CLEARING THE UNCLEARED MIND OF A DOUNTFUL MAN

By T. Zamlunmang Zo

It was in the year 2007, June the 29th. A group of a few guys were in a rented room in Munirka, New Delhi. While we were talking about something related to our community, all of a sudden, one of our fellow guy stop all of us in the middle of our discussion. He said, "I have a question to ask and need the answer right now, if you guys can answer I would really appreciate it". We all laughed with amazement; he again starts his words and raised this vividly worth answering question.

The worth answering question is "Why the name of the Zo/Zou is being neglected by the other Zomi community while writing or speaking about the Zomi, why it is not mentioned when some body speaks about the Zomis?".

After hearing such an unexpected and interesting question, we all make some kind of rustling sound at each other, one of our ignorant friend simply replied "it indicates that we are worthless to mention". By hearing this brainless and muddle headed response, I somehow got angry and make him shut his empty lunatic mouth. I asked all of them to listen carefully and tell them they should not disturb me while I am talking. So, I let them sit like a small kids surrounding their teacher and start narrating my lecture.

Dear friends, if you don't mind let me elaborate this topic a little bit deeper so as to understand and got the root points of my lecture. The the history of the Zo people, the Zo/Zou, as we all know is the only tribe, which treasured the originality/ancient history of the ZO/ZOU. After several research and studies which i have gone through, i was convinced that most of the dialects, i mean the Zo suon dialects comes from the Zo/Zou people. The Zo/Zou people are the one who first started to make understand our brethren that they too are Zo/Zou/Zomi. If you see in the history of the Zo/Zou people, the Zo/Zou speaking people are the people who called themselves Zo/Zou even while the others are unaware of their belongingness called us Zo/Zou naptol. To mention a few out of many worth mentioning ownership, I would like to tell you one more thing. The Zo/Zou people are known as the intepu or intepi of the Zomi. You may also heard that "Zou" is the tribe name of the particular Zou Community in Manipur and "Zo" is the name of all Zo decendants. This is bulshit and baseless. Zou may be a recognised tribe is Manipur but there is no reason of differentiating the spelling between Zo or Zou. It is one and the same. If you believe that Zo is for all the Zo decendants and Zou is only for a particular Zou community, you are 100 per cent misleaded.

For all these reasons, the recently awakened Zo suons deem it unnecessary to mention the word Zo/Zou while they speak about the Zomi, because they know that Zo/Zou is the owner or so to say, the intehpi or intepu. That means, they know that we are already in that very topic. Just to make you clearer, with my sincere apologies to our Zo brethren, While we talk about Zomi, one has to mention Paite Zomi/Zo, Thadou Zomi/Zo, Gangte Zomi/Zo, Simte Zomi/Zo, Tedim Zomi/Zo etc. etc., it is clear that one does not have to mention Zou/Zo Zomi. It signifies that Zou/Zo are already in the Zomi itself. As I have told you earlier, the other communities like Paite, Simte, Thadou, Gangte or others are the name which comes from/according to our dwelling place or comes from the name of the sons' of Pu Zou/Zo, we need to mention them while talking about Zomi.

After lecturing these short facts, my friends surprisingly greeted me, saying, wowwww!!!! Tungnung, you are incredible, where the hell did you get all this knowledge? "This is the fact that every one ought to know, it is simple, one can learn these things from our day-to-day life" said replied.

We then went out and have a cup of tea.

Note: This article may sounds intolerable or too much to teach a friend. If it hurts your sentiment, here is my apologies. SORRY!!