Musings from the north-east

Lazy sunday afternoon...

2011-10-09T22:11:00.000+05:30

Its been a month since I have been hereIn Bomdo, but it just sunk in, Bangalore is now not just physicallyaway, its mentally a long way away too. This sunday was unlikeothers. The day began late for me since all night the hum of rainfalling on the tin roof of this 'bungalow' I stay in kept me. I wokeup thinking its too much rain so field work is not a possibility andI can sleep in. The kid whom I recently employed to cook for me camein late too, at 6 am. I hear him chopping some wood to make the fireand very slowly I wake up. I was still hungover with the cold that Icaught with the onset of the winter, four days back. It is stilldrizzling but I sent my field assistant Army to pick up lots of seedsof a Castanopsis species. Small oak like fruits, that remind you ofthe squirrel that would not let go of its fruit in the movie 'IceAge'. These are quite tasty too, and the species fruits only once intwo years, so I had to get some quick for my experiments, since manyanimals and birds make a quick meal of it. In fact I ate some twoyears back too; roasted on fire, they make a sumptous snack. So Armyhas left to bring back the seeds by himself since I am still a littlesick and the walk to the place where these trees and seeds are ismore than10 km to and fro in the hills.

After the morning meal cooking, I putin more wood and decided a bath is due. So I made some hot water andjust finished with a rejuvenating and (a word that always takes metwo minutes to remember!) a therapeutic bath. For the rest of theday, I plan to read a couple scientific papers, do some data entryand plan the field work for the next few months. I can't help butremember how it used to be in Bangalore when I was even a littlefeverish. Amma would prepare a peppery concoction we call 'kashayam'and a peppery pongal (rice and lentils) breakfast. I could read thenewspaper and then contemplate life the whole day! Here, I would missher caring but hey there is warm ginger tea and I could do thelatter but contemplate not just life but my Phd too! But a bath didme real good; I feel fresh enough to make an entry on the blog andperhaps to get well soon enough to continue field work.

More from the beautiful land of simple people

2011-09-30T11:19:00.002+05:30

I will always remember what M D Madhusudan called Arunachal; 'The beautiful land of simple people'. It remains etched in my mind and over the last few years here, I have experienced it too. This post is more of an update from Arunachal about two earlier posts on this blog about gutkha bags and wild meat.

Last year, I've seen these beautiful bags made of plastic Tiranga (local gutkha/pan masala) packets in the Yingkiong town as well as in few villages. Folks used to meticulously collect the packets discarded by mindless people, wash them, cut them and weave them into these bags. It made me happy, the packets are getting cleared from the town and villages, and these bags are being bought by the locals and the tourists. Still, a decision by the Supreme Court taken earlier this year made me happier. Take a look at this article. So now in Arunachal, not only is the sale of gutkha packets banned close to schools, but the packets are also made of paper, perhaps more bio-degradable.

The second update is about the meat market at Itanagar. I was there two days back and was doing the usual rounds looking for wild meat and was glad there was none. Then, my friend informed me that there was a raid just a week ago, the local Forest Department found an unclaimed bag of wild pig meat in the market and then issued a notice banning this. Here is the article about this. Since the peak hunting season begins in early October, this raid and the ban are very timely. Lets hope the wild animals are spared from the meat market for at least this hunting season.

Lets hope theres more happy news on the way to the Siang districts where I am headed for another field season.

An ode to Bomdo

2011-06-19T13:03:00.005+05:30

This was written on an evening before I left Bomdo. There had been no electricity in the village for almost a week, and I was preparing to leave the village after a seven month stint. The only thing I could do more than mentally bid a bye to Bomdo was write about what I felt, so here goes...

"The evening sun creeps behind the green hills and darkness spreads, ever slowly,

there is no moon yet and I can't turn on any lights, there are none to be.

But I feel sublime, for, there is a glistening spark inside me

a glint of my spirit that ignites the embers within.

For a while, there will be no humming water springs, no more gush of the river below,

no more flowers that paint an entire hill, no orchids that rouge a tree,

no more humbling mountains, no more tall trees to gaze upon

and no more rain that forms cascades ever anew.

No more butterflies that paint the day, no more fireflies to flicker the night,

no more birds to add sounds to a silence

and no more clouds that move as fast as the river in might.

Yet this journey has now hardly come to an end.

After few days in the place I belong,

where the skies oft turn black from smoke, where refuse oft fills the lakes and soil,

where time will be spent racing with time itself, and days are not as long,

here I shall return where nature is unbound and where still stands time."

Incidentally, the day I left Bomdo was the biggest festival of the Adis, the Solung. The significant activity during this festival is that of sacrificing Mithuns. Five Mithuns were hung in the morning and I meticulously videotaped two of them. Millet beer was served for everyone and a dish made of fried Mithun stomach. After a stomach full of stomach, I packed up and left on my bike and was contemplating the day and the field season while I was slithering down the winding road from Bomdo to Yingkiong. Somewhere in the back of my mind I realised why Mithuns are so important for the Adis, not only are they a major protein source, they are also an essential part of all the rituals and festivals that go on throughout the year. My mind kept ringing 'The king is dead. Long live the king.'

