Please write in English when you are writing in English

The bane of the English language in our times has been youth and the language of the SMS. I was horrified to get an email from a student who wanted information on certain rituals for her PhD work. No it was not the ritual she was enquiring about that horrified me, but the way she wrote her email in SMS lingo made my entrails squirm in repulsion.

It was incredible that a student could conceive of writing a letter of an academic nature and use abbreviated English to pose her questions. I know for a fact that my old English teacher would refuse to answer her question. And she would never leave the case at that either. My old English teacher was a stickler for grammatical correctness. She would definitely have considered that email blasphemous and highly detrimental for young children with their impressionable minds. She would have taken it upon herself to protect future generations by personally executing the offender and burying her in an anonymous mass grave.

Luckily for the PhD student, I am more mercifully inclined. I answered her mail and made it a point to spell each word out in full and not use their abbreviated forms. I hoped I was setting an example which she would catch on (I mean if she was a PhD student, then surely she would have the required intelligence to do as I did, wouldn't she?). No such luck. She replied me after a month with a curt note similar to the following monstrosity:

Thnx xo muj, opin 2 hv a gd tym n opin u r fyn thea.

Yea sure, I'm also opin you will learn to write in English as your research progresses. I didn't press send after I typed that. I deleted it and wrote something more polite. But I wish I had had the guts to tell her to pull up her socks and blooming get her k's and h's together. It looked like she had migrated from the nearest suburb in a great hurry and left them behind her. Each time I open my email I breathe a sigh of relief and send up thanks if I don't see her name in my inbox.

But surely life cannot go on like this. I mean there must be some way of penalising students and members of the public who torture others with short message service emails and messages. I want to know if educational institutions are accepting answer scripts written in SMS. I wonder if nightmares have come true for many teachers as they find assignments submitted like this:

AlXNDR d Grt Nvded Ndya N muj of Urop. Hi ws opin 2 hv a gd tym thea.
Bt hs kapten dyd n mani of hs hrses dyd on d way so hi cud nt achiv wat hi wntd.
In oder wrds hi cud nt hv a gud tym thea.

I truthfully want to resuscitate/resurrect my old English teacher and more of her ilk. I am thoroughly convinced that the English language has to be taught with an iron hand again. And it is not just grammatical abuse; the grammatical failings are the tell tale signs of something much darker in our society. It is a whole way of life and shows how slip shod we have become in our habits. We put in the minimum of effort and if we find short cuts, we use them unashamedly.

Language is a reflection of society. The highest periods in any society have also been the times when its language was at its most prolific. Greece in the 5th century. Elizabethan England and Marlow, Spencer and Shakespeare though the bard was a latecomer. Our oral narratives had some of the most beautiful metaphors but their time is past. We have ingested too much of the written word now to find any room for orature. And we sit by our computers and mobile phones and type out sms trash? Does that mean we are spiralling toward the end of our civilisation?

It is probably linguistically deductable that we are very close to Armageddon now. Our communication abilities show every indication of that. Two letters of the alphabet or even one have come to represent whole words. I infer from that that if we start seeing SMSes sent as punctuation marks, that is definitely our cue to evacuate planet earth or risk total decimation.


Originally published at www.easternmirrornagaland.com

Easterine Kire’s new books hit the stands

‘Jazzpoetry & other poems’ and ‘Dinkypu’ released

MLA & Advisor, MTF, Dr Nicky Kire seen here with author   
and poet Easterine Kire during the release of the latter’s books.
(EM IMAGES)

KOHIMA, DEC 1: Jazzpoetry and other poems, an eclectic collection of poetry and a delightful children book, Dinkypu, written by celebrated Naga author & poet, Easterine Kire were released by MLA & Advisor, Music Task Force, Dr Nicky Kire today at Kisama Bamboo Pavilion in the writer’s stall, housing several book titles she has produced over the years.

“Jazzpoetry and other poems” is already out in German and is a collection of her poems in two sections, jazzpoetry and the rest of the poems written over the last ten years. The jazz poems are from a concert by the band Jazzpoesi consisting of saxophonist Ola Rokkones, drummer Jon Eirik Boska and poet Easterine Kire.

Speaking to Eastern Mirror, the renowned author said it is a new form of art they are trying for the first time in the Norwegian and European countries and have, so far, performed in Vienna, Oslo and Sweden respectively. She also disclosed that few schools in Nagaland have also expressed interest and, in this regard, expressed hope that they would be able to perform in the State next year.

The other book, Dinkypu, is her second children’s book in the Barkweaver series and has been illustrated by English artist Rebecca Sands and coloured by Kevilezou Z. Kevichusa. Ideal for children aged between 5 and 10 with beautiful illustrations, Dinkypu is set in Northern Norway. The interesting aspect of the book is that it includes Dinkypu’s Song with lyrics by Easterine Kire and Music by James Angel.

Easterine’s poetry has been translated into German, Norwegian, Croatian and Uzbek, wherein some of the poems have also appeared in the European Constitution in verse. The first poem of her newly released book, ‘Trumpet in Tunnel’, is used in the preamble of the European Constitution.

Jazzpoetry and other poems is priced at Rs 120, while Dinkypu costs Rs 250. Both the books are published by Barkweaver Publications in collaboration with Ura Academy.

Originally published at www.easternmirrornagaland.com. See also the books section.

November Remembered

On my way back from church this morning
I saw cherry trees blossoming by the wayside
their small pink faces opened out to the cold
I pointed them out to you
and when I turned back
you had cherry blossoms in your hair.

