Hirudin day

Madla camp

07-09-09

Woke up late in Madla camp in Bhadra Tiger Reserve today. With eyes still half open I cut about 2 cm candle, put some wood together and started a fire. Coffee next and then Shankara anna made me rice and dal. Plan of the day was crossing the swollen Somavahini river and going to abandoned paddy fields in Hipla and Karvani villages. After breakfast, we went to the river to inspect, had to divert to plan B since the river was uncrossable! We had to get to abandoned agricultural fields in Kesave village but through a longer route. We had enquired earlier if there was an alternative route without crossing the river but no one in the Forest Department knew. Shankara anna said that we should find a way on our own, so we walked on.

We left at 11 am hoping we can go along the side of the river. Though a river winds a lot, we thought it would not be longer than 5 km since the jeep trail was only 3 km long. We start to walk. I hadn't judged the terrain in this season and was wearing slippers, much to the delight of the leeches. In all the muck/swamp the slippers proved what they are called and several times I had to fix broken slippers. In all this commotion, there was no time to even remove leeches. It took us abut 3 hours and about 100 leeches. We reach at 2.15 pm, finish vegetation sampling by 3.30 and walk back in about 2 hours since we knew the route back. Another 100 leeches. I reach camp, take this photograph and salted them. I'd have never imagined a day like this in field. I drank a cofee, had the evening meal and put my feet in a stream closeby and the fish cleaned up most of the mess in my legs. Later I lie down writing this and conclude 'leeches suck!'

Nothing too crazy here, leeches just suck!

Chinese whispers!

Last night I was in the Bhadra Tiger Reserve, Madla camp and I was listening to the great band Queen. Before that I tuned my radio to short wave to look for more interesting channels than Akashvani-Hassana. First channel I tuned in reminded me of times in Arunachal and after listening to Queen I was thinking ‘all we hear is, Chinese channels’. Somebody please tell me why there are so many, so many Chinese channels. Does this have anything to do with the fact that the radio I was using was ‘Made in China’. I can understand this if I was in Bomdo village in Arunachal, I was so close to Tibet, it was but natural to tune into Chinese channels. There was even a program teaching Chinese in English. 'Wan-an' I remember hearing which means good night and then I turned off the radio and fell asleep. And yes, how do they produce that music with jarring instruments, sounds like elephants are tuning their trunks! I do listen to a bit of Chinese classical music but to hear this in a camp in a forest is not a pleasant experience, trust me.

By the way, I then found BBC, good one. I remembered listening to BBC in Garo hills and Arunachal and felt nice to tune in from Bhadra. A discussion was on about the similarity between Hinduism concept of beginning of the world and that of science. A radio is, I think the best thing to have in field and the best thing to gift your field assistant after the field season! My MSc field assistant Shankara anna, who I am presently with in my camp after three years told me, ‘everyday when I turn on the radio you gave me, I think in my mind, ‘Hi Karthik’!’ Apparently the radio was even offered a price of 1500 bucks, but he wouldn’t part with it. It’s a Grundig hand-crank radio, he has also tied a wire to its antenna to make it reach out. A minute of cranking produces ten minutes news or some good music or some Chinese music. This time, it had batteries to save all the cranking! I gave another radio to a friend in Ramsing, Upper Siang, will he be listening to it everyday too, I wonder...

Blog's not dead, long live the blog

Since its been a while since I've written and since I've been in the north-east, I thought I'd post at least something I wrote sitting in my field site three months ago. 

'The Hindu means home to me

Waking up at 7 am and smelling the coffee and breakfast cooking was a schedule for me everyday in Bangalore. The newspaper would be dropped anytime between 7 and 7.15 am and I would be eagerly waiting to pick up a cup of coffee and read 'The Hindu' newspaper. With a grandfather who worked for the newspaper for half a century and a cousin who writes for the Hyderabad edition, we always subscribed to the Hindu. Saturdays and Sundays were even more special with the Young World and Sunday Magazine supplements, and sometimes better still, Book Reviews. The Editorial, the crossword and the Calvin and Hobbes strip will remain my all-time favorites.

