Should we need shorten 5 days celebration of Yaoshang Festiv

What do our fairs and festivals mean for us? If we sit down and think for a while it will dawn upon us that we our fairs and festivals make us feel a cultural flow in us--some sense of continuity amid change. We have changed a lot since the time when Yaoshang first got conceived and then celebrated in Manipur, but when we celebrate it we sense a feeling of continuity. This feeling of continuity is very important.

This feeling of continuity is more important than the concern about drug abuse among some or many youths. Yaoshang or any other festivals don't lure them toward intoxicants and drugs, it's simply that we see what was previously unseen: "We've these many youths taken to drugs--we didn't know 'm!" Their habit was formed over a period of non-festive time, while they were at home, in their rooms, or studying away from home, and it's mainly during festivals, especially Yaoshang, that they show their true color. Yes, festivals, not just Yaoshang, may be an opportunity for some freshers to turn first timers. However, their number is negligible, and it's how they have lived over time--their habit--that explains this propensity, not Yaoshang or any other festivals. Shortening Yaoshang or abolishing some festivals or all will not make any difference. Organizing Yaoshang sports will also not help. I have not problem with "Yaoshang sports", but I don't like their typical idea of attempting at replacing or abolishing "Yaoshang irang". I want them to honestly confess (there should be no shame--should there be any?) their interest in games and sports, and during Yaoshang people get free time, and probably many will like some light sports for some change. Simple. No high philosophy, or social thinking!

My opinion is, celebrate your festivals the way you like, on the festival days. (Neither before, nor after.) Intoxicants! They have nothing to do with festivals. Alcoholic or drug abuse is more a behavioral issue, and its causes and solution lie somewhere else. Those who drink and misuse drugs, they perform their rituals whenever they get a chance, wherever they are. Yaoshang is not just for drug users and alcoholics. It's also for people who never drink, smoke, and never abuse drugs. I'm more interested in this group, and their quality time. A couple of rotten eggs should not spoil the whole basket. Chak chagring amana utshav ama mangthokhalloidabani.

As for more youths getting into alcoholic and drug abuse, there should be appropriate departments (e.g. the police and the law) and people (parents among them) and measures to deal with this. A society in which many institutions have failed has always the tendency of understanding its institutions in a dangerously mixed way. For example, in Manipur the Excise Dept. is practically defunct, so AMADA and CADA emerged from nowhere and did (they are still operational?) a lot which were none of their business. When the police department has become corrupted, people become the police, lawyers, the court, and they while in a mob mentality burn other people's home and property, which is wrong whether the people mob-accused were wrong or innocent. But such mixed understanding or misunderstanding of institutions would not help us.