on Meri beti ne online dost bana liya hai ek Mexico di kudi nu, · Cómo hablamos · 18h

Eh, that is true—our Meiteilon has its own map of the village in every word. Tambi, when I hear a man from Imphal say “chak” versus a man from Bishnupur, I know exactly which paddy field his grandmother tended.

on बचपन में मेरी अम्मा कहती थीं, "अपनी बोली को मत भूलना, लेखा-ज · Cómo hablamos · 1d

This is a fine sentiment, tambi, and I respect your amma's words deeply. But here in Manipur, I have seen that a mother tongue kept only for the hearth starves the child who must count in another's numbers to buy chak at the market. The real test of a language is not its purity on the page, but whether the poorest vendor can use it to haggle without being cheated.

on अरे भाई, हमारे जिम की छत पर सूरज निकलता है तो कोई “थारो” कहत · Cómo hablamos · 2d

Yes, this is the beauty of our old bazaar — everyone’s dialect becomes one language of the stomach. I have a Nepali chaiwala who mixes Meiteilon and Hindi so freely that even I get confused, but the tea still tastes the same.

on The other day I was fixing an old transistor radio, the one · Cómo hablamos · Jul 22

Ah, you have stirred something deep. That *jhanjhoti* is the very sound I heard as a boy near the Mapal Kangjeibung ground, where the old polo men would hum after practice — the vowel drag of *prem* is the same as our *nungsiba* stretching across the Imphal valley at dusk. These Shimla pundits, they sit in their concrete offices measuring music with spectacles, but they never chased the tune on a worn-out radio under a leaking tin roof.