Musings on Craps

(After many people have read of this account in Laisuih (circa 2002), I am posting it here again, dear Blogophilus, for your perusal and pleasure. May you find it edited and more palatable to your excellent taste).

It's Friday the 13th for a Holden Caulfield kinda crap. I love it. I mean I love the book if you really want to know the truth. I love it when someone like Salinger writes a book with a crap like Holden Caulfield in it. I have had a helluva time reading it. It killed me.

That day's one of the most forgettable days of my life, not because that it was Friday the 13th and all. I don't believe in that kind of crap. I am not that superstitious. I find it so funny, ridiculous rather, when the scientific and seemingly rational western minds are still so mindful of doing certain things on Friday the 13th. It's so unreasonable to let your mind governed by insignificant things like a black cat crossing your path, or walking under the ladder, or why do you need to touch wood when talking about your future at all, etc, etc. It's all crap.

That day was forgettable for the simple fact that I happened to meet old Vanhlena, an old acquaintance I can do away with. He's the phoniest guy you've ever known. He's not ugly or anything like that. He's fair and quite handsome too, I must admit. He always looks like he just had a bath. He looks fresh and all. Fact is, he never bathe himself. He just washed the parts which were supposed to be showing outside his clothes. And he just sprayed deodorants and perfumes all over his body and his clothes. I have seen him done that more than once. He always talks in a sophisticated way, very phony, a Mr. Know-it-all. Scratch the surface and you find that he knows nothing at all. He just acts like he knows. He sounds intelligent, hi-fi and all when he's nothing like that. He's a fake. He wears good clothes- clothes that last for a hundred
years, everlasting clothes. He has been wearing them since I first met him 50 years ago.


He saw me loitering in the volleyball court, and when I saw him too there was no escaping him. So, I thought I might as well endure his phony ways for the last time, once and for all. I don't fancy too much of putting up with him anyway. He's damn polite, over-polite, in fact. That's one of his lousy traits that drives me mad every time we meet. He seemed pleased to locate me since he had that wide smile on his face. A smile way too wide it caused his eyes to close down. He had a piece of paper in his hand. And he read what was written on it, aloud, after he said his phony polite 'hi' to me.

Chhinlung is a big stone which is used for sealing the mouth of a cave in China. It is much like the stone that the angel rolled away from Jesus' tomb. (Some say an angel, some say an earthquake. I'm not too sure). It was a stone in China, anyway. There was this big cave in China from where the ancestors of the Mizos were supposed to have originated. Some of them were prevented from coming out of the cave by sealing the mouth with a big stone. That big stone is called chhinlung.

'Did you write this?' he laughed at me.

'The handwriting looks familiar to me,' I quipped, fearing for the worst.

'Did you write it?' he asked me in a mockingly loud tone.

I wasn't deaf or anything and he needn't had raised his voice. I hate it when some lousy pervert like Vanhlena shouted at me.

'The handwriting is very similar to mine. Where did you get it from?’


'Did you write it?' he asked again for the hundredth time.

It annoyed the hell out of me when a phony guy like Vanhlena asked me the same lousy question for a hundred times. It really did.

'Yes, I wrote that,' I said with a tone of finality.

Well, there was this one Assamese guy named Ashok, a Research Scholar, staying at the Chhinlung Halls of Residence (NEHU, Shillong). He had wanted to know the etymology of the Mizo word chhinlung, and had asked me about it. I had promised to do a little research for him, but I was too busy and too lazy to read any book on it. I finally wrote that darn thing for him after he had asked me for about a hundred times. I wrote that thing for him, for him alone, not for a gossip-monger like Vanhlena. I had no idea how it ever got into his lousy hands.

'It's grand. Just grand,' he laughed.

Grand. I hate that word so much. It sounds so phony, just like him.

'What's so grand about it anyway?' I asked in annoyance.

'Boy, you seem to know so much of the Mizo History, especially about chhinlung. That's simply grand.'

Grand, my foot! Then he brought out another piece of paper from his pocket. The lousy back pocket of his hundred year old pant. He read it aloud again when he didn't need to be so loud at all. I wasn't deaf or anything like that. My perception is quite good. If I am with, say, a hundred people, I would be the one who perceives the sound of a pin dropping down the floor. I am not deaf, believe me. But he read it aloud anyway.

Sensiar is a beautiful bright red flower which grows only in Mizoram in the very remote past. The bright red colour of the flower is so distinct that it has magical powers. If anyone possessed the flower he could make anyone fall for him no matter how ugly or poor he is. Sometimes a fine powder is extracted from the sensiar flower, and it is used as a cure-for-all medicine. It is said to be good for treating cancer and AIDS. The scientific name of the flower is Sensiara indica. Effort is on to cultivate the flower in every part of Mizoram in a large scale.

'You wrote this too, I bet. Would you mind me asking who it is for?'

He's always mocking me, the sonofagun.

'Yes, I did write that! Yes, I wrote it for Zomawii. She needed it for her valedictory speech in the Sensiar Halls of Residence. What is that to you anyway?'

He laughed like a hyena. The phony guy. He laughed so hard he shed his tears, and he shook
like a mad man. The lousy guy.

'You are a very good writer, a great Historian, in fact. That was an eye-opener for me. It truly was. You know so much about sensiar. And you wrote it for Zomawii, you say? Why didn’t she write it herself? She’s a Mizo, and she should know, the
promiscuous girl!'

'She's a Mizo, yes! But she does not know a thing about sensiar. So I just did her a favour, and I helped out a damsel in distress, okay. Now, come off it!'