Working in north-east India on wildlife for the last year or so, I haven't had access to the Hindu, although for a month I subscribed to the pdf version of the paper which was quite expensive so couldn't follow it up. The website version was not the same as reading the paper although I often browse it. But this time when I got back from home I brought few copies of the paper.

My schedule here is quite different. In Arunachal Pradesh where I work on birds, plants, and shifting cultivation, one can't afford to wake up at 7 am; I wake at 4.30 most days and cook my breakfast and then head to field. They say the early wildlifers get the birds! I come back few hours later and then settle down and today on the 30th of January still enjoy reading the Hindu copy of January 3rd I picked up from home! Paul Krugman says the republicants have started complaining in the days before Obama has taken power, LTTE have been blown in Kilinochchi in Sri Lanka and the army is headed further north, beef slaughter houses in Bangalore are going to be closed temporarily and so on and so forth.

The point being that sometimes when I miss home, reading this paper I catch a glimpse of the leisure hours at home when mom makes coffee and breakfast and my chore is merely to wake up, fuel up and then head to college. Here it's quite different, much more independent and sometimes a bit tiring. But when I read The Hindu, it still feels different; I take a leap three and a half thousand km back home sitting on my sofa with a cup of coffee! Maybe, I will ask my parents to post me the Sunday Magazines copies too! Sunday magazines are the best for relaxing on a holiday'

Postscript: Now, the Hindu has a north-east edition, YAY!

Just orchidding

March is the month when forests are cleared and burnt for shifting cultivation. Close to Itanagar town, there are lot of fires; when interviewed on radio, the Forest Department kept announcing that people out there who go for picnic and throw their lit ciggarettes are mostly to blame. They have to make sure that they put off their ciggarettes when they dispose them.

I've been to these hills a few times; no one goes there for a picnic, all the beer-drinkers and ciggarette-smokers are right here in town. The fires are largely due to shifting cultivation. The people cultivating in these forests are those who have moved in from other villages to be closer to towns and they practice a distorted form of shifting cultivation. This kind of cultivation is distinctly different from that practised in remote villages in arunachal. While in remote villages, farmers let a cultivated patch recover for several years, often for a decade, here a patch is recultivated within 2–3 years.

The other day we took a walk in these forests and saw a big tree fallen to the ground with quite a few orchids still clinging on. My friend took two of them and I took one back. When we returned we put them in buckets with moist sand and within few days the orchid I brought back looked healthy. Then, we hoisted it up to a mango tree in our institute compound and just about two weeks later, its flowering, possibly Dendrobium species! 

Gone fishing (nocturnal version)

One night in Itanagar, after our rum drink, we figured we had no curry to eat with rice. Tamang da who was with us immediately suggested we go fishing since night is the best time to fish. Just before we left, we had discussions about river-ghosts, the ones that pick up fish from nets setup by the village people in the river—definitely otters or some other animals. It was 12 am by the time we left and the river was actually shining with starlight. So the net was belted out in the Senkhi stream and in about ten times we got quite a lot of fish. Like the last time, we were dropping back the young back into the river. Here’s the catch… 

Rains reign

In the Upper Siang district, it rains more than 4 metres a year...picture that for a second. 

And there wasn't a month without rain in the last year I visited. Often it is disappointing if I have planned out some work for the month. But its also fun jumping in giving in to the ways of nature.

So this time it happened like this; Roy and I had to reach Bomdo from Jengging but it had already started raining for days. I remember reading in a John Steinbeck book about a character who could describe ten or more different kinds of rain, all of which he found annoying. There is only one kind of rain here; hard rain which takes breaks to drizzle before it brings along a landslide often followed by a roadblock. But I had to get back equipment to return to the institute I was leaving to get the 'no due' certificate and had brought a crank radio and few cds for some of the villagers. So I waited two days, no break in the rain.

Then morning before yesterday's we left...rain or no rain, had to finish the chores. 10 am we left on a bike from Jengging and rode continuously for three hours to get to Bomdo, 70 km away. Once we reached Gekut's house in Bomdo, he quickly popped some corn and brewed some black tea. The thing about riding in the rain is that it is all fine till one has to stop.  The time I stopped at the village after the cold ride I could not stop shivering for a long time! At one point I had to pee (locally referred to as 'minus'!) and my hands were too numb to even feel the trouser button, was a struggle! 

