Top 10 things to carry to field

Just now, I thought of this post: to put down on paper things that can make life simpler in the field. The post is based on an assumption that one has to cook one's own food using firewood and that whats on the menu is whats available. Here, I might have lost more than half my audience, the other half may read along!

1. A sharp knife/Dao/Kukhri/Katti – This is very essential to chop firewood. I usually don't carry one, since even on the check-in baggage it doesn't look convincingly harmless. Here, I have borrowed someone's dao.
2. Sambar powder – This one is a panacea for all kinds of hunger; an occassional sambar, potato fry, any curry, actually, it can add flavour to any food. My mom makes this and packs it for me. MTR is a good backup too.
3. Pickle/any podis/chatnis – These are great to have with just rice too. Never tried rice and pickle as main course at home but here it is sumptous with fresh onions. I also feel that I am bringing a small part of home with me here! Pickles are good for my Andhra blood too!
4. A small knife – Here, the Adis use a Yoxik, in this particular village it is called Chigdo, photo below. This is very useful, for it is difficult, dangerous and funny too, to cut veggies with a big knife.
5. A peeler/grater or a small pestle – This one's usefulness I can't describe enough. Ginger-garlic paste, dry fish chutney, peeling potatoes, these are only few uses of this contraption. Do carry one.
6. Instant coffee powder – Its nice to wake up and smell firewood burning followed by the smell of coffee. Its also useful to make friends in a remote village. That way you always have something to offer. I've even got a friend here who is now addicted to it, he comes here every morning for a steaming cup of coffee.
7. Radio – Very useful, works without electricity which may often be the case. But beware of Chinese channels!
8. Umbrella and raincoat – Here in Upper Siang, it could rain anytime of the year, even while 'mine truly' is reading this.
9. Inland letters – I've written several letters from field. Can't recieve any though, seems it may take even a year or more for a letter to get to Bomdo!
10. Lastly, packets of 'Puliyogare, Bisibele bath, Sambar' pastes are very handy. They taste nothing like home food but are tangy enought to fill your belly.

I am not saying that these are the only things to carry or that these are the more important ones. There's also medicines, books to read, gum boots, several pairs of underwear and socks, woolen thermals, etc. But these are the more obvious things one needs to take to field. Listed above are things I've learnt to carry since I miss them when I don't. If you think you also have such a list and most items don't match the ones mentioned here, please post them and drop a link.

Against all odds

The yellow-throated marten is called 'Sikki' by the Adis here in the Upper Siang district. Today, I went to a 50-year old abandoned shifting cultivated field and saw several trees. Almost as many as I saw earlier in the adjoining patch which was abandoned following cultivation 100 years ago. Field work this time was a pain since February-end/March is the beginning of the cultivation cycle and everyone is busy. To top that, the day I landed here, there was some festival, called 'Mithun' puja, when Mithuns are slaughtered and meat distributed among the clans. If they talk to any outsiders, referred to as 'Ayings' here, their Mithuns and pigs may get killed by wild animals. I could immediately see the connection here. And one last detail, its raining cats and dogs here, in February that too!

So three days later, it turned out this way. Due to rains, the festival was cancelled and therefore i could meet people and the sun generously came out yesterday and ahoy field work began. This time, I am here to enumerate trees in different aged abandoned shifting cultivation fields, which brings me right back to martens. I was tired after the first field day after several months and was wondering why I chose such a remote and difficult to work in place. I took a few more heavy steps and heard movement in the undergrowth. This was so close to the village and at mid-day that I was expecting domestic pigs. But they were martens! One runs away, the other chases, the third, while passing turns around for a second or two and gives me a 'what are youdoing here' look. My field assistant Durik told me that they were probably fighting and that martens are against odds. Let me explain.

The Adis think/know that martens are never comfortable in groups of 3,5,7 and so on. If there are 3 or 5 or 7, one will get definitely eaten by the others. So I asked Durik if anyone has seen this happening and he said many people have and its for sure! And people from another village down the Siang river, Ramsing, told me the same too. Wonder whats going on! Another detail is that they never eat the marten meat here, but they do kill it when they see one, since martenskills chicken in the village. Anyways, for me after a tiring day in the field, I was happy to see three, although perhaps fighting with each other, martens!

Firestarter

Roy came along this time to Bomdo, Upper Siang. When I planned this visit, i was pensive: what about food, firewood is a pain to work with. And cooking for one person more so. But I didn't figure it out earlier, it was Roy who came along. From morning one, he was the pyromaniac. I would in the 4 days he was here, wake up and smell the fire. He also has super culinary skills. We'd had some very tasty curries in Itanagar together. There was this one day even in Bomdo, when we were out of veggies and we walked an hour collecting ferns. This fern we call 'Terimey soppu' down South (likely Diplazium species) is here as well. This was the one time we foraged for veggies, made the fire, cooked the meal and ate it, a very nice experience for someone hailing from Bangalore.I could picture him in the video of 'firestarter' by 'Prodigy'. Anyways, I figured, following his stay in Bomdo, I wake up, make the fire, cook my meal, pack it for field work, come back, cook again and feel pretty good about the whole thing! Thanks Roy, cheers!

