Just orchidding

March was the month when forest was cleared and burnt for shifting cultivation. Close to Itanagar too there were lot of fires; when interviewed on radio, the forest department kept saying people out there who go for picnic and throw their lit ciggarettes are mostly to blame. They have to be sure that they put off their ciggarettes.

No one goes there for a picnic, all the beer-drinkers and ciggarette-smokers are right here in town. The folks cultivating in these forests are also people who have come from other districts, attracted to the place since its closer to a town. This kind of cultivation is very very different from that practised in remote villages in arunachal. While in remote village, people let a cultivated patch recover for almost a decade, here its mostly 4-5 years before a patch is recultivated.

Anyways, the point is the other day we took a walk in these forests and saw a big tree fallen on the ground with quite a few orchids still clinging on. So my friend took two of them and I took one. When we returned we put them in buckets with moist sand and within few days the orchid i brought looked healthy. Then, we put it on a mango tree and tied it up and now about two weeks later, its flowering! Beautiful, take a look...

Gone fishing (nocturnal version)

One night in Itanagar, after we were on high spirits after some rum, we figured we had no curry to eat with rice. Tamang da who was with us immediately said that 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. God alone knows if they are referring to otters or some other animal. Anyway, 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 by 2 am. Like the last time, we were dropping back the kid-fish into the river; the ones too small. Here’s the catch… 

Rains reign

In the Upper Siang district, it rains more than four metres a year...and there wasn't a month without rain in the last year i visited. Often its depressing if I have planned out some work already. But if you are carrying no perishable equipment, then its fun jumping in.

So this time it happened like this, from Jengging I had to reach the Bomdo village and the monsoon has already struck here and it started raining. I remember reading in a John Steinbeck book about this character who could describe ten or more different kinds of rain and he found all of them irritating. Well, theres only one kind of rain here; hard rain which takes breaks to drizzle before it brings along a landslide and a roadblock. But I am quitting my institute presently and had to get back few equipment to return to the institute to get the 'no due' certificate and had to give things like a radio and few cds to 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, gotto finish this thing. 10 am we left on a bike from jengging and rode continuously for three hours to get to Bomdo, 70 km away. Once I reached the place, my friend Gekut quickly made some pop corn and tea. The thing about riding in rain is that one is fine till the point he stops.  The time when we stopped at the village I shivered like the richter scale was at 7 or something! 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! Next stop Ramsing village 30 km on the way back. The home that I reached 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 the good things followed as mentioned in the blog post before this.

Oh before I finish, I spent one day photographing waterdrops; this is the best thing you can do when its raining continuously and better still if you have a 500 mm lens...here's the output...

An ode to Jenging

I call it the 'Holiday inn' of Upper Siang district. 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 little trouble; the back tyre got punctured, the kicker broke, petrol got over and the engine wouldnt just start a couple times. Every time I reach the Circuit house in Jenging, a hot water bath, a superb meal, a warm bed, electricity to charge batteries and signal to make calls await me. To add to this, the person in-charge is a sweet Nepali person, who seems to know each time I hog a lot that I havent eaten too well in the last week.

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

'Sweet memories of Jenging

In the 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

and I meet an occasional local picking up leaves and certain roots

In the night, the giant mountains morph into silent ghosts

and clouds tonight have ushered the stars

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

and the night as usual in my memory leaves pleasant scars

Three hills away I see a bike spiralling down the road

An occasional owl calls a high-pitched teewoo

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

Here's another place in the north-east India I wont forget too'

Now…that’s something to blog about

I met a granny in the village Bomdo this time who has walked to Tibet! She along with another fifteen people 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 few…rice and rice beer were exchanged for wheat powder or salt. The exchange rate was pretty simple; 1 cup rice beer fetches one fist amount 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. Granny very enthusiastically brought this spin that’s at least 60 years old and posed for the picture to depict how they extract thread to make clothes.

Other interesting facts were that people with heavy bags were invited to rich homes whereas people with light bags were invited to poor homes. Naturally people carried a lot of weight and granny told me people would carry about 50 – 60 kilos! The other strange thing about the trip is that people who die on the way are not brought back. And whatever happens on the way the group is all the time happily singing and walking.

So, basically people from Bomdo village were walking at least a distance of 150 km and more 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 from the planet Kryptos!

Headhunters’ ball – Reyee Gaye

The ‘Aran’ puja was on this time when I reached Ramsing village. Reyee Gaye 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 experienced men would do the war-dance, a practice continuing for hundreds of years. 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, folks did come out late and the light was low, but I got 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’s 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 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, can’t make out from the lump of meat), muntjacs, civets and once 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, etc. But damn it, I think the rarer species have to be just not hunted; binturongs, hornbills and few other species, I don’t know hunting of which species is justified but definitely here it’s not for subsistence, I think there should be a clear distinction between hunting for the pot and hunting for the money pot. 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 ever could be a solution to this. I don’t feel this bad when I see a species being brought back in village I stay in for my field work where certainly not a gram of the meat is sold, its distributed amongst the clan and family members.

I am now thinking hunting has at least three tiers to it. 1) hunting for consumption, 2) hunting for selling the meat like mentioned in the earlier para, 3) hunting for fur /skin/ bone trade. I think the last form of hunting is least justified in comparison to the first. Comments, debates, opinions, anyone?

I managed to take a pic of the porcupine yesterday, but I wonder if anyone could take pics all the time in the market and keep interviewing the people without getting hit. I always leave the meat market quite morose.

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).