An eight year old Mithun, she gave birth to many successors

The meat being distributed to the seven families who bought the Mithun

Atypical Bomdo evening

2011-05-09T12:16:00.004+05:30

The day was bright, unlike all the other days in this year. Its already April and four months into the year, we only just today had the sunniest day of the year. Its not like any 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 thats 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. Its closed. So instead I play cricket with the local boys, am not a big fan of the game but what the hell, any excercise in sport here can only do me good. Thats 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. Whats 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, how did this game ever get here. This is what I wonder even in towns like Jenging and Yingkiong. These are places which have only in the last few years recieved cell phone network, 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 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.

Army, my field assistant sends a leg cutter meanwhile, and I drive, an on-drive, its a four by the looks of the shot. 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 resemblannce 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, 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 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, lets go home. But unfortunately for my field gear, I need to spend another two months in the village before I get a break. Anyways, back in Bonggars 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. Bonggars 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 plays 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, theres a bunch of boys working for the Electrical Department making merry and singing songs. Theres 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. 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 things 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!

Medo Karthik

2011-03-06T15:57:00.000+05:30

I have been visiting Bomdo village for a long time now, since February 2008. But never have I felt a part of the village as much as in the last few weeks. There are eight clans in the village; Nyodo, Duggong, Yalik, Panga, Lanchong, Dungmik and Medo. The Medo clan has now unofficially included me in their clan; I explain here how.

The customs of the Adis are quite interesting. Among the clans, whenever any members hunts a wild animal, he gives a piece of the meat to closest relatives of his clan. Some meat is also distributed to close relatives among other clans; for instance, to the in-laws. It is quite surprising that there is no fine if somebody doesn't do this, but this tradition is now going on for several centuries. Nevertheless, distributing meat among clan members ensures supply of meat throughout the hunting season at least. So, the last time a barking deer was hunted by the Medo clan, I was called to my friend, Bamut Medo's home for dinner. He casually remarked that I was one of the Medos now, I didn't believe him then, but protein is not in an abundant supply in the village, so I happily obliged.

Today (6th Feb), a Mithun was cut in the village. In this case too, the meat is distributed among all the Medos. I was not only invited for dinner, which was mainly Mithun stomach boiled and rice, to three houses, I was also given a small chunk of the meat! Now, I believe I am one of them!

On another note, I have fortified the camp I stay in the village (the inspection bungalow) with all the essentials. I now have a Chang (a smoking place above the cooking fire), a small almirah to keep all the stuff needed for cooking, a pestle, an aluminium mug, a small backup cylinder, a backup electric stove, a solar charged light, a radio, the works, take a look. Just now, I also made sure the fire goes on for a few hours so the Mithun meat gets smoked. That way it can stay for several days without getting spoilt. The way the Adis smoke it, the meat apparently lasts for five years!

Burning one (fire) down!

The pestle that brings lovely flavour to my food,
made of Jackfruit tree wood

My kitchen, its all there!

And finally here is the mug that I picked up from the market; its uses are several, heres a list of things that I have made in it; fried eggs, fried fryums, tea, coffee, boiled water, soup, dal, drink tea/coffee, chatni with the pestle, measure rice to cook with it and the list goes on. In fact, I call it the invincible mug because we had taken this mug on a trip to Mouling National Park and it was the only vessel we carried besides one large vessel to cook dal and rice. So in the five day trip, we used this mug to measure rice to be cooked, to make tea, to smash boiled potatoes, to serve dal and again the list goes on. I call it invincible because when we camped by the Sidi river in the Eggong camp, a Mithun had stepped on it to make it quite oval in shape. In the middle of the night, someone screamed saying my mug was gone. Calmly, I woke up in the morning and brought it back to shape by hitting it gently with a rock and the mug is back in use! Well, this is the one thing I rate as most useful ever in field.

The invincible mug!

So, I sleep today convinced that I am not only a researcher in the village, but perhaps also one of them now.

New kid on the blog

2011-02-25T14:57:00.000+05:30

I arrived to the Bomdo village this time end of November last year. I had several expectations and was quite excited and nervous since my field work was soon to begin. I was also excited that I would meet the village folk after six months. But I had an even more pleasant surprise in store for me. At about 1 pm when I arrived to the village and visited my man-friday Gekut's house he wasn't there. He and his wife had gone to the field, for it was the rice harvesting season. So I waited till early evening and then I saw Gekut rushing to the Inspection Bungalow where I stay. He said he had a third kid! In a hurry to catch a glimpse, I ran to his house.

The Poyup or the farm house where Kayit was born, in Loging

Gekut and his wife had gone to Loging, their current shifting cultivation field, and minutes after they reached Nyomen, Gekut's wife announced that she was in labour and having no other woman to help him with this, he just waited aside her helplessly and pulled the kid out himself. I was bewildered by the fact that the same day she gave birth she also went out to the fields to bring back at least 30 kilos of rice, and Loging itself is a good 5 km walk through the forests. However, here in the village there are several such instances. Perhaps due to their physical endurance during shifting cultivation, even giving birth to a kid is not as serious an issue as it is often in towns. The whole village apparently suggests names for new born kids till finally a name is chosen. I suggested 'Siben' which is the local name for a takin (Budorcas taxicolor), making him a very special person, being named after the rarest animal in the region. The lad was finally named Kayit and I see him almost everyday and still call him Siben! Gekut says someday Kayit will become the Deputy Commissioner of the Yingkiong circle and I said that I will happily fund his education.

