Bomdo with and without electricity

Its Steinbeck when I get back to the dark already-misty Inspection 'Bungalow' in Bomdo village in Upper Siang; starry sky, the orion, jupiter, the big dipper, the works. There is no electricity and am heady with rice beer they serve here in copious quantities. Stomach's full of a pumpkin and smoked mithun meat meal with a tinge of the cinnamon-like Taari (a pentatomid bug also called gandhi pok) chutney.

The village is very different when there is no electricity, it is livelier with more conversations. People who would otherwise watch fake wrestling and soaps with lavish make-ups are talking; someone talks of the best places to get firewood for the winter from, others talk of a man who has hunted three wild pigs in a day (thats a record!), someones hunted a barking deer tonight and has arrived to gift the leg piece, about someone who has gone into the forests for four nights to lay cable traps for animals, about rice this year not being productive owing to the rains, about someone who got a lucky contract from the Junior Engineer–good money and so on and so forth. Good for me I understand only a little of the Adi they speak here or I could read the news about the village like those eccentric channels in the television!

For me, the evening began with a stroll close to the volleyball field near the Naamghar (the community hall) we have here in Bomdo, I met Jabo who promptly invited me over for a drink and I happily obliged. When I reach his home, he asks me to wait, for he had to have a team meeting about the hunt they are fortnightly on, they are to leave the next morning while the cock crows into the forests beyond the hills behind the village. His wife Olak had been searching for sticky-rice beer called Nogin locally for me and found enough. Jabo got back and announced he was off at 3 am for 3 nights to the Siku camp along the Angong river; a good 7 hour walk from the village for the Adis and a 10 hour walk for me.

Jarring, Jabo's brother is back and announces he ate out tonight at his cousins place where wild pig entrails were cooked. Home food to him was boring, but after he left, Jabo's mom had selected a prime mithun smoked meat slice to go with the tasteless pumpkin boiled earlier. Thats the thing here in Bomdo, one can go to a neighbors home and they oblige with food and drink, for the neighbour is a close relative too and anyway everyone in the village is related to everyone, often both through lineage and marriage. I am an outsider but was being provided a homely drink and a meal, nice!

Back in the 'Bungalow', its dark I can't even see my own fingers! Thankfully I am equipped for this; I have a solar charger that charges the phone that provides a torch and a kindle that provides good reading and some music. Am back to 'The grapes of wrath'. Some say one should not read such books in which sorrow is so elegantly depicted when alone and far from home. But I slip and slide away into the story and into the night. 

Atypical Bomdo evening

The day was bright, unlike all the other days in this year. It is already April and four months into the year, we only just today had the sunniest day of the year. It is unlike other years too, March and April often pack in enough sunlight to make you miss the chill of the winter. But here at Bomdo, we had rains, lots of it, out of place perhaps, surely out of time. Sunny days come here rare; so I do the chores, wash up all my clothes, socks especially and the unmentionables. The day is spent mostly reading Murakami's 'Kafka on the shore' and for only the second time ever I am hungover with a book. The previous time I had read 'East of Eden' by Steinbeck and felt a pang. I was alone too, in a secluded Inspection Bungalow in Boleng town in West Siang but that is another story. Kafka on the shore left me with a feeling much deeper and intense and I decided to take the day off to meditate over the book and to do chores.

Evening comes by and just an hour before the sun dips into the hills, I head to the local shop that opens duly at 4 pm. It is closed. So instead I play cricket with the local boys—am not a big fan of the game but any exercise in sport here can only do me good. That is where the atypical day begins, not just because it was the sunniest day of the year but because of the events that follow up. I am not too good at cricket too, but today was different, I am usually a better bowler than batsman. I batted for an entire twenty minutes, the local boys trying their off-spins, leg spins and the occasional fast ball, but in vain they can't get me out. There are bowlers too who before bowling proudly announce, three off spin balls and three leg spin ones are coming at you. What is subtle is that the actual spin of the ball is decided by which tiny stone on the pitch the ball is going to hit! I take a pause to see what the other local boys are doing, they are immersed into a game of housie or bingo; I wonder how this game ever got here. This is what I wonder even in towns like Jenging and Yingkiong. These are places which have had cell phone network only in the last few years, but these towns have had snooker parlours for longer! And so in my village that has no network, people play housie, the scene doesn't definitely fit in, but I take it all in, smiling at how a typical Bomdo evening can be, full of surprises and new thoughts and realisations. Just as I think this an old man walks casually close to the field with a boar on his back. It reminded me of Asterix & co. He had hunted boar from the forest that adjoins the village, and was walking with it strung to his back as though he had bought some ham from the local meat shop. However I understand he had put in a lot of effort into this, he went to a place called Dicheng which is at least an eight hour trek from the village for me.

