Of Convoys and Road Journeys - Zualteii Poonte

 

It's late at night or in the very early hours of the morning that it happens. When the hubbub of the world is stilled, and all is silent as people rest tired bodies and lose themselves to dreams and deep slumber. It's not even something that I experience very often, being a sound sleeper. But once in a while, something awakens me and in the brief moments of wakefulness, I hear it. The distant rumble of a truck, the thrum of its engine or the long low honk of a truck horn as it wends its way along some road somewhere. Memories steal in, now mere fragments with the onslaught of time but vivid in their tenacity.

Long queues of trucks parked along a winding road in darkness. Military trucks, Bedford lorries, the odd jeep or two, an Assam State Transport bus¹ with its distinctive rhino symbol. As the trucks grind to a tired halt, my mind replays the sound I recall so well even these decades upon decades later – a sibilant hiss as compressed air from miles of driving over rough mountain terrain is released from the brakes. The handyman jumping smartly down from the elevated truck cabin to deftly place a wooden wedge against a rear wheel so the truck does not roll away. Passengers moving about quietly, stretching legs and backs after being cooped up inside the vehicles for hours, some making for nearby bushes in urgent answer to nature’s call.

Military escort parties then shepherded all vehicles moving around the territory laden with essential supplies and passengers, both military and civil. Convoy Commanders, usually young army captains, assigned to provide safe passage against insurgent ambushes, empowered to make stops and starts for the thirty to forty strong vehicle convoy and authorised to take any necessary action in the event of trouble.  With nighttime journeys obviously unthinkable, the convoy Commander would call for a night halt at day’s end and military personnel would unload provisions of water and rice bags and cook evening meals on kerosene stoves by the roadside. Most passengers carried their own tiffins, as they called them, while the army men would share their food with those with nothing to eat. Since I was a little too young to remember details, an older cousin with a sharper memory tells me that my grandmother would carry boiled eggs, potatoes and rice that she had laboriously prepared in advance to feed her little family enroute the long journey. Once the meals were eaten and cleared, passengers would get back to their respective vehicles for an uneasy, restless night’s sleep in cargo holds sheathed with thick waterproof tarpaulin. The next morning, after quick obligatory revisits to the nearby bushes, the truck engines would throb back to life and the convoy would be on the move once again. Another convoy traveller tells me that there was no washing of faces or brushing of teeth, unless there was a little stream nearby, no morning tea or meal, none of which particularly bothered poverty-hardened survivors of a famine which had directly caused the rambuai².

But it’s not just convoy memories that nocturnal motor sounds evoke. For years the only passage for Mizos to the rest of the world was via the Silchar³ route, now part of the Indian National Highway 54. A tortuously winding road snaking through the mountains with a steep fall on one side and cliff slopes overgrown with vegetation on the other, just barely wide enough for two heavy vehicles to pass each other. Landslides were common occurrences particularly during the rainy season, causing time-consuming delays and forcing travellers to sometimes spend several days in covering the slightly less than 200-kilometre distance between Aizawl and Silchar.

Having travelled up and down this highway several times in my early years, first for survival and refuge, and later for schooling in Shillong, Haflong⁴ and Darjeeling, I remember how fresh and bracing the mountain air felt especially when returning home from the scorching plains of Silchar. But the physical passage through it was often difficult and challenging. At times when the road was impassable due to landslides and rockfalls, travellers had to make do with spending nights either snatching naps in the buses, cars or jeeps, or taking grateful shelter in one of the little villages along the way, the inhabitants of which were used to unexpected overnight guests.

The shadow of rebel ambushes and attacks along travel routes persisted long after the rigid convoy travel restrictions for civilians were eased off. On one occasion, this time at the height of summer in June 1980, I was part of a college excursion tour visiting various cities in the country – Calcutta, Bombay (as they were then known) and Delhi where the first thing we did, after freshening up from the long train journey from Gauhati, was to visit Pu Laldenga, leader of the MNF, at the insistence of the boys in our tour party. He was then living in Delhi for peace negotiations with the Central Government, and as we all crowded into their sitting room, the boys hung on to his every word in hushed reverence as he spoke persuasively about politics in low, confidential tones, while most of the girls dozed off in exhaustion.

