The trip to Manipur was quite hectic...as all the other previous trips had been. We left for Imphal on the 22nd...the flight was just under an hour....and it was a connecting flight from Kolkata. I got a seat on the aisle......E's excitement was palpable and rightly so...she was going home after nearly two years...quite something!!! As we approached Imphal, the plane hit turbulence and it was a helluva bumpy ride for a couple of minutes....but things eased out...and it landed safely.
The Airport was rather neat....not too big....but very clean. As we took care of our luggage and stepped out of the complex....the reality hit us right on the face. It was almost as if we had stepped into a war zone......armed men in full combat gear literally everywhere...it was shocking to say the least. Guwahati is a high security zone too.....but Imphal was thousand times more ....and the manifestation of the paranoia concerning the security was very visible.
As we moved to the town....their visiblity increased ...armoured vehicles, security personnel stationed at alarmingly regular intervals all along the road, inconspicuously hidden in the narrow bylanes...behind the all so regular pan shops and chai ki dukan. The irony was that they blended with the environment so well....that in the psyche of the people of Manipur, they had indeed become a part of the environment....
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