My friend Army, yes that is his name, sends a leg cutter meanwhile, and I drive, an on-drive, a four by the looks of it. While the ball is collected, I look at the local children, all of them immersed too in the game of housie in which a wheel is spinning. Nyelik's three year old daughter spins me a look and a smile and I take a moment to see how beautiful she is and also wonder about the resemblance between Nyelik and his daughter, hang on, the next ball is here, oops I get the outer edge and a catch and finally get out, much to my relief too. Minutes later, I am bowling, and take a wicket or two I can't remember.

After the game, I head to my friend Bonggar's house, he was cross with me that I hadn't visited him since November, unintentionally of course, I was immersed in my field work and the other days in thoughts damp with the torrential rain. I was tired too, but it looked like more tired were my field boots and pants. The expensive field gum boots I picked up from Bangalore had a hole in them, so water would seep in and dampen the socks, much to the delight of the leeches whose season begins just about now. My field pants too tore yesterday, indicating and implying to me that field season is over, it is time go back home. But unfortunately for my field gear, I need to spend another two months in the village before I take a break. Anyways, back in Bonggar's place, I stepped in for tea but had to settle for rum. And with the rum, dried venison which tastes awful, but the protein is good, so I dunk it in. Bonggar's folks are immersed in a Television soap played courtesy of Tata Sky. I was thinking what a contradiction it is that we don't have phone network in the village but television soaps play like theres been no yesterday. Anyways, drink done, snack done, I head back to the Inspection Bungalow (IB) where I sleep. A tastier meal awaits me there.

When I reach the IB, a bunch of boys working for the Electrical Department are making merry and singing songs. Twelve of them and I call them the Inglorious Basterds. They get along very well with each other though almost every one of them hails from a different place in the country. And they have a beautiful lingo going between them, someones calling the other a dog to be called pig by the other in turn. Phonetically it makes the IB a lively place, for me thats a welcome change, since the other months I have spent here, evenings have been full of sounds of either wind or the rain or branches from trees bouncing off the tin roof that the IB has. The other good thing is they cook for twelve people anyway so I join them happily and eating with a bunch of people is something I miss here in the IB too.

After the meal, I zip into my sleeping bag and write this. What a typical Bomdo evening!

Pasoh afterglow

Two reasons for the title; Pasoh is forever etched in my mind, for all the good times in the forest and the great people I met there. The second that the forest floor indeed has afterglow! After the sun sets, the leaf litter glows reflecting moonlight; we noticed that even when there is no moon they reflect dim light probably starlight, or perhaps the fungus on the leaf litter itself glows rather than reflecting light. We planned several times to take a tripod with us and photograph this with about an hour exposure or more, but the times we lugged a tripod it rained, so we could not capture it. It will remain a vivid afterglow memory.

We did several night walks, particularly because Pradeep from Sri Lanka and I took up nocturnal amphibians as our independent research project. The first frog-sampling evening, this calm assertive creature walked by. John Steinbeck described a land turtle's walk as it crossed the road as a determined, resilient creature, symbolizing the migrant worker's struggle!

The first night walk was quite uneventful right till the end. But then Dtoon, who is from Thailand was with us; an expert herpetologist with sharp eyes and deadly reflexes. We spotted a gecko on a tree, Pradeep gently pushed it down with a long stick and Dtoon managed to jump and catch it. We got a good look and then released it.

Next, Dtoon saw a snake on the tree bark, same sequence of events except no one jumped on to it. Pradeep carefully handled it, we photographed and released it; a non-poisonous bridled snake.

We saw some frogs too, which was the main theme for the nightwalks for our research project.

                                                                                                                

And we spotted another beautiful gecko too. We knew its home since every night we used to see the individual in the same tree bark.

We saw a few snakes in the day time too.

At the end of the project we were very tired staying up for several hours a night in the forest and turning leaf litter searching for frogs and doing the field course in the day. I am thankful to all the folks who accompanied us: Dtoon, Sze-leng, Alyse, Lillian and Panitnard to Pradeep for teaching me about frogs in Pasoh and how to find them.

Next up is a post on PITC, Perak Integrated Timber Complex in Temenggor forest reserve in Perak State, just below Thailand.