By the end of the tour, we finally headed home, piling onto our hired Mizoram State Transport Bus at Silchar, relieved to leave behind the heat of the plains and breathe in refreshing cool air. We happily sang songs (as Mizos tend to do when riding long distance in vehicles) – patriotic Mizo songs, Christian songs, and the bus sailed past the small border towns of Vairengte and Bilkhawthlir without incident. At the outskirts of the next town, Kolasib, we were stopped to be told that MNF rebels had ambushed an Indian Army bus, killing four and injuring others, literally minutes after we had driven past. One of the boys remarked that the rebels had probably already been in position, hiding and waiting in the bushes by the road, and seen and heard us singing as we moved past. It was an unsettling thought.

I recall that it was also on this occasion that the bus was stopped once more, this time because there had been an accident, of which there were regrettably many, given the treacherous terrain. A truck had driven off the road and a rescue effort was underway for the victims. As we got off the bus to stretch our legs, a team of rescue volunteers were just climbing out of the ravine with one of the bodies – a smallish figure, a woman we were told, slackened in death, and respectfully laid by the roadside, shrouded in a Mizo puan⁵. Mizos are reverential with their dead, with a “mitthi puan” traditionally brought by mourners to drape over the mortal remains of the departed soul by way of paying their last respects. In case of accidents in isolated places such as road accidents, at least one or two women who happen to be nearby quickly remove their puan to cover the body. Or when YMA⁶ rescue teams set out in search of missing persons, many volunteers carry along a puan in case the missing is found dead.

It's been many years since but I remember all too well the sound and feel of sitting in a vehicle lumbering along the mountain roads, swaying and lurching past kilometre after kilometre of thick jungles and little highway hamlets. The steady hum of the engine gently lulling passengers into exhausted sleep, woven into which were the frequent honks of the motor as it navigated the many twists and turns through the winding road, while manoeuvring past the many goods trucks coming from Silchar, heavy-laden with provisions for the Mizo populace.

In retrospect, I suppose having spent so much of my early life on those long road journeys, I will always retain a great deal of nostalgia for sights and sounds that remind me of those days, no matter how traumatic or exhausting. And nighttime sounds will continue to wake me from time to time, bringing in whispers of those long gone, long done, long ago yesterdays.

 

 

¹Assam State Transport: Mizoram was earlier part of the state of Assam and called the Mizo Hills District before becoming the Union Territory of Mizoram in 1972 and achieving full statehood in 1987

²rambuai - the Mizo Uprising/ Revolt (known as the buai or rambuai in Mizo) led by the Mizo National Front (MNF) which broke out on March the 6^th 1966 with a declaration of independence from the Indian government, a direct consequence of the Mautam famine of 1960 when the Indian govt. did little to help the Mizo people

³Silchar - a small town in Assam 

⁴Haflong – a small town and hill station in Assam

⁵puan – traditional attire for Mizo women, a sarong-like cloth wrapped around the waist and covering the legs

⁶YMA – Young Mizo Association, the largest secular, non-government group in the state

 

The Cord of Life - Mafaa Hauhnar

Translated by Zualteii Poonte

“We are connected,
You and I,
By an invisible cord,
Not seen by the eye.”

The most powerful cord that holds my life together, the single strongest strand that binds life to mankind for me is literature. Often it is my only solace of refuge and rest.

Without it, I would be but a paper kite without a string, set adrift and wafted about by every breeze that blows, buffeted by unkind storms and eventually battered down.

When the silver cord that binds this body and soul (Ecclesiastes 12:6 ) is severed, I shall no longer be mortal. But the chain that binds my heart, with apologies to P.S. Chawngthu, is literature.

When the world becomes too much, and life turns ugly, when brutal waves bash me around, it is the anchor that keeps me holding on and saves me from drowning.

