Aug 13, 2014

From Lunglei, With Love


She smiled at me.

Her eyes were brown and a lot darker than her uniform. Her pigtails were mismatched and she was perched on the back of a scooter with her brother behind her. Her cheeks were ruddy pink and when she smiled, her eyes were suddenly transformed into little slits of crescents.

Little did I know that a smile of an unknown child would make my day!

It was my usual walk - just a five minute uphill walk to college. However that day I was tired… I haven’t slept well in weeks and my sinusitis haven’t been showing mercy. I burnt my hand badly while cooking that morning and things in the family haven’t been the best with the news of an old aunt’s demise in Aizawl a few hours before sunrise. Yet, little did I know that the smile of a little schoolgirl at Falkawn Crossing would make my day. I smiled to myself as I walked up towards college.

It’s been a month since I’ve moved to Lunglei, a little sleepy town down south. After exactly 11 months at home, I am yet on the move again.I got a job offer from this Christian college and here I am now in Lunglei, lodging with the family of my best friend in college (who now lives in Bhutan) and sprinting on my way to work each morning.

I love my job.  My students have a way of getting through to this heart and I am so eager to go to work each morning. My colleagues are wonderful to work with.  If I’m not taking class, I’d bein the library catching up on readings or conversing in the faculty room with my co-workers, powdering my oily nose or dancing before the faculty room’s huge mirror which makes my Barbie-like figure look like a fat-mama joke! (Heh!! I’m kidding! I have a fat mama-like figure anyway! :D )


Me being me :  Fooling around with a skit prop for College Fresher's day!! 


There are so many things I love about this town. I can’t mention them all. But the fact it’s just five hours away from home and that traffic is minimal in this town adds up to it. If I ever get homesick, I can just hop into a cab and go home for a weekend. But I’ve never resorted to such an act just as yet.

The weather in this town is as unpredictable as my mood. It’ll be all bright and sunny in the mornings and then suddenly, it gets dark and rainy in the evenings. Sometimes the fog here at Lunglei gets me all gloomy, once it starts covering the hills. But most of the time, I’m thankful that I no longer live in the scorching heat of the Capital. It’s a bit too humid to my liking at times and the weather here at Lunglei has been very hard on my skin, my sinus and my bronchi. Why!! I’ve just been diagnosed with allergic bronchitis yesterday!!  But nonetheless, it’s good for my heart and my soul. Leitlangpui is indeed a ‘Mount of Transfiguration’ for my physical and emotional being. I am so at peace here despite my pimples refusing to show mercy!!

The view from the our Faculty Room. I lodge somewhere down there!
But love dawns!!

I am seeing someone again... after two and a half years of refusing to go out on a single date. There were times when friends and family would try to convince me to meet someone. I would bluntly refuse saying that I am not ready. After failing miserably in a five year long relationship, I’ve become a cynic to the matters of the heart. Though I’ve told myself a number of times that failure, no matter how huge it may be, should not maim me or leave me an emotional cripple. I guess I never really convinced myself... until I met him. He’s an imperfect person… a broken person (to be more precise!!) and we would never complete each other without our “Third Cord” which somehow makes it all the more better. The good thing about us is that we share the same dreams, the same goals and we speak the same heart language! Let’s just say, the best thing about us is Jesus Christ.

God is good.

A year ago, I was scorching in the heat of the Capital; house- sitting for a friend’s family for the summer; still licking the wounds of a broken heart and listening to music whose lyrics sound more foreign than Greek and Latin to me.

A year later, here I am in Lunglei, thinking of ways to invent a special umbrella which would keep me dry from the windy rain; planting squash and pumpkin in the kitchen garden; singing in a choir led by my all-time-favourite Mizo Gospel composer; wearing boots in August (because it’s actually cold enough) and meeting new people every day.

And when things don’t go too well, little delights appear!!! Like the brown-eyed girl with that smile! God is good!!

So here’s a bright ‘Hello’ after going off radar for a long time.


New Beginnings are beautiful. Indeed!!


From Lunglei, With Love.