knitted and more apart from each other, more and more antisocial elements will creep into our society as well. But as of now, yeah, when I am in the midst of other Indians, like travelling alone on a train with strangers, I will take my bag with me when I go to the loo (just like how you would do it too). Likewise, when I leave my apartment here in Mumbai, I always lock it up (which again I’m sure you do too), whereas in Mizoram, many of us don't, and some of us even sleep with our doors unlocked. Below is a photo of an entire locality feasting together, displaying our bonhomie.

When it comes to food, most Mizos travelling outside Mizoram for the first time find it very difficult to adjust to the Indian cuisine here. In Mizoram, we eat three times a day – Breakfast consists of rice, dal, boiled vegetables and meat, so yes, it is quite heavy compared to the breakfast we eat in the rest of India like dosas, puri bhajis, sandwiches, pohas, cereals etc. “Lunch” in Mizoram consists of just a tea break with light snacks like one plate/piece of momos, chow, paratha, alu chop etc. Dinner on the other hand, tends to be heavy again, which consists of the usual rice and other accompanying dishes. It takes time for a Mizo to get used to such a different routine.

Even when it comes to the type of food served, rice is a staple diet in Mizoram, and many Mizos are not used to breads like roti, chapattis, naans etc. I know many Mizos who cannot consider a meal to be a meal if there is no rice! True fact. And we love our meat. Pork, beef and chicken are some of our favourite meats, and they are usually boiled with veggies together. We also love spicy food, but by spice, I’m talking about “chilly” spice. Most spicy Indian dishes are spicy because of the masalas. We Mizos on the other hand, use very little masalas in our dishes, and many Mizos cannot stand the smell of oily masala-rich curry being prepared.

But it is something one can get used to and I know many Mizos, especially students, who ended up loving the food served in this part of the country. I for one, love the diversity of cuisines and am a foodie myself, actively taking part in many “food lovers club” initiatives in Mumbai.

When it comes to Loyalty for India, yes, the patriotic sentiment of the Mizos is strong today, in spite of some people still holding grudges as mentioned earlier. There are many Mizos serving in the Indian armed forces. Two of my cousins are officers in the Air Force, another in the Army, and here in Mumbai I have many close Mizo friends currently serving in the Indian Navy. But what saddens me sometimes is the fact that many Indians are not aware of the number of people from the North East serving in the armed forces.

For example, during the recent Chinese incursion in Arunachal Pradesh, a cell phone video recorded by a Mizo soldier whose contingent was posted there, was obtained by TOI. In the video, you could see Mizo Indian soldiers grabbing the Chinese soldiers and telling his Mizo mates not to let any of them through. There were a lot of scuffles and wrestles and Mizos shouting out instructions. But the TOI comments (Timeline Photos - The Times of India | Facebook) were full of racial hate, abusing even the Mizo Indian soldier, saying stuff like, “shoot all these chinky dogs”, “shut up you ching chang chong”, etc. Later on, TOI did delete some of the comments after we complained, but that really hurt many of us, especially friends and family of those Mizo soldiers posted at our borders who were ready to die protecting all of us.

So, yeah, as “anonymous” commented on this very question – “Is it true that people of Mizoram don't consider themselves to be Indian?”, I would like to reply and rephrase that as “No actually, the people of Mizoram do consider ourselves to be Indians. It is the Indians who don’t consider us to be Indians.”

I hope you consider this reply satisfactory. Like I said in the beginning, I had to generalize here and there in order to avoid making this reply any longer than it already is. Please feel free to disagree to my views, whether from a Mizo or a non-Mizo’s point of view.

*Ps. Some photos are mine, others from our site mi(sual).com and a few from FB and Google image search, so in case you don't want me using your photo, please let me know and I'll take them down.