Ayekpa Asaba

  • Black Glory


In sorrow the trees, they shed leaves in spring;
When in spring the king was crowned in sorrow;
The unchaste leaves squeaked, they had turned insects
They had sank into the sea of lorn leaves,
Unknown, soft; the death râle was so hard.

Hands and legs twisted, people turned zombies;
Guns, paper pistols; skies, grey; and eyes, blind
Screaming and shrieking, tedious time’s travel 
It’s wasted after the king’s coronation
In the darkness, he basked in his glory;
In some unknown winter, some hope flickers. 


  • Beyond the Wall
The king is divine,
Though I’m more interested in the queen
I let them know ne’er;
But her beauty betrays me not, ever.

So I decided
This kingdom be departed, and me, stroll’d

“As your inspired coronation’s over
Permit me to leave;
I have no good place to go and stay
But I have to go.”

“We have seen gods in your royal image
We have seen you well
You have been giving us a royal fuck
Or maybe we’re blind.”

Let these words be no calumniation
The reason’s simple
For my expected departure today
Move beyond the wall.
How I wish it stops,
The world, after the king’s coronation

Beyond it should be,
The heavy narrow walls of the nation
Beyond the border,
The flag and the anthem and the emblem.

(Source: kapilarambam.blogspot.in)

Posted 2 months ago

Old Man and Whisky

My grandfather opens his heart, 
Now on his ninety-eighth birthday
He will make out what he had rued.

So he told me: Fairly he’s been drinking 
Off and on, he would regret drinking too much
But it was exaggerated, he said 
By teetotallers and advertisements
Now he cackles at concern and caution:
‘How much had the extra pegs troubled me?!’

The old man is prepared: come gun or bomb;
He will drink every peg he missed in fright 
For the last eighty long years of his life
Reasoning health and the drinking’s failings,
When whisky can be saner than army
When Kakhulong cannot be Nagaland
When you would sell your wife for some money
When war is which side I am supporting.

(Source: kapilarambam.blogspot.in)

Posted 2 months ago
What would be the worst tragedy of the history of humankind? (A tragedy, and the worst in it — this is quite too much, isn’t it?) But it would indeed be the ultimate tragedy, a wise man had once said, if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more noble than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump. Leave these depressing tragedy and humanity things. But do consider how much the government is a pain in the ass and how much relief we will get if it is gotten rid of. Tragedy will find a new weaker yet worthy synonym.   Most of the time, we are more occupied with what we eat, what we drink, what we love, what we hate and with whom we have sex. The times they are also a-changin’ and a-bloody-ever uncertain too. So I have decided to choose at least one field, where I can fall back to, in times of need, in case of any unavoidability. Now I’m assured I can join the matchbox industry even if the government dies or not. View Larger

What would be the worst tragedy of the history of humankind? (A tragedy, and the worst in it — this is quite too much, isn’t it?) But it would indeed be the ultimate tragedy, a wise man had once said, if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more noble than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump. Leave these depressing tragedy and humanity things. But do consider how much the government is a pain in the ass and how much relief we will get if it is gotten rid of. Tragedy will find a new weaker yet worthy synonym.  
Most of the time, we are more occupied with what we eat, what we drink, what we love, what we hate and with whom we have sex. The times they are also a-changin’ and a-bloody-ever uncertain too. So I have decided to choose at least one field, where I can fall back to, in times of need, in case of any unavoidability. Now I’m assured I can join the matchbox industry even if the government dies or not.

(Source: kapilarambam.blogspot.com)

Posted 2 months ago
ON MANIPURI MOVIES The journey began in 1972, the same year when the consolatory status of a state was recognised by the Indian union. Matamgi Manipur, the first Manipuri movie debuted with style as well as substance so to say, and won the President’s Medal in the 20th National Film Festival. There has been no looking back but a more focus attention at the front, on the lens of this industry. After a formidable start with a lot of help from outsiders (read Bengalis) in film production and a handful of evergreen movies, there was a hitch in the late Eighties and the Nineties, apparently because of two reasons. The film makers were finding no market to sell their product; and they were simply busy imitating the Bolywood’s melodramatic craps. Perhaps there are also other reasons. When it comes to Manipuri cinema, Aribam Syam Sharma is just a like a trailer to every movie. This guy is in it all the time all the place.  Significantly, the industry saw a new life when the insurgent groups, citing cultural contamination, put a blanket ban on Hindi films in 1998. After a mixed response from the eternally confused people — some hurling abuse at the armed land-guards for encroaching on their already molested sense of freedom, while others offering the proverbial boutiques — the boycott heralded the dawn of digital movies. A digital movie is low cost yet so popular. A local film producer once told me how people, who live as far as the hamlets in Assam would cry for some kind of these movies. But as in other things, there is always a limit in Manipur. In this case for example, a month ago, the film fraternity took out a routine protest on the street. They did it just like the journalists because they were marching on the street, otherwise it would have been the so-familiar sit-in protest at a street corner. Their pain in the ass: the intolerable money demands again, from the land-guards. Extortion, they say, is a thriving business these days, provided you have the balls to kill or die, or you are Ibobi.  In the last decade the market has been flooded with digital movies. While there is no question about preserving our ingenuity, which is one thing, the tasteless flicks being churned out every month just like over-measured, overcooked rice is quite another. View Larger

ON MANIPURI MOVIES

The journey began in 1972, the same year when the consolatory status of a state was recognised by the Indian union. Matamgi Manipur, the first Manipuri movie debuted with style as well as substance so to say, and won the President’s Medal in the 20th National Film Festival.

There has been no looking back but a more focus attention at the front, on the lens of this industry. After a formidable start with a lot of help from outsiders (read Bengalis) in film production and a handful of evergreen movies, there was a hitch in the late Eighties and the Nineties, apparently because of two reasons. The film makers were finding no market to sell their product; and they were simply busy imitating the Bolywood’s melodramatic craps. Perhaps there are also other reasons.

When it comes to Manipuri cinema, Aribam Syam Sharma is just a like a trailer to every movie. This guy is in it all the time all the place. 

Significantly, the industry saw a new life when the insurgent groups, citing cultural contamination, put a blanket ban on Hindi films in 1998. After a mixed response from the eternally confused people — some hurling abuse at the armed land-guards for encroaching on their already molested sense of freedom, while others offering the proverbial boutiques — the boycott heralded the dawn of digital movies.

A digital movie is low cost yet so popular. A local film producer once told me how people, who live as far as the hamlets in Assam would cry for some kind of these movies. But as in other things, there is always a limit in Manipur. In this case for example, a month ago, the film fraternity took out a routine protest on the street. They did it just like the journalists because they were marching on the street, otherwise it would have been the so-familiar sit-in protest at a street corner. Their pain in the ass: the intolerable money demands again, from the land-guards. Extortion, they say, is a thriving business these days, provided you have the balls to kill or die, or you are Ibobi.

 In the last decade the market has been flooded with digital movies. While there is no question about preserving our ingenuity, which is one thing, the tasteless flicks being churned out every month just like over-measured, overcooked rice is quite another.

# manipuri cinema films

Posted 2 months ago
Poetry in 2011 In Pursuit of Freedom Find me on Twitter Ayekpa Asaba Subscribe to the updates Find me on Facebook