After collecting the equipment and bidding our byes, the next stop on the return was Ramsing village 30 km away. The home that we stopped briefly at I asked for some rice wine to warm us up and then headed back to Jengging to reach at 6 pm. Got back, took a hot water bath and all good things followed including writing an ode to Jengging!

During the two days of waiting for this trip, I spent some time photographing waterdrops; this is the best thing you can do when its raining continuously and better still if you have a 500 mm lens...those drops of rain are sprinkled around on the blogpost.

An ode to Jenging

The Circuit house at Jenging, Upper Siang is no less than a 'Holiday Inn'. More than once I have reached this place late in the night in freezing cold. Another time I reached the place after riding for 70 km on a bike which gave me not too much trouble; just that the back tyre got punctured, the kicker broke, petrol got over and the engine wouldn't just start a couple times. Every time I reach the Circuit house in Jenging, a hot water bath, a superb meal with rotis and often pork, a warm bed, electricity to charge batteries and network to make phone calls await me. The person in-charge is a sweet Nepali person, who seems to know each time I overeat that I haven't eaten too well in the last week.

So, this time too when I reached the place after riding in rain for 140 km over six hours, I was in heaven, with a few pegs of whiskey to go with of course! High on good spirits, I wrote an ode...after many years...served with few photographs for flavour...

'Sweet memories of Jenging

Early morning, sunlight lazily pierces through the valley to cause a delayed dawn

and birds eagerly pick up their early worms and ripe fruits

The streams tirelessly produce their perennial soothing sound

I meet an occasional villager collecting interesting shoots and certain roots

In the night, the giant mountains morph into silent silhouetted ghosts

and the night sky ushers in a gazillion stars

A distant frog is muttering sweet little turrings to his potential mate

and the night as usual in my memory leaves permanent pleasant scars

Three hills away I see a bike spiralling down a winding road

An occasional owl calls a high-pitched teewoo

As I get back to my warm bed, content after a sumptous meal

Here is another place in the north-east Indian mountains I won't forget soon too'

Now…that’s something to blog about

I met an old lady in the village Bomdo this time who has walked to Tibet, which is only 50 km beeline distance but takes more than a week to reach on foot! 

She along with fifteen others walked for 12 days to reach what they call ‘Mimet’ around the year 1950. The walk was mainly for bringing back salt although various other barters would take place, I have listed here a few based on the information from her. Rice and rice beer were exchanged for wheat powder or salt. The exchange rate was pretty simple; 1 cup rice beer fetches a fistful of wheat powder or a cup of salt. Various other things that were exchanged were bamboo combs and other artefacts and ginger for Dao (a knife), wool and certain fruits. The old lady, who is actually my field guide Gekut's mother very enthusiastically brought a spin that is at least 60 years old and posed for the picture to depict how they extract thread to weave clothes.

Other interesting facts were that people with heavy bags were invited to rich homes whereas people with lighter bags were invited to poor homes. Naturally, people carried a lot of weight and she told me people would carry 50–60 kg of goods! The other strange thing about the trip is that people who pass away on the way are not brought back owing to the logistics. She also mentioned that throughout the journey the group is happily singing and walking.

So, basically people from Bomdo village were walking at least a distance of 150 km, including up and downhill, through tough terrain full of forests and snow near the Indo-Tibet border to bring back salt and knives. I already knew that Adi people are physically tough but now I just think they are incredible! I have also learnt from this to savour basic amenities such as salt, spices, knives, and other such items that I usually take for granted.

Headhunters’ ball – Reyee Gaye

The ‘Aran’ festival was going on this time when I reached the Ramsing village. Reyee Geye dance was the feature that interested me; I reached the place outside the Naamghar (a large hall in the village where all group activities take place) in the evening where the young as well as old men would do the war-dance, a practice continuing for hundreds of years. 

A bit of background—Adis were headhunters even just a century back, intense conflicts amongst sub-tribes of Adis existed although they are all at peace now. The headhunters would all gather in the Naamghar with their sheaths and knives and leave for the war.

