The other day, as I write this, I mean one of the other day in the year 1998, as I sat inside a bus numbered 205 originating from Bansdroni, the locality where I stay, thinking of making myself comfortable having obtained a set, I gradually began to wonder how long my ass would withstand the seat that felt more solid than the stones that one finds in the rivulets streaming down the villages in the sadar hills district of Manipur state.

Painfully as the bus trudged on towards the destination at Dhalousie in Kolkata, the quarrel of the conductor and one peculiar passenger interested my silly mind, quite interesting to the extent of forgetting the pain in my ass.

From the entire vocabulary of bengali I had saved on my little and simple head, I could understand that the fare chargeable to this peculiar passenger upto the destination was Rs.2.75. He had paid one 2 rupee coin, one 50 paise coin, one twenty paise cpin and one ten paise coin totalling to Rs. 2.80. The conductor smartly pulled out the ticket of Rs. 2.75 and kept it in the waiting hands of the passenger saying "ticket ta neen". This passenger kept on waiting, despite ticket in hand, looking at the conductor in a puzzled face. The conductor relooked at him and quipped " Aar Ki chai ??". The passenger told him he gave Rs.2.80 and he should have been returned a 5 paise with the ticket. The Conductor screamed and told him, "Ay samoy paanch poisa kothai paabay ??". The passenger curtly replied that if he had given him only Rs. 2.70 it would not have been accepted for the sake of 5 paise, likewise he needs the 5 paisa. The conductor yells that we always accept the money for 5 paisa less.

Heres the most interesting thing at the end. The passenger told him to handover back the 10 paise and take the fare at 5 paisa less and took back the 10 paise coin.

CAN YOU ??

The area in particular to the reference of the writer, comprises the north eastern part of India, commonly known as the NE seven sister states, comprising more of persons of the mongoloid structure, more noticeable so in the states of Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim. These people differ in basic appearance from those of the mainland India visibly in the appearance of the face with smaller and flatter nose, smaller opened eyes, smaller but healthy, well built structure and more obvious, greater stamina and strength, and so on.

Of late, there has been a paradigm shift from the earlier concept of living through means of farming and reaping foodstocks enough to last them the whole year, to gradually awakening to the concern for literacy and quite an exodus from the native area of their existence to the big cities and metros. This trend was visibly seen starting in the early part of the nineties and gradual increase to the extent that, you may find a Mongoloid face or structure in almost every city in all parts of india.

Allbeit, despite their seemingly undeveloped original native roots, one does see the standards in terms of their fashion knowledge, sports and worth a matter of pride in mentioning that some of our Indian Ambassadors abroad are from these origins. They are more westernised by the looks of their lifestyles.

In the midst of these busy, fast paced, mad scramble for all reasons of the mainland indian people, these groups still try to maintain their back home cultures and habits which sometimes runs into bad weather of controversy, creating quite a feed for the media whatsoever.

One interesting feature I commonly observe is the pent up red faced anger and fury they exhibit, when addressed to as a Nepali. Words like Ay Thapa, Ay Bahadur, Ay Daju, Ay buini etc can burn up a wild mountain fire inside their simple head. I dont know why, even as I am, but all the more, to the common man in india, he or she is what they think - a Nepali. I cant help repeating one incidence at the Ramoji Film City where we were lined up for some fun ride, with my family. The man behind, apparently looking quite educated and quite black in complexion tabbed the shoulder of my son, who was 17 at that time, "Kya Nepal itna garam hota hai ?" to which my immediately angered son replied, "kyon itna garam lag raha hai tumko, Africa toh isse double garam to jarur hoga !!". It almost erupted into a fight before I could explain to the man that the way he address us a nepalese was hurting as much more the way he was addressed to mas an African.

I remember in 1989 in the month of february, riding a bus from Hyderabad towards a place called Pargi - ver heard of or dreamt of in my life but was a part of my training programme for 6 months. I landed after a bumpy 3 and half hour ride, sweating like I had a steambath, to be greeted by two nepali workers on my way towards the office. They carried my luggage, caringly showed and advised me all necessary things, till which time I was just listening and not doing any talking as I could'nt figure out what they were saying in their nepali language. At last the elder one retorted out in Hindi, accusing me of being shy or feeling ashamed of being a Nepali. It took me 10 minutes to let the office people where I was reporting, to explain to them that I was not a Nepali but what I was on the basis of the credentials that I had carried myself with, otherwise even the office staffs would have joined them in turning me into a nepali.

I often try to fathom the reason why such a sudden spark of anger starts burning the mind faster than any thing when the subject of being addressed to as a Nepali is thrown at. Probably, the only reason I can try to arrive at could be "hiche nepali, bongching, namse, loukhoi, kaa ne etc" referring to those from our area,which was in the 70's and 80's. This feeling of being compared may be a likely reason. But believe me, now they are quite ahead, maybe to us. They dont bear the mongoloid structure, no "MITKICHI", no "MITGEIBEI", no "NAHPEH' and so on. Fact they are more "NAHJUM" and "NAHSAO" than us, more so like the mainland indian structure.

The area in particular to the reference of the writer, comprising the north eastern part of the