Gekut and Junior

हैं होगा

2011-02-04T11:49:00.003+05:30

I've by now absorbed a bit of north-east hindi lingo, which is quite confusing compared to the hindi we speak in the rest of the country. Here, the language has been adapted to the inherent logistical uncertainties there. Here is a hypothetical instance...

One day, one Nyishi tribe folk asked another, 'has the bus been here yet' and the other Nyishi replies, 'no'. It had so happened that the latter fellow had not noticed the bus leave when he was off for 'minus'. Minus is by the way, what folks here refer to answering nature's call, a simple logical euphemism. So then after waiting the entire day, the first Nyishi walked up to the other guy and bashed him up for no real fault of his. There must have been several such instances, with the topic of discussion each time being different, nevertheless, leading to major arguments or fights.

Here is the only way it could have ever got resolved, by the inclusion of this beautiful hindi word 'hoga'. Consider this, if in the previous instance, the person replying had said 'Bus to gaya nahin hoga', the other could have re-considered the truth in the non-affirmative reply, and could have asked another person who could be more definite about such simple things as to whether a bus had left or not. But it so happens that the other guy would also reply, 'Bus gaya hoga', since he was also involved in arguments as the one mentioned afore. My point is that in the general language, 'hoga' has become a diplomatic suffix which makes it tough to know answers to simple questions. The funniest hoga yet is 'hain hoga'. This is somewhat similar to scientific writing. Writing 'considerably different', 'statistically different', 'likely to be different' keeps the person writing safe from future discoveries!

By the way, there is an extension to 'hoga', which I assure you by experience, only complicates matters. Often, the word 'kya' is added as a bonus suffix to 'hoga'. So, 'has the bus been here yet?', pat comes the safest and often useless reply, 'gaya nahin hoga kya'. When I get this reply, I would ask about what time does it usually leave, to get an idea of his confidence interval and to know if his today's data is an outlier!

Like I mentioned earlier, anyone who has been here for a while adopts this lingo. There are other ways in which the hindi here is different. 'Nahin' (no) becomes 'ho jayega' (will do or enough). Not long ago, my sister in Bangalore had made rotis for dinner. After belting half a dozen when she asked me if I would like more, I said 'ho jayega'. She asked me 'kya ho jayega' (what will happen).

Apologies to folks reading this, who don't have a hindi background. 'Samaj mein to aa jayega hoga!'

Yingkiong ho!

2010-11-09T08:33:00.001+05:30

This is a post I write while heading to Yingkiong a town close to my research field site. Although the title post is inspired by Yukon Ho of the Calvin Hobbes fame, this trip needed a LOT more planning! For a year and a little more I was raising funds for my research, for half that year I gazed at my research proposal, waiting for a miracle, and for a month or so there has been a hullaballoo about getting the equipment, papers and the logistics together. Actually the meat of this article was only the last two lines but thought I will throw in a few ribs. Here, I list all the things that are in my three bags i carry, think I will have more words than any of my earlier posts had!

Miscellaneous: Water bottle - Laptop with charger - Phone with charger - an ink pen and a bottle of ink - one book to read - few pairs of clothing - warm clothes - couple of socks - soap - towel - brush and paste - an Adi knife called Yoxik - cap

Equipment: soil moisture meter - canopy densiometer - rain gauge - watchdog data logger - soil moisture / Ph sensor - GPS - lux meter - batteries for all equipment - gum boots - poncho - umbrella - dynamo torch - waterproof bag - camera - binoculars - camera tripod - 300 GB hard disk - brush to clean my laptop -mp3 player - 4 gb pen drive

Food & beverages: sambar powder - chatni powder - rasam powder - pappula podi - 30 chapatis - tomato onion dry curry - half a litre of orange vodka

Gifts: two watches for my field assistants - a poncho - three dynamo torches - a couple headcaps

Unmentionables: unmentionable!

All this stuff weighs about 18 kilos, two kilos below the 'pay your ass off' offer at the airport for excess luggage! Well, I am headed, I sit here behind in my dad's car and type this and looks like the next half year and more are going to be exciting!

Here is the stuff as seen through the scanner at the airport, its all there!

Here is the luggage of three people for six months, almost like house-shifting!

I know the blog has been idle for a while, but here I am headed to field and will write in many 'stories for boys' soon. watch this space!

A plastic graveyard

2010-05-31T23:48:00.003+05:30

I was swooping through a mud road casually on an ancient scooter to the foundation for revitalisation of local health and traditions office somewhere close to Yelahanka New Town in Bangalore. For once, I was enjoying large patches of Eucalyptus trees, some native Sizygium, Mango trees, since this was after passing through the thick smoggy air on Airport road. A shikra was meticulously searching for a meal as I zipped through the road. Till then, I was enjoying the smells of damp mud, Euca trees and suchlike when I caught a pungent whiff. A tractor in front of me was carrying trash, some of it decomposed, some smelling fresh, most of it plastic wrappers of various sizes. Looking at it one could imagine where all this came from; someone from a house must have dumped twenty plastic wrappers yesterday; their stuff was neatly packed in these wrappers after shopping in a mall just a day ago, someone must have casually dumped all their extra food from an extravagant meal into the bin, someone else may have thrown their old keyboard, having no use for it now, someone else must have dumped a silver wrapper they packed their food in to keep it hot, some fresh Tropicana juice tetra packs and dozens of such items. A question popped into my head, 'where does this all go?' I had seen a landfill in Vidyaranyapura many years ago. This tractor I decided to follow.

