The star of the hills!

The trigger for me to purchase a two-wheeler about three years back for my field work in Upper Siang district in Arunachal was an interesting one. After being ridden about 20,000 km in the hills, this two- wheeler was sold today to a friend from Bomdo village. Three years back, I had landed in Pasighat from Bangalore with all my bags packed and hoped to catch the State Transport mini bus from Pasighat to Tuting which would pass through the Bomdo village, my drop point. I knew that at least once in three days, the bus would undertake the arduous journey till Tuting covering about 400 km which forms the breadth of the Arunachal Pradesh State in that region.

I waited for two days and then learnt that the bus engine had seized on the way and that it will take a few months to get the bus repaired. The alternative was to take a Sumo to Yingkiong on the other side of the Siang river, stay there and then walk the last 35 km (the walk) or get a top-of-the-sumo ride till Bomdo. I wasn't in the mood. I figured the best thing to do was to buy a two wheeler and ride it up to the Bomdo village. It was a brilliant decision since buying a two wheeler is usually a mere three step process: figure out the budget, select the model and pay for it! Except I was in Pasighat where several more steps were involved.

The Pasighat ATM scene deserves a special mention. At that time, three years back there were two ATMs, one was permanently dysfunctional and the other had timings governed by sheer randomness. Therefore, if at all it was open the queue would be remarkably long. And on the wall to the side of the machine, its written male 2: 1 female. Takes a while to decipher that it means the women have a separate queue and after two men withdraw their money which can take anytime between a minute and infinity, a woman can withdraw money which can take again between a minute and infinity. But the ATM on the whole has a very pleasant atmosphere; pin numbers are shared, jokes are cracked about no money being in the account but one still being unable to withdraw any money, about even the fact that the atm is open and that the machine is functioning. Once, in Yingkiong, a local in anger that his money was not being withdrawn had forced in a bamboo piece into the atm slot maiming the machine for at least two weeks before it got repaired! Overall, money withdrawal at most ATMs in small towns is a pleasurable group activity and the only people who are in a hurry are the ones trying to buy a two wheeler to reach their field site. It took me three days to withdraw the amount required for the purchase since there are also limits to the amounts one can withdraw in a day.

Earlier I had visited a TVS showroom to look at the bike models and had selected the only one I could afford; the Star City; the highlights of this bike were awesome mileage, is quite affordable and runs like a charm in the city. Wait a minute, 'only city?!' I wondered. Well I had no choice; I could afford it and the nearest petrol bunk to the bomdo village was 40 km away, so Star City it was! On the third day of my withdrawal symptom at the ATM, I purchased the bike and headed off the next morning on the 220 km ride to Bomdo.

The bike ran quite smooth, alas it had no clue that it would never see a city in the plains again. Once a friend from the neighbouring Ramsing village chuckled 'your bike must have had a bad dream the day before you bought it!' This bike has travelled twice to Tuting and once further on to Gelling the last village on the Indo-Tibet frontier, to Pango village, north of Bomdo and innumerable times between Bomdo and Yingkiong. Some of these travels you will find here in the blog. Anyways, now the bad dream of the bike continues since I sold it to a local there and the rides in the hills will continue for several more years, although I do think the Star City does enjoy more these rides than in the plains! Almost everyone in the village wanted to buy my bike and there were parallel biddings going on. But my friends from Bomdo convinced me to sell it for a low price to Nyomrang, a bachelor, for whom they thought the bike would help immensely to find and impress a right bride! Here are some pictures of the Star of the hills...

This was from Pango village, notice the two male Takin horns that were given to my field assistant by his cousin, Star city, definitely male!

This time we were stuck in front of a small landslide, we pushed the bike through this and got away!

There were spots around the village where me and the bike could bathe together!

The norther brother

It had rained several days and the mind was hungover from an overdose of nothingness; a sort of a vacuum, hungover because it was bright for a few hours. It was early April, a bit early for even the pre-monsoon but the rains were on time for the prepre-monsoon. We have many of those in the Upper Siang. Like right now, in early-October, its pouring; the prepost-monsoon rain. A quick plan was made to go north to cover other villages in the district, to know about their shifting cultivation practice and possible economic opportunities. Bamut Medo, the ever-smiling gaam bura accompanied me, later I came to know he was going to have collateral benefits. He is about sixty years old, had pillioned on a bike only a few times and never for so many hours or kilometers. So after a few hours he complained of butt-ache and I duly stopped. It is such a landscape too; a stream, a river, a big tree, a beautiful panorama is always on the way. Sometimes a black eagle does a cameo too..

We pass the villages etched in the hills of Janbo, Mosing, Migging, Pango, Ningging and then Tuting, 120 km away, all the while viewing the Siang river from different angles each time with a background of a different pair of mountains' rendezvous.

We spent a day and a half in Tuting and Ningging and retracked our way to reach Pango. On the way, we crossed a bridge on the now-murky Sira paté river, since it had rained so many days. This is where the trek to the Takin hunting area for the Adis here begins. Bomdo people travel to this point on a Sumo, get off at the Sira paté and start walking. It apparently takes at least a full-days-walk from here.

The Medo clan was here too, in fact Pango was a branch of Bomdo that split and went further north. So we were more than welcome at Bamut Medo's second cousin's place. The evening meal with fresh mushrooms and rice followed the interesting conversations over rice beer we had swigged. Slowly I learnt about Pango and was convinced it was a far more remote village, cached in the hills, with no electricity or telephone network. Even the road to the village was still not complete. Below Pango though, in a shop I had seen Round-up and 2-4-D, two deadly weedicides banned in most developed countries. Its amazing how these things among others find themselves in the most remote places, I've seen hair straighteners, refrigerators, pool tables, TATA Sky, cosmetics in places with no phone network even! I guess with the arrival of televisions, everything else follows. 

The Pango folks make at least three trips a year for the Takin hunt, Bamut Medo's cousin's husband tells me. In fact while we were sitting there in April, a group had gone into the hills to hunt Takin! Then, Bamut asks his brother-in-law for two Takin horns as souvenirs. In Bomdo, among 65 households I think only 6 - 7 households have the Takin horns hunted by the Bomdians. And the next day while we leave late morning, these horns adorned my bike. Star City - Definitely Male with the male Takin horns!

In the morning, we met an old lady, Bamut's first cousin, twice removed, close to a hundred years old, living with her husband. They lived in a separate home this lovely old couple. They also grew the local tobacco called kusér, which is almost locally extinct. They exchanged updates while I looked at a persistent rat trying to pick the rice in the house. Updates about who was born and who had passed on. I was amazed that this kind of information in the times of twitter, facebook, mobile phones and internet gets passed on once in few years! I pointed the rat to the old lady who duly caught it by the tail and whacked it on the bamboo floor a few times, ensured its dead and offered it to the dogs at home who reluctantly nipped at it. 

The return trip was mostly uneventful, we stopped by below Migging village for a quick rum in the cold, and oh before that there was a landslide before the Sira paté. I pushed the bike up and slid down with the bike and then we went along. I think four-wheelers were stuck at this point for the day. 



I look forward to spending some more time in Pango this year. More takin-hunts every year, more people have been to the Indo-Tibet border here and is definitely more remote. Surely there is more to know and write about this place. Watch this space...for more updates about Pango, Bomdo's elder brother!