'She's no good damsel in distress. She's a flirt, and she's promiscuous. That's the truth. She had flirted with every other guy in this damn hostel,' he complained.

I smelled blood at that remark, and I wasn’t one to let it pass by when I got the chance. So, I cornered him with this question.

'Well then, If she were to flirt with you, or act promiscuous with you, what would you think of her then?'

Zomawii's a very comely girl. She's good, really, she's very beautiful. And I was sure that a lousy pervert like Vanhlena wouldn't be able to resist her for long if she should give the green signal, or made her advances at him. It quietened him. Then, I asked again.

'If Zomawii were to flirt with you, or act promiscuous with you, how would you think of her then?'

He just gaped at me. He was speechless.

'C'mon, what would you think of her then?'

I caught a glimpse of it coming with the side of my right eye but it was too fast that I couldn't escape it. His big fist landed on my right cheek. He was mad at me for asking him too good a question. Good question, no answer. He's a mad dog. I was forced to step back, and my cheek hurt like hell.

'What's that for, c'mon, what the hell is that for?'

I shouted at him like mad. I had wanted to hit him back then. To devour him, to teach him a lesson. But I didn't. I wasn't yellow or anything, believe me. I was trying hard to restrain myself. And then the hostellers started to come out of their rooms to see what was the matter.


Vanhlena left without a word. I had wanted to call him back then. To let him kneel infront of me, and to let him apologize. But I didn’t. I wasn’t yellow though, believe me. I was just restraining. The others started to gather around me and I soon found myself in the middle of a big crowd. Then I felt my nose running, and I wiped it with the back of my hand. Blood. Blood! My nose was bleeding.


I didn't know why she happened to be there. But Zomawii was there in the crowd. She came over to me and took out her hanky and started to wipe my bloody nose clean with everyone watching us and all. Her hand felt so smooth and her hanky smelled so good. I don't know much about Ladies' perfumes, never did, but I was sure it was one of those expensive foreign perfumes. She wiped me clean with her hanky. Chemistry! The chemistry between us was so strong, at least half of the crowd could feel it, I was sure.

'What was the fight all about?'

She asked me in a trembling voice, full of concern.

'It's not important. It's just one of those guys' things.'

I was trying to act tough, virile and all, but she would've none of it.

'No, it's important to me.'

It's important to her! Her voice was so sweet, so vulnerable, so full of concern for me, you see, it melted my heart. Then I told her, I had to.

'I was trying to save your ass here. I was trying to protect your reputation.'

'Oh, really, how was that?'

She got interested as hell even as she nursed my wound, wiping me with her foreign perfumed hanky. And the guys looked on at us with envious eyes. They were dying to be in my place. It killed me.

'He said you were a flirt, promiscuous and all. I wouldn't agree with him. I hated that with all my heart, and I countered him. That's it.'

She turned all red out of anger. But still she looked beautiful. I loved her, almost, then. The strange thing about beautiful girls is that they still look beautiful even when they are angry, or sad, or happy. The problem with us is that we always look the same, ugly, no matter how we feel.

'That sonofagun! I am going to teach him a lesson, I swear!'

And then she held me by the arm and accompanied me to my room while all the guys looked on with those popping eyes of envy. I almost felt like giving my heartfelt thanks to Vanhlena for giving me that big hit. It didn't come without a prize. If it's always going to end like this, with Zomawii nursing me, holding me, and accompanying me to my room with all those hungry eyes staring at us, then I don't mind staging another fight with a phony guy like Vanhlena at all. That's all I am going to tell you for now about that day.


My fight with Vanhlena, and Zomawii's nursing me afterwards became the hottest topic in every
conversation. It became the talk of the Campus for the whole damn semester. I didn't know why. I just didn't understand. After a little while everyone knew more about that fight than I did. And they soon said that Zomawii and I were true lovers while Zomawii and I never knew about that love affair between us. We didn't even see each other for that matter. Everyone said that we were more like man and wife, having a live-in relationship and all. Fact was very different though. Zomawii had her own boyfriends, not I, which she kept on changing every other month. And I never had any girl. People talked, you know, especially those campus crowd. It annoyed the hell out of me. It’s total murder. The murderers. We were included in every gossip, and in the end I almost came to believe what they said about me. The gossip-mongers! There simply was no entertainment other than to gossip about people having fights, falling in love and all those stuffs. It was so suffocating. But that was their mentality. You can’t change them overnight even if you try as hard as I did.

It's been some years now, and I kind of miss all the people I just told you about. I shouldn't have told you about all these craps. It made me feel bad all over again. Anyway, they are not here anymore. Vanhlena is somewhere in the highlands now, doing what he does best - winning over phony people with his phony ways, the deceiver. It suits him fine. I kind of miss him in a way. I wonder if he still wears his everlasting clothes. I am dying to know that. Old FH's learning the art of flirting with teenage schoolgirls in the school he is working now. He has not succeeded so far. Zomawii still looks young inspite of her age. She's a grandma now at least by her age. She still flirts around a lot but never with Vanhlena, the lousy pervert, nor with me. That's unlucky in a way. Most of the Mizo students still don't know much about the true meaning of chhinlung or sensiar, they are not too interested in their roots at all. The Campus crowd still gossips a lot, or so I heard. And I remain, a Holden Caulfield kinda crap, having a helluva time musing over all these craps, and waiting for Godot. Hope? And there are still some hypocrites who are hoping that some promiscuous girls would focus their attention on them, and would misbehave with them. It kills me.