Pakké rocks

Yes, back in the north-east, so the blog continues! Apologies for not posting often, but I wasn't here in the north-east and I did not want to change the main theme of the blog! This time before heading to Itanagar and then on to my study site - Bomdo village, I am at the first stopover at Pakké Tiger Reserve where my colleague (Amruta Rane) and her team are doing the tiger census which is going on right now across the country. This is the best opportunity to get into a Tiger Reserve and that too on an on-the-house trip, well actually, on-the-Forest-Department trip! But firstly, about what happened before I got here.

Guwahati & the dust-bath

Guwahati, the main gateway to north-east is quite a town: crowded, tambul (betelnut) chewers and spitters everywhere and now multiplexes and big malls. Its like a small city mimicking a big one out here. Another annoying thing about the city is the dust-bath, smoke and dust everywhere, and if you are anywhere near Khanapara, if you ever are, cover your face with a kerchief! Its like you take in dust in your nostrils before you take the smell of a forest anywhere beyond Guwahati. In fact, the only good thing about the place is that bus fare from anywhere to anywhere ranges from 3 – 5 rupees, and its been that way for almost four years now.

Anyway, I spent three days at Guwahati before I got to Arunachal Pradesh, not by choice, as you will read. My good friend Narayan's family has adopted me over the last few years and treated me as one of the family and taken me in whether I am headed to Bangalore or whether I am headed to field like this time. There was even once a tiime when I had a rupee left when I got to Guwahati since I had expected a bank to be open at 5 pm, it wasn't. So with all my luggage, which usually exceeds 10 kilos, I walked, to be specific from Bangagarh to Khanapara, almost 8 km! But when I got to Krishna bhaiyya's place I was treated like I would be at home: a hot water bath and a super-sumptous meal. But coming back to the topic of why I had to spent three days in Guwahati, I needed to apply for an inner line permit (ILP) for entering Arunachal. When I was earlier working with G B Pant Institute at Itanagar, I had a 1-year, all-Arunachal ILP, but this time to get a 1 week ILP to a single destination (in this case, Seijosa, the entrance to Pakké Tiger Reserve), I had to wait two days! Felt a bit sick, but hey, here I am! The first day in Arunachal began at Pakké, which brings us to the hot topic of the blogpost.

A sort of field-coming

After many months down South, it feels great to be back in the beautiful forests here. I got to Seijosa and within half hour was to leave for the Panch-iali camp in Pakké, where one of the five roads that lead to nowhere leads to the camp! First glimpse of Arunachal after almost a year, beautiful! The great barbet call was on which usually provides the timely beat of the sounds of the forest, nice lowland forest right in front of me, Duabanga, Erythrina and Toko, the local palm used for thatching, were flowering and yes Pakké rocks, they really rock. Each is a different colour, shape and has a different texture.

I call this one Roti, egg and butter!

A khaleej and junglefowl

We also saw several Khaleej pheasants and red junglefowl and on one occassion even together, wonder what that was about.

Then we took on the survey, this usually involves looking for pugmarks around nallahs, or streams. The first day we saw pugmarks of two tigers, at least one leopard and some wild dogs too. The second day, today, was one of the most beautiful walks. Often, we saw the Oriental Pied and the Wreathed hornbills and very often we would hear them flying over the canopy with a muffled Chopper-like sound. In all, we saw about 5 Wreathed hornbills and 3 Oriental Pied ones, all in a couple of hours walk.

I also took a bath at a stream, with some Puntius and Leopard Loaches. A bath after three days, after a dust bath at Guwahati, awesome!

A leopard loach

Charan da the person driving us to Seijosa also told us something interesting. There was this mammal that used to defecate in the same place for the last few months, according to him a cat. I couldn't think of a cat that does that and then he even took us to the place. Here's is the picture of the scat.

So Amruta and Charan decided that they can afford to leave a camera trap at the place and perhaps pick it up in a week. So we may get picture of this toilet-trained carnivore. I am really looking forward to what it might be, maybe I will write about it in a future blog post.

In all, truly, Pakké rocks!

PS: The cat stopped visiting its personal lavatory after they fixed the camera trap. Its most likely a civet, sorry for the loss of a loo!

Hirudin day

Madla camp

07-09-09

Woke up late in Madla camp 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, plan B! To go to Kesave village but through a longer route because we can't cross the stream and although Kesave camp was on the other side of the river, the fields we had to visit were on our side. 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 it was to be.

We left at 11 am hoping we can go along the side of the river. Though a river winds a lot, we thought it can't be more than 5 km since the jeep trail was only 3 km. 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 must have had bottoms-up from my feet. We reach at 2.15 pm, finish vegetation sampling by 3.30 and walk back in about 2 hours since we knew the route. 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 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!'

Sorry for the grossness of the picture, but it was quite tempting to post!

Chinese whispers!

Last night in Bhadra, Madla camp I was listening to 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’. Now 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 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 forest is not a pleasant experience, believe you, me.

By the way, then I 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!

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. Also, I almost forgot my blog password, so better keep writing and log in more often!

No pics, but this one doesn't need.

'The Hindu means home to me

Waking up at 7 am and smelling the coffee brewing 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. Having a grandfather who worked for the newspaper for almost fifty years 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 and shifting cultivation, no one can 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 whining 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 and then head to college. Here it's quite different, slightly more independent and sometimes a bit tiring. But when I read The Hindu, it still feels different; I take a leap two thousand km south-west to back home sitting on my sofa with a cup of coffee! Maybe, I will ask my mother to post me the Sunday Magazines copies too!'

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