G. L. Khing Kohima
We are all influenced by the modern life style. Westernization has found its place in our kitchen to bathroom. Modern ways of life ranges from food to clothes, from walking to sleeping. All gadgets have the latest and fastest touch in the hands of many youngsters. This has made life easier and faster. Friends need no longer meet too often because it is replaced by video chats and watsapp. ‘Hey, you need to be modern yaaar. You are too old fashioned like people of Harappa civilization’.
To avoid such comments from friends and foes, many youngsters are forced to sell themselves to technologies and gadgets, clothes and foods. You buy them, they imprison you. All possessions are bought to make life equal to the so called ‘modern life.’ But what lies inside remains the same. A girl in a shortest possible skirt and a boy with the skintight trousers may not be enjoying the most basic necessities of life. Externalism is more important for many of us.
Likewise, today many youngsters are highly tempted to possess a two wheeler bike. It is more convenient to ride bike especially in cities like Kohima and Dimapur where traffic jam is a daily schedule. A rider can reach his destination avoiding such traffic congestion. But how do you find the rider to be? Many youngsters ride the loudest sound bike. It roars from PHQ junction to Phoolbari, and then to High School junction till New Secretariat. The louder the sound of the bike, the better they enjoy the ride. Sometimes it sounds like a rice-mill. ‘A rice mill is passing by’.
Does it sound funny? Instead of riding straight on the left side, they zigzag all along, left and right, right, left and centre with all eyes on them. The hairs are coloured well like the colour of the bike. They have befriended each other in everything. Many accidents take place because of careless riders. When accidents take place, crowd gathers around to find out who is wrong instead of finding out necessary help. A person in civil dress is often accused than those in school/college uniform. If it happens to be a Naga and a non-naga, the mistake will always find a home in non-naga. But a person in uniform is not always right. And a Naga is not always the truest person. Uniform does not determine you to be right or wrong. What is inside the uniform matters the most. Many students ride the best bike in the worst style. It is an exposition of what lies inside.
One day, I was driving from PHQ junction to Old NST Station (off course, there is no new NST Station), I heard a thundering noise. My curiosity took my head outside the car towards the direction of the sound. There I saw a young rider with a girl at the back in a romantic atmosphere. May be they were heading to attend some romantic dramas in literature class. The practical is taking place outside the classroom. The hair of the boy looks like a mobile tower, and the girl seems as though a dolphin just came out from the swimming pool to bath in the sun. ‘Oh my ghossss, am I watching animal planet channel?’ No, they are right in front of my eyes. I wonder which school or college appreciates such abnormal style, a deformity in the making. Such style does not bring modernity to the schools and colleges.
Some Principals and Headmasters do not want to teach or discipline students lest the number decrease. They would say, “Oh that is their personal life. We do not interfere in the personal life of the Students.”But if you do not interfere in the personal life of the Students when they show strayed behaviour, then what kind of PERSON do you have as Pupils? Students go to Schools and Colleges with their very person to be formed and nourished by good discipline under the rules and regulations of Schools and Colleges. Educational institutions should take utmost care in imparting the right formation of life. Anyway, with a good noise pollution bike, they speed away. Pollution Control Board is worried about air pollution, not noise pollution. Nagaland has passed through many phases of changes. Yet, we have changed for worse, the good is still too less to be called ‘Good’.
Life is not for those who want to live well and upright. The wind is too strong for righteous people because it comes from every direction. We need to aim a higher life, a life where originality dwells. For this Parents need to live honest and sincere life because what they do now will be done by their children in a double manner. May no Parents feed the senses of their children with something that is unhealthy. It may result in abnormal growth where tears and headaches will become the daily bread of the family. There may be some parents who feed the family with tainted wealth; such filth does not result in healthy living. In other words, do not expect goodness from your children if you are feeding them with dirts of every sort inside your own family. Before they roar at you, tame them at the right time. They will be a blessing for you in your old age.