Trying to avoid the whiff but not lose track of the vehicle, I followed it to about 3 km away. After few turns, I saw what I can call a 'trashscape'. At first, I didn't realise what it was, but lo a couple hillocks of white plastic trash appeared in front of me. There were at least a hundred Pariah kites (the word 'Pariah' here seems fitting) and crows grabbing at the contents of this trash heap. About twenty almost-about-to-die frail looking dogs made this place their home. Nearby I saw what looked like a treatment plant. So I casually struck a conversation with one of the folks at this 'plastic valley' and he told me. Large holes are dug in the ground with a JCB crane, and the plastic is filled into the holes. Some of the trash which may be organic is treated. The person I spoke to didn't know the exact details of what happens to this stuff. But another detail he told me left me awestruck. About 150 tractors like the one I had seen dump their contents into this place EVERYday! And this has been happening for more than five years!

Unable to digest the whole situation, I left the place, more confused and bewildered than earlier when I was seeing the shikra and the trees. Back in the north-east, I live in a village much less civilised, where people are not believed to be as intelligent as us city-dwelling modern people. They have been living in the same village for at least five hundred years. So where is their heap of trash? There is hardly any use of plastic and the little that seeps into the village is used up for starting the fire in the morning. I don't think its the best way to dispose plastic, but hey, they aren't at least burying it in the ground! In the nearest town Yingkiong, plastic is banned, so when you buy something you get it in a brown paper bag. In Itanagar town in Arunachal, there is a fine of 500 rupees for using a plastic bag. So why can't this be done in big cities where people are more educated and supposedly more civilised!

Back at home, every morning, a small three-wheeler comes home with a jarring honking sound to appeal to people to bring out their trash and deposit. Now, I know where all this goes so I feel guilty to hand over the plastic bag filled with trash to him. I am still looking for solutions, separate the stuff, use some for compost, collect the rest, items such as plastic, batteries and other non degradable items. But what to do with these. I still seek the solution and hope that someday my home can produce as little non degradable waste as possible.

PS the dump by the way can be seen from a satellite image, here it is, the white hill! For a clearer image, search for 'frlht' on wikimapia and then go west a km.

Top 10 things to carry to field

2010-04-12T11:10:00.002+05:30

Bomdo

07-03-2010

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!

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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Radio – Very useful, works without electricity which may often be the case. But beware of Chinese channels!
Umbrella and raincoat – Here in Upper Siang, it could rain anytime of the year, even while 'mine truly' is reading this.
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!
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

2010-03-30T00:25:00.005+05:30

Bomdo

26-02-2010

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

2010-03-24T18:24:00.005+05:30

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

2010-02-11T11:05:00.028+05:30

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 & butter!

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

A khaleej and junglefowl

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!

Leopard loach

Day before yesterday, I left from the civet camp and headed off to Seijosa and on the way saw some interesting things too. I saw a black stork for the first time and there was this thrush that was limping on the tracks. One of the Forest Department guys picked it up and we got a closer look and I think it was a female black-breasted thrush. Here's the picture.

Black stork

Black-breasted thrush

Charan da the person driving us to Seijosa also told us an interesting thing. 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. This is the picture of the scat.

Unidentified 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

2009-09-22T23:28:00.008+05:30

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!

2009-09-22T23:25:00.002+05:30

Madla camp, Bhadra

06-09-09

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, ‘everday 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

2009-07-29T00:39:00.009+05:30

Folks,

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 favourites.

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!'

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

Just orchidding

2009-04-08T12:21:00.005+05:30

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)

2009-04-02T17:18:00.004+05:30

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

2009-04-02T15:41:00.004+05:30

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

2009-04-02T14:41:00.007+05:30

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

2009-02-28T15:09:00.006+05:30

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

2009-02-28T14:33:00.009+05:30

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

2009-02-10T09:25:00.002+05:30

This I had to post sometime or the other, 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 specimens 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 Bomdo village where certainly not a gram of the meat is sold, its distributed amongst the villagers.

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 belted!

How the tangkum lost its tail…

2009-02-06T17:54:00.003+05:30

The rufous throated partridge here is called the Tangkum by the Adis. It has a very interesting call Whee-Wooo with an ascending tone according to Grimmett’s bird book. We hear it in the forests here every other day. So one day, the partridge went Whee-Wooo and a squirrel dropped a fruit it was eating. A barking deer got alarmed when the fruit fell on him and scooted and thereby caused almost a landslide. A crab in the river was peacefully basking down below in the river when a pebble hit its eye and the crab lost its eye.

So here in Adi community, for any justice they have a formal meeting called Kebang. So the forest organised a Kebang and the Kebang’s verdict was to fine the stone. But the stone said, this dumb barking deer slid over me and therefore I rolled, mine not to reason why. Hmm said the council, call that deer, let’s fine him and get this over with, we got other work to do. The barking deer barked that he was only doing his morning foraging duties when he was alarmed by this seed that fell off the sky. The seed was summoned, the seed said, I was only hoping my fruit is eaten and I get dispersed peacefully somewhere till the rains when this silly squirrel dropped me half-eaten, mine not to reason why. “Summon that squirrel”, council said. Squirrel bickered that he also as the deer was doing his early morning feeding when he heard the Tangkum call and don’t know why today the ascending tone was really at an ascent.

