Whoppee.....Another weekend already !!!! (Entry Dated 01/19/2007)

Hi people.....so time for your weekly dose of bitter pill....dumbo, my blog I mean. U don't agree right, I see u vehemently opposing to the definition....it is ur eagerly awaited piece of bliss, which you look forward to every week I hope you get the message right...Whatever you feel about this, I have told u what I want to hear from you when u tell me next time that you read my latest entry

Not feeling too good today, little feverish, have been working late also....But today being Friday evening, the ritual of late night surfing and catching up with friends need to continue, no reason to deny my friends the pleasure of my esteemed company

So coming back to the point.....The train of my life had stopped at the station Dimapur...(I am a little outdated....prefer a train rather than aeroplane as an analogy to life....I believe in taking life one day at a time, live every moment, each day of life....which is not possible if u r traveling at breakneck speeds of hundreds of kms per hour !!!But wait, where was this godforsaken place again ??? Well, my mistake...I should have known that Dimapur is not a world city like "Paris" or "Sydney" which people can relate to instantly.....Let me refresh your memories. As you all know (I expect some base level proficiency for readers of this blog , so even if u don't know, don't let that out ) there are 7 states in the north eastern part of India, the 7 jewels of mother nature, which are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura. So Nagaland is one of these states. But what is Dimapur....I know all of you are frantically trying to jog your memories to recall the capital cities of these states....and no luck there as well, right. Well, let me not increase your blood pressure levels any more....Dimapur is a small town in Nagaland, and no your age has not yet taken a toll on your memory, It is not the capital city of Nagaland. The capital city for all political and administrative purposes is Kohima.

Before I go on about Dimapur, just wanted to share that the entire north eastern region has been very close to my heart and covers a large part of my childhood memories. I already told u that I was born in Agartala(When when when.....well in my first few entries.......need to sharpen your memory guys....at the end of this blog, when I have covered my entire journey so far, I would expect you to know everything about me that I know and more .. I also plan a announce a contest....the one who knows the most about me takes home a prize....well keep guessing and reading this space for more details on the what the prize would be ) So that is my 1st North east connection - Agartala in Tripura. The next is Dimapur where I spent a important part of my growing up years. Then there was Shillong in meghalaya where my mejomashi (my mother's elder sister ) used to live in those days. The family was of my mashi, mesho(her husband. my uncle), and my cousin brother and sister. We used to visit them very often from Dimapur. A visit to mashi's place was childhood dream getaway for me and also for my cousins. My mashi mesho, shomadidi and bappadada(my cousins), have always been and continue to remain very important part of my life. So I have already covered 3 states in North east....now about the other states.....Assam - my shejokaku- shejoma(father's younger brother and his wife) used to live in Guwahati around the same time we were in Dimapur and we visited them quite a few times. And Mizoram and Manipur are places which we visited along with my father who was on official visit. Only Arunachal Pradesh is the state which I never touched at all...U now know why north east is so close to my heart.....it covers so much of my early childhood....

Coming back to Dimapur. Though it is not the capital of Nagaland, you can call it the commercial capital of Nagaland. Well, let me remind that you that all this information is basically in past tense, more than 20 years old....I am not exactly sure how things are today , but this was how it was in those "good old days"....(Could not resist myself from using that phrase, but u know how life is.....today we may be struggling under hundreds of problems when when we would look back at today's life after say 10 years, we will always look back lovingly with that distant nostalgic look in our eyes and say ..."oh those good old days"!!!!)

When I say "Commercial capital", please take me in context, I am not saying that Dimapur is like Mumbai or something....so for the benefit all you cosmopolitan mumbaikars/delhites/residents of other great cities around the world.....Dimapur is (was) one small hamlet in a remote corner of India. If you have lived in a small town, you would know these places have a character, a uniqueness of their own. Dimapur was a fairly cosmopolitan city with people from all over India, making it their home. As far as we were concerned, we had neither made it our home, nor had any intention to do so. Central Government officers are more like migratory birds who keep moving from one place to other....at the mercy of govt....only difference is that the birds keep moving between the same 2 places in different seasons.....in govt service, you normally don't come back to where u started from!!!! So we were there more as an obligation as my father was posted there.....The expectations from the place were not very high and we were really not sure what to expect out there.....But how was it really? Though life was little difficult...I will come to the "difficulties" in a moment, it was not that bad....and then my parents were very young and enthusiastic and no challenge was challenging enough for them