Riches and wealth, houses and lands, positions and privileges, power and authority – of these I have none. Like the popular song that goes, “It’s only words, and words are all I have,” my words and writings are about all that I have.

I am the kind that kicks shut opportunities opened by others. I spill more than I get into the pot, and knock down more than I get to prop up. I chop off more than I can even hope to pick up; fling away more than I can ever hope to gather.

“I am such a mess, even at my best” as the saying goes. At times that I try to shine I am frivolous, and even in my finest moments I am flippant.

That I am inept, ineffectual and incompetent I am all too aware, and need no one else to point it out. The knowledge of my own foibles and follies leave me downhearted and downcast, despondent and disconsolate. At such times when my spirits hit rock bottom, it is the rope of literature which hauls me back to sanity.

Certainly there are many points that my detractors can focus on to deprecate me. They are right when they say I am nothing and the truthfulness of it exacerbates the painful fact.

Much like the lines, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/ but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act I, scene II), it is simply that I am so flawed. Nothing else is to blame. The only thing that I do have, my writings and poetry, I treasure deeply and will guard with my life. It is, after all, what bonds me to life.

You may know my face, perhaps you even see me often; but do you know the details of the ups and downs of my life?

Believing you know me inside out, will you be so quick to damn and condemn me?

You hear me laugh and often see me in a joyful mood, don’t you? But do you also see my tears?

When the clouds can no longer hold in the water they carry, rain falls. When the heart can no longer bear the pain within, tears fall.

Despite that, the pain I carry inside is not usually revealed in tears. Instead it is sometimes the cheerful facade I somehow project that reveals the deep sadness I feel within.

If you will accept me, take me for what I am, with all my faults. If you embrace me hoping to turn me into what you want me to be, then you are in for disappointment.

Because my weakness is often so strong, I can never really live up to your expectations or fulfil your ideals.

That I am a happy, jovial person, always laughing and keeping everyone around me in splits is how many see me, I am certain.  Perhaps even as gregarious and sociable, spreading laughter wherever I go, the life and soul of every gathering.

But I spend more time on my own, a lonely man, brooding over sad and vexing thoughts that bring me to tears and cause me sleepless nights. A man who prefers solitude to company, like a ship stranded far out at sea and gently rocked by sea waves.  As lonesome as a solitary sparrow drenched in the falling rain. A man who enjoys his own company and spends time at home on his own.

I am a lone wolf. As the poet I greatly admire Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “He travels the fastest who travels alone,” which is echoed in the popular Merle Haggard song, “For he who travels fastest goes alone.” Our forefathers used to advocate following in the path of the most number of footprints but I would rather set off on my own so I can concentrate on my life’s pathway.

Intoxicated with madness,
I am in love with my sadness.

In public view and with company, I may guffaw as loudly as one stoned on weed. But since early childhood I have always chosen to shun company for my own, playing quietly by myself. Engrossed in my own imagination, I talk often to myself. Wanting to engage in serious conversation with my heart, I crave quiet time. It seems to me that it is the weak and those lacking in self-confidence who need to be constantly surrounded by other people.

As different as my fingerprints are from everyone else’s, so is my character and I have no intention of changing just to impress or appease some; I am no chameleon. I do not aim to please everyone, I am not Lengzem magazine.

I do not change my traits to force myself on others so they will accept me.

This is who and what I am, take it or leave it. Just as I have never apologised for my diabetes, I have never apologised for my character.

I have a mind separate from yours, allow me to have opinions of my own.

Were you to attempt to understand my life, you would never succeed; I myself fail to understand it.   Walt Whitman’s lines

“Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

describes me exactly.

Sometimes I feel like a paper kite with broken string, cast on a tree branch by the wind and hanging there aimlessly.

Not just any kite but one with eye-catching colours and made of quality paper is what I would like to be though.

One that someone walking out in the wilds catches glimpse of and happily climbs up and takes home contentedly. Repairs with great care the spine, the spreader, the cross, the tail, and reconnects with a strong, sound string.

Perhaps you are that solitary walker who finds that paper kite.