“Get tangkum here, double quick”. Tangkum came Whee-Whooing and quickly figured there was no way out, although he begged the council’s mercy that early morning is the time he calls for a pretty girl tangkum and really it wasn’t his fault. Yet, he had to give up something, causing this whole ruckus. “Take my tail with twelve beautiful feathers”. And that’s how the tangkum lost its tail, a fine Adi story.

The boys of the village also trapped one today with a sling-trap, this is the picture of the beautiful bird, no tail as per the tale.

The walk to the village by the river

2009-02-06T17:36:00.005+05:30

Having spent three peaceful days discussing my plant work and visiting clearings from Ramsing Inspection Bungalow, I headed this morning to Bomdo village to carry on birding work. So early morning we woke like good birds do for worms and got to the bus stop; this is any arbitrary place where you find a stone to park your arse and where the respective driver can see that you have been waiting long. So I waited, long (from 630 to 830)…then I found a tipper truck and got myself and my two bags beautifully cemented, but the trip only lasted halfway. I was headed 25 km from Ramsing to Bomdo whereas the tipper tipped me off to a place called Hawa camp, only 9 km from Ramsing. So I park my arse again and wait for more helpful wheels. Two hours later, I decided to come up with a one-liner and start walking towards the village: ‘The main difference between an opportunity and a difficulty is the one to be ignored!’

One may wonder why I didn’t walk to the village since morning because most wildlifers will agree that 25 km is walkable in four-five hours. The only thing, things actually, were my two bags in front and back of me, don’t they look heavy…

About six km later I saw a beautiful stream and someone had left a mug for me to drink, so I drank from the cup of life!

Birds on the way many; golden bush robin, sibias, unidentified harrier, etc. The reason I kept walking was hoping that some vehicle will give me a drop of at least ten of the remaining 15 km. that didn’t happen at all. The usual Border Road Organisation vehicles were not dropping many civilians because one of their tippers had dropped from the road until the Siang river and four civilians were killed. So for the next two weeks at least, I think no long-lifts for civilians by BRO.

The only other thing that happened was that at some point after climbing a short cut for half an hour or so I realised I had dropped my binoculars cover. So I cached my two bags in the forest somewhere and literally ran back more than a kilometre to retrieve it. I am a good retriever usually, my old Jawa I took back from a mechanic after keeping it with him for a year, I retrieved my job at Greenpeace, my drum kit which I am yet to retrieve from a friend (which I am sure I will) and certain other examples. In fact the only thing that I wanted to for sometime to retrieve but I couldn’t and now don’t care to try is my ex-girlfriend!

Well, I puffed and panted and couldn’t find this stupid bag, well I need to buy this sometime when I go to a town like Guwahati. Anyway, that was another significant thing during the walk. Then when I came back out of the shortcut to the tarred road, I met this old lady from Bomdo who keeps sending vegetables for me at the place I stay, very sweet lady. So I walked with her a km, she kept talking and I kept saying things in the bits of Adi I have picked up. Later I figured that for a large part of the conversation she was telling me which all veggies were available at her home in Bomdo which I can gladly go and pick! Then she took a detour to collect fire wood, I kept walking.

Then, the last significant incident, on another shortcut to the village I saw this 50+ year old woman and her family walking in front of me. Here it’s a custom to greet people and generally ask them if the day is tiring, whether they went very far or that you are tired or that you have come from very far, etc, etc. So I asked her how she is and she gave me a surprised look, I thought she had seen me coming because for almost twenty minutes I was trailing them. When I looked closely I figured she was taking a standing pee. When I was young and in fact even now, I though women can’t pee when they are standing! But this lady just stood-at-ease with her legs about 1-m from each other and peed!!!

I reached the IB…somewhere during the journey I’d realised that I hadn’t brought sambar powder, the ultimate mom-made panacea for flavouring food. But when I reached my camp, the Bomdo inspection bungalow, I had stashed some from my last visit in November and this will be more than enough for the next ten days. And then there was rice, dal, salt, oil, batteries, etc, etc. nice…very nice.

In the meanwhile a kid came to the IB with a basket full of veggies the old woman had sent! I think the first thing she did after she returned home dispatched some with her grandson, so my first meal here was sambar-rice, ghee and some lovely powder (for you Andhrites reading this, Putnalu podi) we eat with rice from Andhra. And I was thinking a walk may be uneventful!!!

By the way, the house-Mithun of Dungé Yalik is home again after last May, when I was here in the village too! They only come around once/twice a year in this village it seems, these are some real feral cattle they have here.

Village by the river: Chapter III

2008-11-16T13:49:00.010+05:30

A homopteran and a pteridophyte breakfast

My field assistant and me had no curry to take along with rice the other day cos’ we left really early (330 am!), so Army (that’s his name!) cut down a Pandanus plant and within each leaf were these stink bugs (Pentatomidae family, Order Homoptera) that he said we could eat, alive and whole! Hmm…at first I hesitated, then put in one, tasted exactly like Cinnamomum, quite good actually, so I had few, no, many more! There’s also another species of the same kind that they find in water below stones, he had brought that too, it was grounded with salt and chillies and he told me that some people are allergic to this bug. So I just tasted a bit, I preferred the cinnamon flavour instead. This is the pic of the bug, so if you find one, pop it in!

The previous field visit too, we had gone into the forest with only rice sprinkled with millets. So my field assistant then (Nyelik) quickly materialised a banana flower and an edible fern plant. This fern is probably called ‘Terimey soppu’ down South, had eaten it before, quite tasty. So after one hour of fire, we had this meal, really yummy!

