I come from a place where we drape Christianity like a ceremonial robe—spotless in appearance, but often threadbare within. A place where each district proudly wears its noble tag name, yet lives an irony far removed from its identity. Politicians here are poets of broken promises, whose dreams paved our roads with holes that drown in monsoon rains and choke with winter’s dust.

I come from a place where development is a showpiece for visitors and vanishes as soon as the festival lights dim. Merit and education play second fiddle to nepotism, where desks are filled by connections, not competence. The deserving watch from the sidelines. We call it a dry state, but the liquor rivers flow freer than clean water. Palaces rise beside huts, their grandeur mirrored only by the silence of the neighbors.

Here, freedom fighters don’t fight oppressors; they battle their brothers. Corruption here is not scandalous; it’s customary. Apologies aren’t rare; they’re staged, rehearsed, and resold as public spectacles. Our highways are obstacle courses, challenging not just wheels but patience itself.
Businesses aspire to grow rich in a day, hiking prices as if morality is taxed at each sale. Electricity here defies logic—bills soar higher than usage. Water runs dry, but the bills arrive unfailingly, a paradox we endure like loyal customers.

And yes, I come from a place with towering churches tagged as the largest, yet filled with empty souls. A place where the grandeur of the building overshadows the emptiness within, as faith is reduced to rituals and appearances.

And I also come from a place where the people seem to endlessly complain about corruption, backdoor appointments, and the wrongs around us, yet we are the first to run behind those very shows. A place where fingers point outward but never inward, perpetuating the cycle we claim to despise.

And through it all, I come from a place where we proclaim unity in our tribal heritage, yet, we wear our isms—tribal, regional, or communal—not as scars to heal, but as banners to wave, dividing what could unite us.

I come from a place where reality bites and irony feasts—a land of contradictions: of undeniable beauty, perpetually betrayed by its own reflection, suffocating under the weight of its own choices.

 

~ Subongtsungba Longkumer 

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