It is my dearest wish that you and I remain thus connected, with I being your source of joy and happiness.

But when the day comes that you grow weary of playing with me, take me to a wide, open hilltop on a bright, sunny day and release me into a light, cheery breeze. That is when you will break off the connection between us.

Perhaps the kind breeze will lift me onto a nearby tree branch again – to be rescued once more by someone else.

Then he will lift me up and let out the line, and I will sail the skies and dance among the clouds.  And when he wishes, he will draw me back in, and taking a quick sniff of me, will exclaim, “Ah, a scent of heaven!”

Photo credit:  Mala Pachuau & Amtea Hauhnar, with special thanks to C. Lalawmpuia Vanchiau

  

Translator’s Note:  I am so pleased to finally bring out this memorial tribute in the form of a translation of this soul-baring Mafaa Hauhnar piece,  the introductory essay to his last anthology of prose writings Hringnun Hrualhrui (published March 2018). The book would earn him a posthumous Book of the Year (2018) award from the Mizo Academy of Letters four months after he passed away in the early hours of December the 30th 2018 due to complications from diabetes.  

I began working on this translation shortly after Mafaa’s death but had to shelf it temporarily due to work pressures. Despite buying the book at its launch last March, I somehow never quite read the introduction. When I eventually did though, it took my breath away especially the poignancy of the paper kite analogy: Mafaa the writer, the paper kite blown around by every current of air, then nestling forgotten in the branches of a tree only to bring immense pleasure to those who take time to spend time with him, soaring high above the skies and bringing back a taste of heaven as he does time and time again to his readers.

I really got to know Mafaa in early 2015 when I was asked to work on a translation of one of his writings for an anthology (Contemporary Short Stories from Mizoram - Sahitya Akademi). We connected on Facebook and I quickly realised he had a tremendously quick mind which often reminded me of a witches’ cauldron because it always seemed to be bubbling over with some interesting thing or the other! Since unlike other Mizo writers, he also wrote in English, he became a permanent fixture at our Mizo writing in English events such as HillTalk, and assorted seminars and workshops: he was always one of our own.  And despite his boisterous, laugh-a minute reputation, I found him to be thoughtful, well-read and respectful. It surprised me though when he talked about his love of solitude, no, his preference for solitude because he always struck me as such a people person.  In this essay, he touches on all that and in hindsight, I wish I had known how  vulnerable and sensitive he had been as a person.  Rest in gentle peace, my friend.

The Mindless Machine – Vanneihtluanga

Translated by Zualteii Poonte

To the fellow who was to buy me the scooter, I instructed, “Just leave it by the Zarkawt Zangena Petrol Pump in the evening and I’ll collect it after work.” I gave him the money for the scooter and then proceeded to spend the rest of the day feverishly anticipating it. As I got on the bus after work, I’d never been so impatient to get to Zarkawt.

Sitting in a corner of the bus, I mused on how my new scooter would dramatically change my life. With smug thoughts along the lines of, “All you town buses, from tomorrow, you and I shall forever be strangers as I zip zap past you on my scooter. As of this evening I bid you goodbye,” I finally reached Zarkawt.

It was parked by the road in a frontal sideways stance that seemed to give me a coquettish salute. Its body was smooth and sleek and gleamed so glossily, it looked good enough to attempt to smuggle into heaven. Since the build was low slung, I was pretty sure I’d have no problems riding it. But never having driven anything in my life, not even a cow, come to think of it, I needed someone to teach me and the young family friend I’d got to do just that soon arrived.

Completely certain that I could quickly learn to drive, I said breezily, “Just drive me up to the field, show me the controls and tell me the basics, and then you can leave. I’ll get home on my own.” My young friend started the engine and it whined to life with a sound that brought to mind a vicious bull dog pawing the ground as it psyched itself up for a humdinger of a fight. Itching to get onto that mindless machine and move it around as much as I wanted, I said impatiently, “Come on, drive me up there,” and jumped on up behind my friend and we roared up towards the field.

