Memories of Garo hills

In the year 2006, I had applied for a job in South Garo hills, Meghalaya and having got the job I was really excited to move to north-east India from Bangalore. I have always lived with my parents and had never been away from home for more than a week. But here I was, a home-made South-Indian coffee-drinking vegetarian relocating to a site in north-east India, that is relatively far from home, where coffee was unavailable and vegetarian food often tastes bland! But hey, I was excited and motivated and that was the most important thing. Often, the lack of these is the reason one cannot enjoy situations one is not accustomed to.

After an overnight journey from Guwahati, morning had begun in West Garo hills. The long winding road passed through a swathe of thick forests pockmarked with betel nut, cashew nut, orange plantations and shifting cultivation patches. I had visited parts of north-east earlier, but I had a little idea of what to expect from South Garo hills. By the time I reached Baghmara, the headquarter of South Garo hills district, I was delighted to see the Simsang river, sandy beds along the river, forested hills on the other side of the river and to hear gibbons calling from the forests was an icing on the cake.

I settled in quite quickly. I was shown the room in the office where I would stay and then I met the cook in the kitchen whose expertise was Alu parathas for breakfast! The thing was that in Garo hills, the Garos eat only two meals a day; one heavy breakfast and one heavy dinner. In between, they eat a snack of boiled tapioca or yam or oranges or bananas or anything that they often grow locally. The job that I took up involved field work in the community forests around the villages in the landscape for at least half the month. So, during field work, I would eat two meals a day in spite of the hard physical work of walking around the hills in South Garo hills and while I was in Baghmara, not doing much of physical work other than the walks I used to take around the town, I used to eat three meals, since three meals were cooked by our cook. So after a month or so I decided that it wasn't working, I shifted to two relatively big meals a day. Thus adapted, even today I can eat just two meals a day. Its also a good practice since then you really look forward to the meal and enjoy the food too.

The problem of being vegetarian wasn't a big one since in the office in Baghmara, we had a cook. But during field work in the villages in the region, I had found it difficult to cope. On one occasion, after a whole day's walk along the forests around a village, we bought some vegetables to take to a home who would cook for us a meal. Since I had eaten only a single meal in the day, I really looked forward to that meal. The food came while I was stuck in a thought about why the kitchen was smelling so different, and I had even nailed down what it could have been, rotten fish! I started eating my food and realised that my field assistant had bought some dried fish to spike our food with protein. For a vegetarian to eat meat or fish when he is starving is one thing, but eating dried fish without any initiation is completely different! I hardly ate even the gravy since the entire dish raked of the smell. Thankfully, there were bananas, I ate lots of them and slipped off into a well-earned sleep.

By the end of the six months in Garo hills, I had turned into a non-vegetarian with no exceptions. But dried fish I only started eating a year ago, and in fact enjoy it too. A South Garo hills delicacy was the eel curry. Cooked in its blood, I still don't remember eating fish that tasty after seven years now. My field assistant and I were also on rare occasions treated with the local chicken at some villages.

After about three months living in the office in Baghmara, I decided to have my own home. It was by the Simsang river, the sandy shore began after my window and the wind and the view were overwhelming. A minor issue was the cooking! For the first time in my life I was going to cook for myself and by the end of the three months living by myself I had learnt quite a bit. I even brewed my own filter coffee! Milk came from a milkmaid can and cheese cracker biscuits were often the breakfast. All in all, those times in Baghmara were a precursor to my times in the north-east later. I will always be fond of those memories and will always consider Baghmara as a stepping stone to my experiences in other parts of north-east India.

PS: I was lucky to have a film camera then, am posting here scanned pictures from the times spent there.

Garo kids enjoying a game of football on the banks of Simsang river

South Garo hills is twined with several streams. During tiring field work along the streams, the best break was to take a dip!

A view of the bridge over Simsang river from the office. During tiring desk work, the best break was to climb up the hill we were on and take in the view.

A Garo kid in Panda village adjoining the Indo-Bangladesh border

Friends from Garo hills, Fernando to my left and Ericstone to my right, yes his name was Ericstone, he also had a friend called Rolling Stone!

This was my room with a view for three months in Baghmara

The real netherworld

‘Zhili bili’, as SJ Gould substituted for the dull phrase ‘Once upon a time’, the grandmother of the lord Thunder wanted to change the course of the Someshwari river, now called the Simsang river and she picked up a huge boulder from an area notified now as the Balpakram National Park. She wanted to block the river and divert the waters to make the land fertile for agriculture. Tired as she was, she went on slowly when suddenly a cock crowed and Thunder was awakened. In fear she deposited the boulder in what forms now the Chutmang peak and scurried away. Now the Garos say that the Chutmang peak is the exact shape of the valley upturned and have kept the story alive for many generations. Both the pictures below are at the same scale on google earth. Doesn’t seem like a good fit!

Chutmang peak forms the north-western part of the Balpakram national park which is spread over an area of about 300 sq. km. About three months earlier when I visited the peak, we did find tiger pug marks close to the peak near a cave. The park is unique because it was actually bought from the communities by the Forest Department in an effort to protect the wildlife of the region. I had been working with the group ‘Samrakshan’ for about five months and was waiting for an opportunity to get to the park. Such a fortune knocked at my door when Dr. Kashmira, Dr. Christy Williams and Nandini from Valparai came by to Baghmara to do just the same. Christy had earlier done a study on elephants in the region about a decade ago and was very excited to be there.

Nimesh from Samrakshan and the rest of us reached the Mahadeo guest house by about 2 pm and later we went to the famous helipad within the national park, yes a helipad inaugurated by none other than the late Shri Rajiv Gandhi. From there we saw a little less grand canyon. Christy told us that no one had explored the depths of the valley and I thought that for once I did see virgin forests in my life, so that’s a life not wasted! We returned to the Mahadeo camp and took a walk into the park in the evening and the first sighting that excited us was a tusker that Christy claims he had seen earlier during his study. Here is the picture of the big-guy.

Later in the night we took another walk in the forest looking for nocturnal mammals and Nandini had promised us she would show us flying squirrels. But we walked for almost an hour and didn’t see any and we got back to the camp and dozed off into a pleasant sleep. Morning me and Nandini started our walk at 530 am and in the next 15 minutes spotted two Himalayan yellow-throated martens. It was a misty morning and photography was not an option. By the time I ran back to the camp and called Christy and Kashmira, the martens had scooted, and we carried on our walk ahead looking for other mammals and birds.


Later in the day, Kashmira told us about hoolock gibbons, whom she had studied for her PhD. She told us that gibbons start calling late in the morning after they have fed for a while and she imitated the calls to perfection as well. Later in the day we saw a Malayan giant squirrel, up close since the guy was habituated to people and lived close to the forest department quarters.
In the evening we decided to get back since Kashmira and others had to leave the next day. But on the way we got off the vehicles and walked in Baghmara reserve forest which was dominated by Sal trees. After walking for more than an hour looking for squirrels, we found a loris, it was my first sighting of the slow loris, so I was ecstatic.

So, for a trip that lasted only about two days we had quite a few sightings! In fact it seems that in the land where souls of people and not people reside do support a lot of wildlife!