Foods often a problem in field, so I tend to adjust to what’s available in the plate. Once, just once I ate a roasted collared treepie; although it’s a very common species, I admit I do regret it. Well, that’s that…By the way, saw this beautiful Oak leaf butterfly besides lots of other beauties. Will upload an exclusive butterfly post sometime…

Pasoh – the final cut

2008-11-16T11:13:00.002+05:30

This post follows from the post titled ‘the art of selective felling’; is the last of the Malaysia visit travelogues. Wanted to post pics of all of us in the last chapter. The toughest part of the entire course was this; to say goodbye to friends we had never met even just few weeks back. We came together irrespective of religion, country, in some cases language, different sense of humour and what not and we departed as friends for life. We all plan to meet somewhere somehow and travel…but there may not be another pasoh-time with all of us together, probably there need not be…we remember the moments so well forever.

Village by the river: Chapter II

2008-11-13T12:26:00.004+05:30

Of pigs and men

Before the rice crop is harvested, men from the entire village gather round the ‘Naamghar’ (marked in the google earth image earlier) and show off and cut their pigs. I am often referred to in the village as an “Aying” which means a non-tribal. So being an Aying I wasn’t to be present in this feast but later I was given a large slice of meat which I gladly ate.

The next day as I was learning a bit of Adi language with a local kid, I asked him why I saw some pigs in the bathroom whereas others are free-ranging. Oh, by the way, Adis rear their pigs in the bathroom, the poop drops right into the mouth of the suids which grunt in thanks I suppose! Heres a picture of the bathroom.

So when I asked about these pigs in the bathroom and those I see outside, Gekut (the kid) told me the male pigs are reared in bathrooms. So well, for five to a maximum of 11 years all the male pigs have only seen the four walls around them and often pair of bums above them. Shux, what a life! The pigs that I have seen roaming around the village are all sows with their kids. Well, so I politely asked Gekut why don’t they prefer eating the pigs that roam around and he said “Shee, who will eat that, these pigs roam around everywhere and eat all dirty things, better to eat clean pigs from our own bathrooms”! This statement is a classic I think I will never forget! And well the other reason for eating only the pigs from the bathroom is that they also develop a large chunk of fat, which I may agree does taste good, yux u might say!!!

Village by the river: Chapter I

2008-11-13T11:41:00.007+05:30

The tale of two dinners and before and after

October-end, I rode a bike from Pasighat to Jenging to Ramsing (about 225 km) with a large rugsack behind me, a laptop bag in the front and a camera bag to the right. Most people must have thought I am a travelling salesman! It might have been a very pathetic mistake but well I took the risk and enjoyed it too. The bike was just repaired and I was not to travel faster than 40 km so it took me about 13 hours in total. A slow peaceful ride with the bike giving me trouble only about five times when I thought “what am I gonna do” and then the bike starts up and I continue precariously. Well anyways I reached Ramsing camp to meet the DFO, Mouling national park. Slept well and the next morning got to Bomdo village.

Here at the village things were a bit different now than last time, I had no person to cook and firewood at my disposal, so a meal was a painful ordeal. So I bought an electric stove from Itanagar, so now I cook using that but that takes a long time. So I spoke to friendly neighbourhood and requested them to cook me breakfast and pack-lunch which I can carry to field so it will save me a lot of trouble. The deal went on well, I give them fifty bucks a day and they cook me two meals and then I come back from field in the evening and cook my long-evening meal. But yesterday was different; as I finished cooking my meal another neighbour called me over to his place and asked me to get there immediately. I told him politely that I still need to eat my evening meal and then do some chores too. Anyways I obliged since it is extremely rude to turn down offers to come home in villages here. When I reached, he offered me rice wine which too I pleasantly obliged and after a mug or two, it dawned on me that he had me over for dinner! So he also set out dinner for me; fish from the Siang river and rice. I ate very happily drank another mug of rice wine and reached back my inspection bungalow where I stay. Then, watched a Chaplin movie just for some humour and then thought I should not waste my cooked meal and grabbed some to eat. When I took my first bite I realised it wasn’t cooked well! Then I felt really glad that I did eat some at another place. It was just luck that I was invited over for a meal before even I knew that my meal was not done well!

The day before that we had a birthday party of a kid; the first year birthday. By the way, when I walked into the home I was advised to cache my slippers in a place I can recover since its common here that people with old torn slippers walk out with new better ones, never to be retrieved! The old women sang together many songs and one of them is a really really beautiful song called “Tayer gamcha”, the theme of the song is about a man being old enough to get married twice! Here it’s a common practice to get married more than once, if you can afford it. The ex Chief minister Gegong Apang from a nearby village called Karko has married five times and has been the CM for about 22 years of the Arunachal State!

Anyways, today is the day after and I had a good field time for the last four days and I had my dinner at neighbourhood too; rice and beans and collared tree pie chutney! This, may I call the first chapter of the “The village by the river”.

The village by the river – Bomdo

2008-10-29T11:19:00.007+05:30

This is the day I want to start to write about the village Bomdo in Upper Siang District, Arunachal, by the river Simsang, called Tsangpo in Tibet. What inspires me to write I can’t tell but seeing the google earth image of my field-village could be a trigger. This is the village;

Circled above are two important places in the village, the left one is my home for a big part of the next six months; the inspection bungalow of the forest department, built over a graveyard! and to the right is the place for local meetings and feasts.

