10/365 What's your mihi?

It seems like these 10 days went in a flash. I still haven't published any of my posts, thinking that I may skip writing one day and did not want to disappoint people (well-assuming someone clicks the link to read the post) who land on my page expecting something new up every day!. Now that it is on the 10th day, I believe that I will be able to continue the sting!

When I arrived in New Zealand, precisely 355 days back, the first thing I wanted to explore is to learn a little bit of Maori. I still haven't learned more than 10 words (which is a different issue). I have met some traditional Maori people here. Their culture is something I really like because of the reasons like mihi, hongi, and haka. 

"A mihi is a basic introduction to let people know a little bit about yourself. It tells people where you are from and who you are, linking you to the land (and mountain), river, sea, tribe, sub-tribe, whakapapa (genealogy) and marae (sacred meeting place)" (double-quoted so no plagiarism ok?).

So whenever Maori people introduce them, they share a mihi about them and asks you to share your mihi. Well for someone like me who has been a kind of naadodi (Ambasamudram - Chennai - Erode - Trivandrum - Delhi - Chennai - Christchurch), sharing the mihi is difficult you know... when I started to explain this to the Maori friend, she gave me a look like - "thambi, nee moodu" and later smiled and said, you just say the river and mountain to which you connect to and I did. After that, she never came near me at that function you know.

Well the matter is mihi is such a nice thing I learned and it is refreshing to see people value their land and river (maybe that's why New Zealand is still so beautifulla da nnu hearing a mind-voice - just now). At this point only I recollect that New Zealand is the first nation to give a citizenship to a river(logic-la konjam idikkum but for someone who just watched a Balakrishna movie (oh and also enjoyed, I must say (bracket-kulla bracket, did you notice?)), this and all makes so much sense no?).

After reading till here if you are wondering then what about hongi and hakka? - (my mind-voice reads in a vadivelu tone, unnaellam nenacha enakku romba perumaiyaa irukku") relax, I still have to write 355 posts... will come some day da!. Now go and tell your mihi ok?