Mourning the lost Angami culture of honesty and concern for one another’s welfare

Kaka D. Iralu The Angami word “Kelhoukevira” which means “Land where life is good” is not a contentless word coined by some drunkards from some booze joint. Quite on the contrary, it was a thoughtfully spelled out word coined by some bygone Angamis who actually lived in such a land under the influence of a beautiful culture. That former culture was (almost) devoid of dishonesty, covetousness and selfishness. Perhaps that culture is best expressed in the popular Angami song “Lhou riinou di.” (That life of contentment). The verse of the song goes like this: “With no covetous ambitions troubling our care free lives; we while away our times singing songs in blissful contentment. Our presence anywhere, a balm of happiness, we love to frolic in laughter the jokes our friends delight in cracking!”If there is an Angami cultural philosophy of life, this song very aptly describes it!I am of course not here talking about a bygone “Golden age” of Angami history where everything was like heaven. Every age has its own black sheep and I personally do not believe that any such golden age (per se) have ever existed in any human society in history. But be that as it may, in this present write up, I definitely am talking about an era which I also saw with my own eyes but which now does not exist in al its former visible beauty and manifestations today. Sadly, today’s Angami culture (and perhaps most other Naga cultures too), is rapidly being replaced by a culture of selfishness and shamelessness where the sense of honor, integrity and sharing seems to have evaporated into the air or perhaps down the artificial smelly drains of so the called modern Naga culture. For example, long gone are the days, I returned home from a successful shopping trip quietly whistling to myself over a good purchase and imagining the aroma of the curry my wife would cook for the whole hungry family that awaited my homecoming. Instead of such sweet memories, I now almost always return home from shopping in an angry mood having decided not to buy any of the things I went to buy because they were- by an own shameless Angami lady or a sweet talking Lotha lady- being sold at exorbitant (or shall I say extortionist) prices. I had done this many times even when I had sufficient money in my pocket to buy all their goods. After all, why should I buy a handful of vegetables for Rs 100 which earlier used to sell for Rs 10, which jumped to 20, then 50 and now suddenly Rs 100? Tell me, how a price can make such a triple jump within a few decades of a person’s life? And this is talking about commodities at the lowest level. Unbelievable are the prices of hornet larvae and wood worms that sell for Rs 6000 and 3000 per platefuls! One can only conclude that both the sellers as well as the buyers have all gone out of their minds in their greed and shameless lust for money. And to add to the public’s anger, where are all the rate checkers of the Kohima town Municipality or even the Government of Nagaland who should be implementing strict rates and penalties for defaulters? Does Kohima town and the government of Nagaland have no such machineries and departments to check these shameless, lawless skyrocketing prices of essential commodities? In conclusion, how can any right thinking Naga not lament the desecration of a once proud and honorable culture that was crowned with care and concern for one another’s dignity and value? Greed for money is the root cause of all these decay of cultural values and priceless legacies. And in my opinion, the compromise of our national identity with that of India and the money we got from that treacherous exchange has also brought about all these cultural decadence and degradations. (But more on this in the next article). As for now, let all true Nagas collect all the Indian Rupee notes-including those of their rani gaidinliu’s coins-and pile them up in the Kohima local ground for a big bonfire. In such an event, I would love to be the Chief Guest so that I can light the bonfire and bring all Nagas back to their former beautiful culture.