In the next few chapters I will write stories of this village, since I will be spending a good amount of time there, you may see earlier articles with few mentions too. But here I start listing anecdotes from the village. Interesting things keep happening; someone brings a hunted barking deer someday, all days they bring back birds, the local booze parties and well the lazy evening gossip and chat! These chapters will be listed as village by the river: chapter X, where x is the number of the sequence of articles from the place. So, I hope you enjoy, cos’ I am going to enjoy writing them!

Wildlife post

2008-10-22T17:41:00.003+05:30

Few weeks back I had posted a letter to my friend in Sarawak, the letter reached a month after that. So I asked my friend if its really worth it and she told me, she likes the stamps and the handwriting gives it a personal touch. So I went to the post office today and put interesting stamps on the next letter to her. Was amused to find leopard cat, sarus crane, nilgiri tahr and tiger on stamps. Looking back now, I do think its worth it; other things too such as writing with an ink pen, collecting stamps, posting and recieving letters. Emails can never change that i suppose! I also posted a DVD to another good friend, i hope it reaches too!

Hiatus

2008-10-19T14:00:00.002+05:30

Finishing reports, reading papers and arranging logistics for field work these days. No time to blog! But i will be finishing the Pasoh chapters soon and lo, my institute got a new digital slr with sigma 500 lens, heres me showing it off.

Also went to field last week September, a post coming about that too!

keep in touch

The art of selective felling

2008-09-05T12:15:00.017+05:30

Perak Integrated Timber Complex (PITC) in the Perak state left the twenty of us a bit flabbergasted. PITC people have been selective logging dipterocarp trees for almost a decade now from the Temenggor Forest Reserve. The event that will remain with me forever is seeing a 2-m girth dipterocarp tree stoop to ground within ten minutes of play with a chainsaw. But I will keep that for later. We have good memories too, at least I do.

We all slept in two-man/woman tents except I think few who got rooms. Pasoh was a bed and breakfast resort in comparison with the field conditions at PITC; there was no electricity, generators ran from 6 pm till usually 12 am, no phones and internet, no shops 30 km in any direction. Our quote of the day everyday was ‘let’s go to the river’. After noticing the number of bathrooms (2), we figured a slippery walk to the river twice a day can’t be too bad. But it turned out to be the best bathroom there can ever be. Mornings we walk sleepily to the river 200 m away and the evenings we walk dog-tired with the proceedings of the day. The first time we walked me and Dtoon fell on our bum in wet mud so we took care during all our other visits to the river. In the beginning Pradeep, the frog-guy, Dtoon, ever-dancing Param and me were the only few that colonised the river, but in the end it was so much fun there was none of us who never went to the river for a wash.

Evenings were full of Sepak-takro, which is the south-east Asian version of volleyball, except that you cannot use hands, only the chest, head and feet, like in football. We thought it would take us years to learn, but after few days we Indians were not too bad! the locals who can even smash the takro with a banana kick must have surely had some laughs though!

We also saw an Orang asli community village, very similar to villages in north-east India or other parts of India. Presently an epidemic of Dengue and malaria was on in the village, so we were advised not to meet them.

Our group project (Lillian, Por [pronounced Paw] and me) was on butterflies. The three days we got lost, found our way, fell, slipped, missed butterflies, and caught butterflies, all in all super fun! At the end of three day data collection we found that forest and roads harbour distinct butterfly communities and we did some statistical-analysis and got these clear patterns. The event I wil never forget is an encounter with a Malayan tree nymph.

We were supposed to catch one individual per species and kill it by pressing the thorax hard enough; quick death and mount each specimen onto an entomologists’ board. So the tree nymph that rarely descends two metres above ground was right in front of me, I instinctively swung the butterfly net I had, but he escaped mainly due to the excitement I was in, and then I caught him again but this time the wrong side of the net and all the while the two girls with me screaming ‘catch it catch it’. But even the second round failed and by then the nymph figured we were upto no good and I was happy that he escaped, would have been a pity to kill such a beautiful large slow-moving butterfly. We inventorised 45 species in our project which is high diversity to be encountered in three days.

Then was the day I might never forget. We visited sector 5 of the forest where selective logging is presently on. The men chose a large tree with a very business-as-usual way and we were wondering if they would really do it, they did. Two pics of the scene, one with the tree and one without, notice the canopy gap made in ten minutes.

We also were lucky to meet Dr. Christine Fletcher who has worked many years on bats so she and her team actually set out harp-traps and we saw three species of insectivorous bats up-close.

The last day we packed up and were ready to leave with mostly good memories, one very bad one. We were also given various lectures about how the system works and they follow the rotation method which ensures significant tracts of forests are left, but none of these convinced us. While the big tree fell, it also took down three other trees of medium size. I was wondering who gave us the right to play god.

