AGAINST THE BOASTFUL CHILD

I have seen how people take immense pleasure in being niece and nephew or grandchildren or sisters or brothers-in-law, or cousin, or distant relatives or master or mistress of someone who by legitimate or illegitimate means has reached the top. For me, the most irritating connecting lines on the face of this world could be, “Do you know who I am?” followed by, “I am the son/daughter of…”  I believe people will be more or less interested in who you are or what you have done for the society or what you have done for yourselves rather than to what grapevine you belong.  There is nothing wrong to be born with a silver spoon, and it is great if you make the silver spoon turn into gold but the problem lies when privileges are misused. However, what is more, dangerous is false humility, camouflaging pride with meekness in occasions just for good personality gimmick. I really respect people who are their own godfather, and I do respect people who are born to the family of fairy mothers but they do not use the magic spell to get things done. It is true that we all are part of the social web and we need one another to achieve a set target but in the process of doing so one should not have the bulging pride of forgetting that the chromosomes are termed as ‘xx’ and ‘xy’ for everyone. As an old youngster, I have heard people chanting, “It is rocking to live life on the edge.” I just want to edit it a bit, it is okay to live life on the edge but make sure that the mountain that you are standing on has been climbed by you, for what joy it is if you took the help of a helicopter.

MY FIRST NOVEL

Originally ‘The Winning Story’ was written for National Novel Writing Month 2010. The story is set in two imaginary towns in Nagaland, North East India; Ivy hill, a small sleepy town and Timberland, a blooming commercial town. The story revolves around the nucleus of the society that is family. In a way, it explores all the different kinds of love that shape the lives of all the people in Eve’s story. It begins with a prologue, where Eve the protagonist of the novel gets herself all set for the competition, ‘My Winning Story Competition’. She unfolds the story spinning back to her decades of memories. The story unfolds a merry go round of emotions; revolving in the whole cycle of life- birth, childhood, youth, adult hood, love, heartbreaks, marriage, hardship, success, failure and dead. She takes her audience for an adventure of hope, second chance, trust, her Christian faith and everlasting love, making the listeners realise that there is but no greater story than one’s life itself..