As good rock shows and concerts go, folks did come out late and the light was low, but I got a few pictures; because of the low light it seems like the men are shaking vigorously but they really are on a slow four-by-four beat with “huh huh huh huh” while heavily thumping the ground. You really have to be there to know that this indeed is ‘war’ dance; the air is full of dominance and a display of strength. Notice the camouflage with leaves and bamboo, the knife carried is called Yoxa and the sheath is called Tamkum, though it looks a bit weak, it is made of bamboo and reinforced with cane knittings and a knife cannot make through it with one stroke. The Yoxa that one of the men carried while dancing was the actual one used many decades back for head-hunting. Now, of course the dance is a cultural event every year and the practice of headhunting has phased out.

Itanagar meet and buy wild meat market

This I had to post sometime, it’s been on the back of my mind. About 2 km from the Forest Department office in the State capital Itanagar is the meat market where I have had more sightings of mammals than in the forests in my field site. Here I saw my first ever Binturong. The other species I have come across; giant squirrels, giant flying squirrels, crestless porcupine, macaque (either Assamese or Rhesus, cannot make out from the lump of meat), muntjacs, civets and even a wreathed hornbill.

Some may call it hunting for subsistence, who has the right to stop them from hunting in their own community-forests, don’t they have the right to eat meat, and so on. But when it is sold this way in the biggest capital city of the State, it is definitely not for subsistence and is for income. Why can't the rare species be spared: binturongs, hornbills and few other species. I think there should be a clear distinction between hunting for the pot and hunting for money. Well, each time I walk out of this market having seen some species being sold like I did today after seeing the crestless porcupine I wonder what could ever be a solution to this. I do not feel this bad when I see a species being brought back in the remote village I stay in for my field work where certainly not a gram of the meat is sold, it is distributed amongst the clan and family members.

In my opinion, hunting has at least three tiers to it. 1) hunting for consumption, 2) hunting for selling the meat such as the case here in this blogpost, 3) hunting for fur/ skin/ bone trade. I think the last form of hunting is the least justified one in comparison to the first.

I managed to take a picture of the porcupine yesterday, but I wonder if anyone could take pictures all the time in the market and keep interviewing the people without getting physically abused by the locals. I always leave the meat market quite morose and angry.

PS: The local newspapers covered this issue well and the Forest Department raided the market too. It seems like the issue is being taken up more seriously these days (May 2012).

See this article from 21st December, 2023 too: https://arunachaltimes.in/index.php/2023/12/21/wildlife-officials-seize-carcasses-of-wild-animals-from-ganga-market/

I hope the issue is being addressed; it is indeed a very disturbing one.

How the tangkum lost its tail…

The rufous-throated partridge here is called the Tangkum by the Adis. It has a very interesting call Whee-Wooo with an ascending tone according to Grimmett’s bird book. We hear it in the forests here every other day. So one day, the partridge went Whee-Wooo and a squirrel dropped a fruit it was eating. A barking deer got alarmed when the fruit fell on him and scooted and thereby caused almost a landslide. A crab in the river was peacefully basking down below in the river when a pebble hit its eye and the crab lost its eye.

So here in Adi community, for any justice they have a formal meeting called Kebang. So the forest organised a Kebang and the Kebang’s verdict was to fine the stone. But the stone said, this dumb barking deer slid over me and therefore I rolled, mine not to reason why. Hmm said the council, call that deer, let’s fine him and get this over with, we got other work to do. The barking deer barked that he was only doing his morning foraging duties when he was alarmed by this seed that fell off the sky. The seed was summoned, the seed said, I was only hoping my fruit is eaten and I get dispersed peacefully somewhere till the rains when this silly squirrel dropped me half-eaten, mine not to reason why. “Summon that squirrel”, council said. Squirrel bickered that he also as the deer was doing his early morning feeding when he heard the Tangkum call and don’t know why today the ascending tone was really at an ascent.

“Get tangkum here, double quick”. Tangkum came Whee-Whooing and quickly figured there was no way out, although he begged the council’s mercy that early morning is the time he calls for a pretty girl tangkum and really it wasn’t his fault. Yet, he had to give up something, causing this whole ruckus. “Take my tail with twelve beautiful feathers”. And that’s how the tangkum lost its tail, a fine Adi story.

