Happy Thanksgiving to all viewers and listeners of FindingTheVoices

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As we celebrated Thanksgiving, it reminded me of the time how we use to cook …

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Growing up We had used firewood for cooking in a very basic simple kitchen. We still use it now too though we have the choice of cooking using gas (depending on the availability of getting gas in Imphal) …

I remember my mother making cow dung for fuel and we use to help her. My mother fondly remember my sister helping her making cow dung for fuel (Shunthi Saba) with her little fingers as she says. It would be kept out in the sun for drying and we would run to collect and save it in case it starts raining … If we see cowdung on the road, I remember collecting it or running to tell Ema …

I remember seeing Ema with a pipe which is used for blowing the smoke while cooking and at times tears would roll down because of the smokes coming out ….It was a big celebration when our Grandmother gifted us with a hand blower which made it easier to blow the air and make the firewood burn easier.

Baba would cut the firewood using the axe. I remember him telling in a homourous way that is a way of him doing the work & exercise too.

And finally we did upgrade to cooking with Gas and Ema (my mother) was very very happy, always keeping the Gas stove spick and span ….. But till today we do have our cooking place for cooking with firewood where we enjoy cooking & roasting fish.

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Happy Diwali, These are the lights I grew up with as a child, as a student in Manipur. I even had an incident where I dozed off studying with a candle light in bed burning almost half the pillow and mattress …

Times have changed but we still have the need to use these lights even now …

Lighting Candles all around, everywhere in the house, lighting these lamps and then going to Kwakeithel Bazaar to watch the lights were memoirs of Diwali growing up in Imphal. All the shops in Kwakeithel were nicely lighted up with candles. No !! You wouldn’t see any electrical lights, mostly candle lights. We would play with fire crackers, rockets were our favorite.

Times have changed .. people are afraid to step out of the house for fear of bomb blast … fear of whether someone who has gone grocery shopping will come back or not ..not knowing what to predict, a person who is just walking the street falls dead due to these bomb blast !!!

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