“Ka u, what you’re holding with your right hand is the accelerator, and what you have in your left hand is the clutch. When you turn the accelerator, release the clutch and that’ll move you forward,” was all the briefing I got. With supreme confidence I got onto the seat, released the clutch and twisted the accelerator for all it was worth.

Something went “Viiiing!” and I shot up in the air high enough to almost catch a whiff of heaven and dropped back to earth with a spine-arching crash in a muddy ditch blackened by CRP waste water.

My left shoulder hurt most. The rest of my body just felt numb. My young friend helped me to my feet and I got up shakily before quickly collapsing back onto the first suitable place to sit. He pushed the scooter over to where I sat, and we both breathlessly busied ourselves picking away torn bits of my skin.

When I looked at my scooter again, it was as if it had been suddenly stripped of all its glamour of just five minutes or so ago. It stood hulking beside me like some ungainly, crooked-legged duck. The front leg shield wobbled unsteadily, and the front wheel faced left while its eye impossibly faced right. The beautifully smooth surface of its breastplate was now pocked with ugly dents. My young friend tried to push it to life with his foot but it remained as stubbornly silent as a water snail. We finally gave up and made off to a workshop.

At the workshop, a wild-eyed young man attended to us. He was wearing a bedraggled fishing vest, the back of which bore the legend IRON MAIDEN and on top was a picture of a skull with a snake slithering out of one eye. He opened up my iron horse and began reeling off, “Plugs oily/ contact point busted/ petrol overflow/ current dead/ piston ring loose,” things I’d never heard before in my life. He was a remarkably closemouthed fellow, speaking neither English nor Hindi, his Mizo atrociously accented and yet he insisted, “I’m not Meitei¹.” I concluded he probably was indeed the Iron Maiden.

Being so late in the day, the expenses of everything simply doubled. After I had emptied out my pockets and handed him over all my money, he put his foot out to start up the engine and nothing happened. So Iron Maiden went off to get someone a little more auto-savvy who ran a practised eye on everything, checked the petrol tank and declared, “But there’s no petrol at all in here!” I didn’t have any more money for petrol so in that ramshackle workshop I left behind my treasure and my mind.

At home that night I fell into a state of the deepest despondency. I had given my machine a battering and still couldn’t drive, and even if I were to try again I was black and blue all over, and I didn’t even have any more money to buy petrol. I felt like some sub-species of humanity and even darkly suspected my own masculinity.

The next morning, with steely determination I bought off my machine, stored it in a safe place and after all my dreams of zipping off to work driving a beautiful, brand new scooter, reluctantly boarded a town bus once again. As I gazed out the window around me, it seemed like everyone else was driving scooters. They were carrying girls pillion without overbalancing, driving and smoking cigarettes without any hassles, waving a hand in friendly greeting when they passed a familiar face, and here I was, still riding on a bus even after I had got myself all battered and bruised trying to learn how to drive. I brooded disconsolately and worked myself up to a futile fury. Lying in bed that night I began to chalk out in theory the art of driving. Why couldn’t I drive I asked myself and came up with the answer that I hadn’t really practiced enough, and also, I was way too chicken to practise in public where it would be obvious to everyone that I couldn’t drive. Then I figured that my young friend had pretty much taught me the rudiments of moving forward, so early the next morning before anyone else was up, I would practise again slow and easy.

So very early on a quiet morning that was still dripping with winter dew, I stalked my scooter like a hunter stalking a bird of prey. At first even pushing the key into the ignition was a major hassle. I tried to move it manually but it was like trying to move a stubborn cat – when I tried to push it forward, it just wouldn’t budge and when I tried to push it back, it felt stiff and unyielding. It seemed excruciatingly heavy but eventually, somehow or the other I managed to push it onto the main road.

The neighbourhood was ominously silent as if in deep mourning for a saint who was about to pass away. Shattering the quiet with my engine as I kicked it to life was mortifying.

