Eerang Mahadeva and a Teachers' Day Celebration

Brylcreem and Jeet Leishangthem’s Angel defined our introduction to puberty. With wet hair done in weird shapes, humming and whistling “Lonely oireneko nangbu”, we began our day attending Oja Khunjao, our Mathematics teacher’s tuition, at the break of dawn, risking cold just to fashion the latest style. It was a time when our closest proximity to technology was with the Chinese mp3 and mp4 players. The Internet was as strange to us as it would be without to the new generation. What we listened, what we fashioned were a poor attempt to replicate our elders who bought new CDs and watched new music videos. Mind you, I use new not to denote the latest but novelty, for we were listening to Hybrid Theory for the first time in the late 2000s, singing Mike Shinoda’s rap in In the End with all the wrong lyrics. Thus, when Jeet Leishangthem’s Angel came out, nothing could contain our excitement. It combined all the things we craved for compacted into “Western music” , and that too, as a rap song in Manipuri. There could be nothing cooler, so we thought. While Chester Benington dictated our hairstyles, Angel became our language. Dripping with hair gel, humming “Page kunthra manga dagi helli” and etching the names of our crushes, we learned the world of numbers. 

It so happened that this was also the first year we bought a gift for the Teachers’ Day on our own, without any parents’ supervision. Of course, we were elated as that was a first step into what we presumed then as adulthood and the trust of responsibility. That elation ultimately erupted in creating a battle of the genders. Boys and girls who attended Oja Khunjao’s tuition, which, if memory doesn’t fail me, was like a quarter of the entire class, in separate gender-defined groups were on a mission to get the best gift. Friends turn against friends. We avoided each other as everyone feared the other group would know what the present would be, and instead insisted on tightening down on our aggressive brainstorming, and fund collection. Yet, despite all those efforts, we , quite amusingly,  ended up buying the same present. A shirt and a pen for our teacher, and even gifted them with the same wrap. All the animosity in vain!

Well, not everything was in vain. We hung out after school to have all the eccentric planning done. Doing so, for the first time, we acknowledged our lives outside our school and tuition. Before, we knew one another only as classmates, meeting to fulfill the enforced attendance requirement but the ordeal had turned us into friends. Classmates attend classes but friends hang out. The drug of hanging out was consuming us (and who’s to blame? Before the advent of the internet, every new experience was more addictive than any viral reel, as there was no alternative to cure our ennui as well) when Oja Khunjao decided to to call it a day and dismissed us, shortly after we handed our (identical) gifts. I can't recall now who it was who proposed to hang out and have our own mini picnic, but I can't appreciate enough whoever the thoughtful person is. The day being a holiday as well, our adolescent spirits were too excited to return home. Times like these are why I appreciate the absence of cell phones, for we could keep our parents in the dark about our everyday activities. Thus, leaving the place, pedaling our cycles, us rebels, with a sinister smile on our faces, looked for a destination. 

Uyok ching was selected. I recall it being not unanimously decided though, which may surprise new generation readers, but before it came to be known as Kakching Garden filled with all sorts of amusement and shrines, it was Eerang Mahadeva, the lovers’ rendezvous, a bosky mountain thick with pines and tall-tales of fright. Only a few of us knew the way, and those who knew were not good guides either, probably it being their first time guiding. Thus began a long journey, made longer by our guides, pedaling through the then unpaved debris of Wangoo with concerned eyes following the effervescent young souls with backpacks heading towards the mountain. The ride was a cacophony of erroneously sung In the End and Angel, which continued unceasingly till our ascent. By the time we began our ascent, even in the early September morning, the cycling had drained away our vigor but feigning exuberance, we started climbing. The mountain was so thick with pines that fallen pine cones paved half the path. And those pine cones, we soon realized, would be handy weapons. Just as we were about to reach the summit, we had the misfortune of an unwelcoming drizzle and the path, to no surprise, became slippery. Our sore calves had to find the nearest pine to avoid falling, and many injured their hands grabbing thorny shrubs reaching for the pine trees. The drizzle tested our spirits, but we returned no losers that day. Sore, pained, we reached the summit. As mentioned earlier, there were no amusement rides back then. A thicket of trees and a mesmerizing view of our valley greeted us. And that was the moment when the pine cones, and the burdock (sampakpi) suddenly revealed themselves as the most useful weapon. All the pent-up frustration from the gender battle manifested in an all-out cone and sampakpi battle. Left, right, cones flew in all directions, hitting everyone indiscriminately just like the raindrops. After an intense combat ,fought with roars of unintelligible screams and laughter, us crazy wet, wounded kids with sampakpi stuck all over our bodies decided to make the descent. I remember some unfortunate souls slipped their way down the hillock, while some still experienced the occasional pine cone on the back of their heads. 

A new problem turned up as we started pedaling again. We were lost. Perhaps the countless pine cone headshots had maimed our senses, but instead of finding ourselves back in Wangoo, we were nearing Eco Park. A friend of mine started sobbing, and a murmur of fear and guilt replaced our songs. After a frantic, restless trail, we reached DSA grounds and the Wairi folks parted ways from the Khullen lot. Bloodied, bruised, wet, sampakpi stuck, and too excited to process anything, we returned home from our “daily morning tuition”. 

The following day, Oja Khunjao told us that we got him wrong-sized shirts.

This is part of a series of personal essays Washington Naorem has been writing, beginning with “Sturm und Drang” —a poignant reflection on the failure to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his class — from his conversations of early school days with Edison Naorem. Edison is as much the writer as Washington is. Their intention is to retrieve and re-create the essence of the bygone happier days of their class and ultimately bring the class together.