A week ago, I saw a photograph someone had taken of a cherry tree in bloom. Instantly I conjured up for myself the brilliant blue of our November skies over the pale brown of newly harvested fields. In some places the bright yellow sunflower would be blooming fiercely like a Van Gogh painting come alive. I've never thought of it before but November must be the prettiest month in our hills. There is the blue vanda that flowers in this month and even shabby roadside houses are transformed by the blue clusters tied to young trees in the outside yard. I love to describe the month of November to newcomers and strangers. They have no equivalent to our colours and flowers. European cities are cold and bare in November. The trees that were ochre, yellow and russet two months ago are  leafless now. A dark rain has left the streets puddled and dangerous for pedestrians. The sun has long gone and become a distant memory that will be recalled only in the new year. Nature has closed shop and is going into hibernation.

Back in high school, I could not grasp the concept of animals going into hibernation during the winter months. To think of bears and smaller animals sleeping through the winter sounded like something that a Disney movie had made up. I'm a believer now. Hibernation, the state of inactivity in animals and metabolic depression makes absolute sense in the context of light deprived peripheral territories such as the north of Europe. Predictably life slows down and, strange though it might sound, the dark months bring people closer together as they find they have more time to sit around family dinners or simply spend time with friends. In Vienna several Christmas markets  sprout up as early as mid-November. The markets sell food, hand-made goods and Christmas goods. Big areas are decorated with lights and fairy tale themes. In the darkness, the lit up markets and recreated landscapes from Hans and Gretel are every child's dream come true.

Beautiful but very far from our blue-skied month. I close my eyes and think of Novembers past; how the sky would get so blue that it hurt your eyes to look at it, and the cherry trees that made pink blobs upon the forest cover. Many years ago, we climbed Japfü in the month of November, starting our walk after midnight. It was a moonlit night and the leafless trees near the summit appeared ghostly in the light of the moon. At the rest house the dew fell from the roof to the ground in great drops. And in the early morning we reached journey's end and Kohima lay below us like a jewel, tin roofs glinting in the sunshine. It had been worth every bruise in our aching backs.

I don't expect to climb Japfü again in this life. I share my memory of November in my beloved land because nostalgia has swept over me at the sight of that photograph of a cherry tree in bloom. But Japfü beckons younger hearts and legs and backs. Don't disappoint her. Do the journey in November: your memories will tell you did the right thing.


Originally published at www.easternmirrornagaland.com

The narratives silenced by war: the Barkweaver project of peoplestories and folktales

"Of the many narratives silenced by war, the folk tales of the Nagas suffered a long period of being silenced. This was because folk tales require certain settings in order to be told. The Naga war with India, after military operations began in 1956, destroyed the settings for oral narratives. One may not think that something as simplistic as a folk tale would need to be approached with ritual and ceremony in order that its narration might take place. But it does. The folk tale belongs to eras of relative peace in the village community..."

Read more at "The North East Blog"

We want Per!

He reminded me of a hobo, the same hungry look, piercing eyes and four-day-old stubble. Such a jagged quality to him. I thought to myself, oh my, Tom Waits' voice probably looks like that. Sort of smoked, dragged in sand and hung out to dry in an unkind northerly wind. True to form, he shouted out raggedly, "Shut yer mouth!" to the trumpeter introducing the band, Rik og Berømt (Rich and Famous), to the eager audience. It was a rough joke of the type that the band was used to.

I sat expectantly on the edge of my chair: this promised to be more than just another concert of jazz music. The band got underway and they played two songs before Per, the Tom Waits of the evening, got on stage. To my surprise he swung into a romantic number and caught me completely off-guard. Oh he tried to look the part, he had donned a suit like the rest of the band, but he still managed to look unkempt. Wonderful! If I closed my eyes, I could picture a young Frank Sinatra hitting those notes as Per serenaded his audience effortlessly. In the middle of love song, he sprang offstage, sidled up to a blonde and sang close to her ear while still holding the mike.

I however, was a trifle disappointed with his smooth voiced renditions. At the end of the second set, voices went up, "We want Per, We want Per!" and Per came back with gusto to sing a repertoire of songs that were more suited to him. In the middle of another song, he jumped offstage, and sat amongst his cronies, sipped from a glass of beer and then sprang back onstage and continued singing. It was so nonchalant it totally changed my way of looking at concerts. Why shouldn't a singer do just that? Why shouldn't he embrace the audience as Per had just done and make them feel he was also one of them? The rest of it went marvellously well.

The concert came to a close an hour past midnight. The night was no longer young. The ships on the harbour outside were unmoving and autumn rain had left the city streets puddled and gravelly. And a salt wind blew into my face as I walked home. It was just what I needed to end the night with.

Dreams

Listening to a very interesting talk on dreams by Mark Virkler. He says that we spend one third of our lives asleep and that stuff happens to us in dreams, communication is going on while we dream. I want to find out more about this.

The Angamis always say, 'Listen to your dreams,' when they need to take an important decision in their lives, be it marriage, a new business enterprise or travels. Why should that stop being relevant to us in this day and age?

Abandon ship!

I got to chapter 14 of a new novel I was writing when it began to feel all wrong. It wasn't writer's block, it was something much more serious. The story was weighing my spirit down so surely that I began to think, perhaps I should not continue. The more I thought of that, the more the heaviness lifted from me.

I believe that books have souls, oh not in the same way as humans have, but there is definitely something of the soul of a book that passes into the souls of readers and I certainly wouldn't want to give my readers the weighted experience that I had before I abandoned it. I have begun two other new story/books after that and  there is no going back to the old one.

If a book does not offer faith, hope and love or one of these three, it probably should not be written. That's just me speaking.