I tried to board the machine in the way that I remembered but it seemed that the faster I tried to get on, the faster I fell. I couldn’t even manage to pull up both legs. Disconsolately I sat on the ground and then it struck me that rather than control the machine, I first had to learn how to balance myself. So I pushed my machine uphill and without turning on the engine, managed to run down a fair distance. Then I pushed my machine uphill again and ran down again, and despite it being mid-winter, I was soon dripping with sweat.

As I was running downhill once again, I must have somehow accidentally knocked on a gear because my machine suddenly sprang to life. It threw me into such a panic I somehow turned on the accelerator and then I was flying furiously down the hill at a breakneck pace, shrieking gibberish in absolute fright. The idea of hitting the brakes never occurred to me as I attempted to stop my flight by dragging one foot on the ground. Not quite seated and not quite jumping off I just tried desperately to stop myself. At times my left hand jabbed in vain at the brake that was supposed to be controlled by my foot, the helmet on my head flew off and ended up dangling on the back of my neck, my forehead repeatedly clobbered the speedometer, and at every electric pole I sped past, I stuck an arm out hoping to wrap myself around it and prise myself off my machine. Eventually I was lucky enough to fall over. As I inspected my arms and the lower part of my body under the glow of the streetlight, there were only a few spots that weren’t covered in bruises.

It was hopeless trying to continue so I took off home, all battered and bruised. I was too ashamed to face my family so I sneaked into the bathroom and taking no chances that someone might sense something was wrong, through puffy lips, whistled as jauntily as I could, “Piangsual kan awm tawng lo’ng, Jerusalem tharah².” As I whistled in a gruff monotone, I tried to pull down my zipper to pee and found to my consternation that I couldn’t find the zipper. It turned out that not just my crotch area but the entire back and front seams of my pants had burst and split wide open. And a lone button from my shirt was perched on a nasty bruise on one knee.

The following morning, at 2 am I was on terra firma on all fours once again, grappling with my iron horse. But this time I was well prepared. Pretty sure that I’d hurt myself again, I had bandages, dettol and cottonwool tucked away in my pockets. I’d wanted to wear the kind of leg guards that cricket stars wore but afraid they might restrict my movements, decided against it. Nursing the notion somehow that if I could train as regularly as this, I could master my machine within three days I was totally upbeat and didn’t even feel much pain.

Once again I started training with the engine turned off. After I’d practised for a considerable time, a few early morning birds began to show up. A senior government official, out on a morning jog, saw me and calling out, “So you got yourself a new scooter?” came jogging right past me. “Yes,” I replied and promptly fell over. Not a smart move. I uprighted my horse, kickstarted it and got on again. I quickly caught up with the official. He’d obviously blamed himself for distracting me and afraid I’d fall a second time if he spoke to me again, firmly ignored me and quickly took off on a detour. But for some reason I kept running straight after him and though he yelled, “You’ll knock me down!” I did knock him down though not too painfully. All I could say was, “Ka pu, I didn’t do that on purpose. My mindless machine just kept chasing you.” To this day I have a feeling the man is still afraid of me.

That very morning I managed to drive from Chanmari to Bazar Bungkawn. It got me all keyed up and so buoyant I decided to repeat the feat. I’d easily managed to make a turn at Bungkawn the first time but the second time I couldn’t do it again, so much against my will, I kept running on ahead. At Zodin I accidentally dropped a sandal and when I tried to stop to pick it up, to my chagrin I found that I just couldn’t stop. I raced on, despairingly leaving my shoe behind. At Vanapa Hall I told myself, “Enough is enough!” and leaped off. Once I’d jumped down, my iron horse didn’t get any further and toppled over.

I manouvered around and had already clambered back on board when I had second thoughts. If I got to Zodin and couldn’t stop to collect my shoe again I knew I’d only get into another awful scrape. So I got off, walked to Zodin and picked up my shoe. Then I went back and made it home on my machine without any further hitch.

The next morning I learned to give traffic signals but every time, however hard I tried I could raise my arm only after I passed a traffic point. The few times I did manage to raise an arm in time I always crashed straight into the Traffic Point. It took me a long time learning to get it right.

