Today I wanted to share the reason I started blogging.
As a child I didn't read many books, watch much news or read magazine articles. I was more of an outdoors kid. Very active and would get fidgety if I had to sit still and do anything including my school and homework.
When I used to breakdance professionally back in the day my girlfriend at that time suggested that I create a website or start a blog to promote myself. She took the initiative to sign up on Blogspot, Google's free blogging service in 2010. After she created my blog page I didn't really post anything for a while.
One day I was browsing through content on Blogspot and I came across a really interesting post- What do people of Mizoram think about India? by a Blogger Mizohican. His post got me interested in sharing my views and story of my life experience. In his post he wrote about vendor-less roadside stalls in Mizoram that stoked me.
Although the wider topic of his post was about how the Mizo people view mainland Indians, that wasn't what captivated me. I grew up knowing this. However the part of the vendor- less stalls amazed me. I thought to myself "So wait people just leave their products with a pricelist?? What if someone pays a rupee less for a tomato?" To have something like this it says a lot about the trust and self governance in North East Indian society. Later on in this post I also share a more recent example from the pandemic.
There are many vendor-less road-side stalls, where vegetables, fruits and other goods are displayed for sale, with their prices written next to them. All you have to do is pick up what you want, put the money in a box and leave. You can even take change back from the box yourself. And the owner comes to the stall at the end of the day to collect the money and he never sees a loss.
Why this really impacted me is because where I grew up in India if you leave anything unattended, it got nicked. Society had become capitalistic and it seemed like everybody's agenda was to see how much they could profit off any given opportunity.
Who is Mizohican?
Mizohican is a blogger form Mizoram, India. After working in one of India's leading advertising agencies for 5 years, he decided to form his own venture and co-founded of a mobile gaming start-up FITH Media that develops India-centric games. He's been blogging since Nov 2004. In 2013 a blog post of his got Mumbai police to get a young Mizo student justice who was verbally abused by a police officer.
The Mumbai Police have initiated an enquiry against a constable who allegedly made racist remarks against a student from Mizoram at Hanging Garden on Sunday. Kima, a student and a blogger, wrote about the incident on his blog mentioning details like the license plate of the police van, prompting swift action from the cops.
Some background on northeast people
The little appendix you see attached to the mainland on the eastern tip of the Indian sub-continent are the 7 North East Indian states. North East Indians are made up of over 200 tribes, have Mongoloid features and unique cultures. They are discriminated against by mainland Indians unfortunately.
The first thing most Mizos experience when we leave our state and come to this side of the country for education or jobs are the racial abuses. This is a problem faced by most North Eastern Indians with mongoloid features. Being called “chinkis”, “ching chongs” and being jeered at on the streets in public.
Mizoram is the southernmost landlocked state in northeast India, bordering three of the Seven Sister States- Tripura, Assam and Manipur. Mizoram also shares a 449 mile border with the neighboring countries of Bangladesh and Myanmar.
The sad thing about this discrimination is that North East Indians are really nice people. Really genuine, kind but fierce. They don't take shit form people. My father's side is from Assam one of the seven sister states. Although I never lived in the northeast I grew up with a lot of kids from there. So I know Northeast Indians pretty well
You may have seen images and videos of chaotic Indian streets and markets but not in the North East. When COVID lockdowns were imposed the North East Indian states, Mizoram particularly set the precedent for containing the virus in India.
In the picture above you can see evidence f the social distancing measures in Tuikhuahtlang, Mizoram.
In Mizoram a task force was set up to keep people inside their homes during one of the lockdowns. The state government got the citizens involved rather than the police to enforce lookdown rules. Amazing isn't it?! Many groups and organizations like student unions got involved to enforce lockdown measures which made it very effective in curbing the spread of the virus.
In the neighboring state Tripura when our Prime Minister announced a national lockdown, villagers put up barricades to regulate the entry into their villages. In doing so they were able to ensure that only people who had necessary work were allowed into the village, that too with proper verification and sanitizing protocols enforced by the villagers themselves.
Some other posts by Mizohican
Check out his work over the years. I noticed he has more posts in the month of December and I love how he numbers his posts. That's a great blogging tactic. People can see how active right toff the bat. This can attract a following and also help you keep track of your progress as well.
Come to think of it, Mizohican should join Hive. He's posted 879 blog entries between 2004 till 2022 on Blogspot. As he has has a lot of great content. I see him definitely bringing a lot of value to a few Hive communities in particular that I can think of such as Abundance Tribe, Pinmapple, Foodies Bee Hive...etc.