This is the picture of the beautiful bird, no tail as per the tale.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by JJ Harrison

The walk to the village by the river

Having spent three peaceful days discussing my plant work and visiting shifting cultivation sites from Ramsing Inspection Bungalow, I headed this morning to Bomdo village to carry on the birding aspect of my research. So early morning I woke up like good birds do for worms and got to the bus stop; this is any arbitrary place where you find a stone to park yourself and where the respective driver can see that you have been waiting long. So I waited long from 630 to 830 am but only found a tipper truck and got myself and my two bags beautifully cemented, but the trip only lasted halfway. I was headed 25 km from Ramsing to Bomdo whereas the tipper tipped me off to a place called Hawa camp, only 9 km from Ramsing. So I park myself again and wait for more helpful wheels. Two hours later, I came up with a thought and start walking towards the village: ‘The main difference between an opportunity and a difficulty is the one to be ignored!’

One may wonder why I did not walk to the village since morning because most wildlifers will agree that 25 km is walkable in four-five hours. The only thing, things actually, were my two bags in front and back of me, and they were heavy. 

About six km later I saw a beautiful stream and someone had left a bambo mug for me to drink, so I drank from the cup of life and some of the tiredness vanished!

Birds on the way, many; golden bush robin, sibias, harrier species, among many others. The reason I kept walking was hoping that some vehicle will give me a drop of at least ten of the remaining 15 km. I did not know it then but that did not happen at all! The usual Border Road Organisation vehicles were not dropping many civilians because one of their tippers had dropped from the road until the Siang river and four civilians had died. So for the next two weeks at least, I think no long-lifts for civilians by BRO.

The only other thing that happened was that at some point after climbing a short cut for half an hour or so I realised I had dropped my binoculars cover. So I cached my two bags in the forest somewhere and literally ran back more than a kilometre to retrieve it. I am a good retriever usually, my old Jawa motorbike I took back from a mechanic after keeping it with him for a year, I retrieved my job at Greenpeace, my drum kit which I am yet to retrieve from a friend (which I am sure I will) and certain other examples.

Well, I puffed and panted and could not find the binoculars cover, so I need to buy this sometime when I go to a town like Guwahati. Anyway, that was another significant thing during the walk. Then when I came back out of the shortcut to the tarred road, I met this old lady from Bomdo who keeps sending vegetables for me at the place I stay, very sweet lady. So I walked with her a km, she kept talking and I kept saying things in the bits of Adi I have picked up. Later I figured that for a large part of the conversation she was telling me which all veggies were available at her home in Bomdo which I can gladly go and pick! Then she took a detour to collect fire wood, I kept walking.

The last significant incident, on another shortcut to the village I saw this 50+ year old woman and her family walking in front of me. Here, in the Adi landscape, it is a custom to greet people and generally ask them if the day is tiring, whether they went very far or that you are tired or that you have come from very far; basically small talk. So I asked her how she is and she gave me a surprised look, I thought she had seen me coming because for almost twenty minutes I was trailing them. When I looked closely I figured she was taking a standing pee. When I was young and in fact even now, I thought women could not pee when they are standing! But this lady just stood-at-ease with her legs about 1-m from each other and peed! I walked on, embarassed for invading her privacy.

I reached the inspection bungalow where I was to stay…somewhere during the journey I’d realised that I had not brought sambar powder, the ultimate mom-made panacea for flavouring food; a bit of home in every meal! But when I reached my camp, I realised that I had stashed some from my last visit in November and this will be more than enough for the next ten days. And then there was rice, dal, salt, oil, batteries, among other small things. Nice…very nice, thank you Karthik from November!

In the meanwhile a kid came to the IB with a basket full of vegetables the old woman had sent! I think the first thing she did after she returned home, she dispatched some with her grandson, so my first meal here was sambar-rice, ghee and some lovely powder (for you Andhrites reading this, Putnalu podi, also called Gunpowder in general!) we eat with rice from Andhra. And I was thinking a walk may be uneventful!

By the way, the house-Mithun of Dungé Yalik is home again after last May, when I was here in the village too! They only come around once/twice a year in this village it seems, these are some real feral cattle they have here. No feeling like reaching a place that feels like home after walking 15 km through a beautiful landscape with tall trees and a gushing river; nothing is uneventful here as long as I keep my attitude up!