After I’d trained for the third straight morning I was almost confident enough to say, “I can drive now.” As I washed my hands before lunch, I looked down at my sore, aching hands and realised that I‘d been gripping the handlebar so tightly my palms were all blistered. I also realised that riding my scooter left me feeling more exhausted than walking on foot. I’ve now since learned to drive much more relaxedly and don’t lose my balance anymore over little things like one-sided tobacco chewing.

I began to have more confidence in myself and confided to a friend from Ramhlun Veng about my new driving skills. He said, “In that case, why don’t you come over tomorrow morning? There’s something important I need to discuss with you.” “Alright,” I agreed, “and since you’re such a late riser, I’ll come and wake you up.” Next morning, I took off very early as usual. Just as I was starting to congratulate myself on driving quite well, heavily laden trucks bringing in supplies to Aizawl appeared in the opposite direction along the Ramhlun highway. They sounded their road clearing tootlers and flashed their sidelights and an assortment of other lights that I wasn’t familiar with. Not having even properly mastered the art of driving, signal lights left me baffled and when the lights flashed, I hadn’t the foggiest idea whether it meant they were going to stop or were asking me to stop. And it wasn’t just that I didn’t know what they meant: I felt the lights flashing on and off, and off and on were synchronized with the heavy pounding of my heart. I also had the awful feeling that I was going to somehow manage to run right in between the wheels of those huge, lumbering trucks. I steered frantically and though meaning to turn left as per traffic rules, was so flustered I found myself scuttling to the right. Then intending to sound my horn I accidentally flicked on the sidelight knob and as if I wasn’t agitated enough already, my scooter began a loud beep-beep-beep which distraught me even further, and in tandem to it, my heart began thumping wildly, “zualko-zualko-zualko³.”

At my mad scrambling all over the width of the highway, the two top-heavy trucks did not merely slow down. With great alacrity, they hurriedly pulled over to the side of the road and waited for me to drive by without voicing a single angry sound. I wanted to tell them a proper thank you for their forbearance but just as I drew level, as if I had just suddenly discovered how to drive, I went zooming off again. Not being able to stop when I wanted to stop and falling over when I wanted to run definitely had to be the most exasperating part.

I reached my friend’s house a lot earlier than I wanted. The outlines of the earth were not even quite visible and a light breeze was wafting gently when I neared the gate. I had just decided to stop there when I felt a sneeze coming on. Calling out, “U Kai…” I let out an enormous sneeze which made me accidentally yank on the accelerator and then I was careening madly towards the gate. I hit the gate with a deafening crash, the dog gave a sharp yelp, and I fell onto the front porch, planting my big behind firmly in a pot of the missus’ prized roses.

The door opened. I was busy picking thorns off my butt. It was hard to find something to say. “Driving scooters sting the butt” and other weak jokes seemed embarrassingly lame for jolting people awake so early in the morning.

Long after I thought I couldn’t possibly get into any more mishaps, one evening I took a sharp bend too sharply and despite steering as best as I could, realized I couldn’t control the machine and slammed into a prison van. A bevy of brown shirts came running out and I was certain they would arrest me. Their leader asked, “And just how did you manage to hit our van of all things?” Not knowing what to say, I smirked ingratiatingly, “Don’t you think I’m brave?” They asked for my licence and on looking at the photograph where I wore a necktie and seeing my name, asked incredulously, “You are Vanneihtluanga?” I said simply, “Yes,” at which they all burst out laughing, and never got around to arresting me.

