An imaginary mental boundary between Lawai & Imphal...

When I was returning Guwahati from Imphal, inside the bus I saw a Manipuri film, where one guy from Lawai (village), goes to his friend’s house which is in Imphal (capital city). That guy when entered his friend’s house he had a Khongdrum(Calabash – a big one) in his hand leaning on his right solder (like Hanuman with his Gada), and bunch of big Yendem(Arum) in his left hand. He wore formal dress with a nice pair of slippers. In another scene when he was crossing the road, he saw an airplane flying above his head, his response was like, it was the first time he is seeing the airplane. It was a comedy part of the movie.

I closed my eyes and look back to my life and I was thinking, did I ever went to Imphal like that, with Khongdrum as Gada, yendem in the left hand, looking airplane while crossing the road and wearing a formal dress with nice pair of sleepers. Then I look upon my friends (in my memory), did they ever do like that. It is funny to think, why I was thinking like that. Oh! Then I found the answer, I am from the countryside of our state Manipur, which people from Imphal called Lawai. Ha ha ha! It is funny, we have a saying also “Lawai macha khongbi chao, charuna pati faba”. Meaning is “people from lawai has big hallux (great toe) and they use paddy plant as a belt”. Sometimes I seriously measured my khongbi with those of my friends from Imphal, and I found some guys from Imphal have bigger Khongbi than me ;).

If one imphal macha, mistakenly use the word “lawai macha” he will convince you with the meaning like this “see my friend Lawai is not decided by the place where you belong, it is decided by person and the choukhataba (uncivilized) thinking he has”. And some guys when they drink and when they fight each other, the most popular word they have in their mouth is “Lawai” even to the fellow Imphal mates also. In a few cases, one of your friends, Imphal macha talking about another friend mentioning lawai macha, and immediately he realized you are also from Lawai, oh! That moment! ooofff!!!. There is a big confusion with this terminology “Lawai” – it is interpreted in two ways one as a villager and another as uncivilized & out of fashioned people. In this case, your friend was talking about the second meaning to your other uncivilized friend, but the funny part is Lawai also means the village place, where you are belonging to. It is not imaginary case, it happens in reality also.

Sometimes I feel so funny, when I say about my village, they reply – “oh! That is very far” with body language like my village is 5 days away from Imphal, but in actual it takes only 1hr and 30 minutes to reach by bike. By the way, the bus service is also there, and it takes only 2hrs and thirty minutes to reach.

Some lawai machas want to act like Imphal macha, there are so many funny and interesting stories. My mother once told me a story about a lady from our village. She was eloped by a guy from some other village of Manipur, telling her as he is from Yaiskul (a place in Imphal), that girl also lied to him by saying she is from Keisampat (another place in Imphal). It must be really funny when they know the truth of each other.

Once when my friend asked me about my dream girl and asked me to choose one from our village, I replied simply as “I don’t want to marry a girl who belongs to my village”, but he interpreted it as I like a girl from Imphal (choukhatpa), he replied me as “me macha de yadeko, Imphalge choukhatpa loudoine”. Ha ha! I seriously didn’t mean Imphal, I mean any place other than my village.

Lawai nupi and Lawai pakhang are so commonly used terminology in Manipur. The guy who doesn't know current fashion is considered as Lawai pakhang, as I saw in the movie, that Lawai pakhang didn't dress according to the current fashion and he was not aware of the taste of coffee, he thought why the tea was bitter. I remember one of my students suggested me to take a nice eyeglass while suggesting she mentioned don’t choose “Lawai pakhang type”, I know she didn’t mean to tell me lawai macha. 

In reality, nowadays guys & girls from lawai also dress according to fashion. The thing is, in actual, if one girl from lawai and another girl from imphal if stands together, it is impossible to identify who is from Imphal by looking at them.

I also heard people saying, most of the guys & gilrs from Lawai are simple and innocent. It is the funniest compliment towards lawai machas, I ever heard. I don’t know how they developed such a theory. As per my knowledge, I have seen so many lawai machas also died because of drug overdose, and so many guys from Imphal are super honest, simple and innocent and vice-versa.

This Lawai & Imphal, though nobody seriously thinks about this, still has rooted in our society. The ego of a few Imphal machas and lack of self-esteem of many Lawai mchas causes this imaginary difference between the two same groups of people.