I must admit that my escapades with my scooter became legendary and I was on the receiving end of a great deal of ribbing especially from the young fellows around my locality, the rascals. On one occasion they stuffed pieces of plastic down my exhaust pipe. Not suspecting a thing, I tried to kickstart but it wouldn’t budge. The young guys hanging around nearby kept straight faces and helpfully tried to help me kickstart. Then saying,” Maybe you need a running start,” got me mounted and at a time when the streets were crowded, pushed me all around Chandmari Point and its vicinity. Since it still wouldn’t start, they got more of their friends to join in and they all ran after me like a bitch in heat being chased in hot pursuit by a pack of males. In exaggeratedly loud tones, they said, “His scooter’s down so we’re helping him start up,” but since the exhaust pipe was firmly blocked and the engine couldn’t fire up, they told me, “Your scooter’s busted, we’ll take you to the workshop.” And adding, “When it gets like this, it always calls for a major engine overhaul,” they pushed me unhappily to the workshop. Once we got there and the mechanic started looking around, they couldn’t control themselves any longer and began laughing hysterically. I joined in, albeit somewhat forcedly.

Still, I’m not too embarrassed. I know a lot of guys in my neighbourhood as inept as myself. I know of one who got on a scooter and dragged his leg in a gutter longer than he wanted and limped for ages afterwards. I also know of another described as, “He tried to drive a scooter and couldn’t but was strong enough to carry it.” And all the way from Shillong, the king of radio, Pu Valtea consoled me, “Tluanga, don’t worry, I know someone who got into even worse scrapes than you.”

He said there was this Mizo guy in Madanriting with a new scooter who had no idea you could park the machine without propping it up against a wall. He could drive well but since he didn’t know how to park it upright, had more problems with parking than driving. For a long time he would park it leaning against someone’s wall. And when he went to Police Bazar, he’d first look around for a suitable wall and leave it there with a piece of rope and jam the legs with a large rock he always carried with him. When I compare myself to someone like that, sticking your tongue out as a traffic signal doesn’t seem all that bad.

Much after I could comfortably travel around the length of Aizawl, I once got down to thoroughly washing up my mindless machine. As I thoughtfully peered into the exhaust pipe, I could see something that looked like a piece of bone, jagged and rough looking, and which moved sluggishly when I shook the pipe. Thinking it was an important machine part, I tried reattaching it to the pipe and dropped it in the process. Picking it up carefully, I assiduously washed it in the bucket. Then as I scraped away at it, it grew smaller and smaller till it finally disappeared. Realising I’d been meticulously trying to clean a lump of mud, I stood up in a huff and glared at my scooter.

And my scooter seemed to eye me back slyly and say, ”Ka pu, you call me a mindless machine and ridicule me all the time but of all scooter owners, no one could possibly be as mindless as you. You ought to have first read up everything about me from your instruction manual!”

¹ Manipuri

² Literally “There’ll be no more handicapped in the new Jerusalem.” A line from a popular mid-80s gospel song

³ A bearer of bad news, particularly of death. In the past, whenever someone died, young men were sent to carry the news to various relatives living far or near. In more recent times, the telephone has replaced the human messengers.

Vanneihtluanga is a prolific contemporary writer, high-profile media personality and an iconic figure for many, particularly among the younger generation. This piece was written in 1986 and published as Khawl Thluak Nei Lo in his collection of autobiographical short stories, Keimah leh Keimah in 2002.

Readers will be delighted to learn that he has since graduated from scooters and now drives a beautiful, undented Alto car.

Zualteii (A.Hmangaihzuali) Poonte teaches English lit. at a college in Aizawl. Her only pretensions at creative writing were during childhood while under the influence of Enid Blyton and Lucy M. Montgomery, and any further literary aspirations effectively buried under the avalanche of a formal education in world class literature.

Translator’s note: My first attempt at translation, I picked this piece partly because it’s such a hilariously good read. One of the marks of good literature is that it deals with something universal which readers can relate to irrespective of culture or language. Humour knows no boundaries and Vanneihtluanga’s trademark gentle, self-deprecating humour, and in this case, delightfully entertaining account of his struggles at learning how to drive, just begged to be translated. I have tried to keep the language as colloquial as possible in keeping with the tone of the original. Pu Tluanga being one of our relatively few Mizo literateurs who write without overtly moralizing or admonitory intent, it was an enjoyable experience working on this. I only hope that I have done justice to the often quirkily witty idiomatic expressions and turns of phrases which characterize his highly individualistic style of writing.