Pasoh afterglow

2008-09-04T16:10:00.017+05:30

Two reasons I chose the title; Pasoh is forever etched in my mind, for all the good times and all the good people I met there. The second that the forest floor indeed has afterglow! After the sun sets, the leaf litter glow reflecting moonlight; we noticed that even when there’s no moon they do reflect dim light probably starlight, or maybe the fungus on the leaf litter itself glows rather than reflecting light. Anyway, we planned many times to take a tripod with us and take a picture with say one hour exposure or more, but the times we lugged a tripod it rained, so I cannot put it up on the blog, sorry!
The first two weeks we had three night walks and the last week we practically were only night-walking sleeping in the day or day-dreaming. Why we did this is because me and Pradeep from Sri Lanka took up nocturnal amphibians as our independent project.
The first frog-sampling evening, a visitor walked by and we tried to stop him in vain, very strong fellow, we made him sit and pose and we also turned him around. Beeeaaauuttiifull

To start with, the first night was quite unevently almost till the end. But then Dtoon, an ex-soldier from Thailand was with us; sharp eyes and deadly reflexes! We saw a gecko on a tree, Pradeep pushed it down with a long stick and Dtoon (pronounced toon) jumped on it higher and faster than a gecko if it were human-sized! We still found the gecko more glamorous than Dtoon, so heres the pic of gecko.

Then Dtoon saw a snake on the tree bark, same sequence of events except no one jumped on to it. Pradeep carefully handled it and it was a non-poisonous bridled snake we later identified.

We saw many frogs too, beautiful ones…

And another gecko too. We named this guy ‘balli’ which is gecko in my language, Telugu. We knew its home range since every night we used to see him in the same tree bark and the day, I mean the night we don’t see him we just shout ‘goodnight balli’ and walk on.

Its not that we didn’t see snakes in the day time. There were a few too…

At the end of the project we were really really tired staying up for six-seven hours a night in the forest and turning leaf litter searching for frogs. I am very thankful to Dtoon for gecko-jumping, Sze-leng, Alyse, Lillian and Panitnard for accompanying us on few night patrols and to Pradeep too for teaching me about frogs and how to find them.
Next up is PITC, Perak Integrated Timber Complex in Temenggor forest reserve in Perak State, just below Thailand…

Late Russell Wallace, here I come!

2008-09-04T14:06:00.016+05:30

“It (the Malay archipelago) produces the giant flowers of the Rafflesia, the great green-winged ornithoptera (princes among the butterfly tribes), the man-like Orang-utan, and the gorgeous Birds of Paradise” – Alfred Russell Wallace, in the “Malay Archipelago”

With these lines ringing in the back of my mind, I entered Peninsular Malaysia for an on-the-house field course by Centre for tropical forest science. The course lasted six weeks so you may expect the blog logs to be long! But following previous formats, will keep it more picture-oriented.

Alas, I cannot keep my promise of uploading beautiful 50 mm lens pictures because the films got spoilt at the airport when they got xrayed in my bag! So to start with, I would like to thank Manup, Dia, Pradeep, Lillian, Liwen, Alyse, Lydia, Param, Mumu, Ummul, Rhett, Rin, Rhona, Dtoon, big mama, Cici, Sandy, Du, Sze-leng, Juni, Kang min & Por for being there and for such a super time, and some of these peoples pics and some mine I salvaged are the ones I will be putting up. So, THANKS! Terima kasih!!!

As I entered Pasoh, a line that Juni said struck me and will remain with me forever: a garden amidst oil-palm. This is a good four-word description of Pasoh forest, which is roughly about 17 sq. km amidst an ever-encroaching oil palm plantations. But the core area of this forest will remain mainly since it is being utilised for intensive research. In 1985, a 50-ha permanent plot was established to monitor growth, establishment and mortalities of lowland evergreen forests, of which so little is known. So the good news is, the 50 ha will remain till humanity does, or at least till research on lowland forests is on!

Mornings began with White handed gibbon calls, which last the first two hours of the day and the occasional ‘Kha-Khoo-Khaan’ of the dusky leaf monkey. We also often heard the helicopter-like sound of wreathed hornbills flying by and sometimes we were lucky enough to see them. After being briefed about Pasoh, about the CTFS and the 50-ha plot, we headed straight to the most interesting part of Pasoh, the ~60 m tall tower. View from top? Picture are arranged such that the view from all the sides is captured. Here goes…

The last pic is of the tower 2-3rd way up, there was still a wing which some of us that dared the wind and the sway climbed.
For the next few weeks we were to be taught entomology, ornithology and primatology basics which we thoroughly enjoyed. We also went to the town once in a while (once, actually in the four weeks!), spoilt brats that we were. We walked many km and then we had some ginger beer, which is not really beer, much much tastier than beer. So some pictures of the town?

The leaf litter almost everywhere in Pasoh glows dimly at nights due to a fungus that forms on dead and sometimes fresh leaves. The next chapter is about the night walks in Pasoh and few snakes, frogs and geckoes. So long...

All not quite on the Eastern Front

2008-07-09T10:20:00.003+05:30

Hi,

I have been doing some travelling but to cities. a quick itenary: itanagar-guwahati-delhi-bangalore-mysore-bangalore-chennai-pondicherry-chennai-bangalore-delhi-guwahati-itanagar, all in 20 days!

The two trips to Delhi were for political clearance from Ministry of Env. & Forests and Ministry of External Affairs to attend a field-course in Malaysia. i wont go into the details because its not worth it. All in all, theres been no travelling to exciting places in the north-east, but hopefully in a day or two i am headed to pasoh forest reserve in malaysia for six-weeks on a field course conducted by Centre for Tropical Forest Sciences. They have been very considerate in accepting my application for this.

So in Bangalore i bought a low-light 50-mm lens for my film camera, so look out for the 50-mm sections from now on, which may start with pictures from malayland.

See you on blog soon...!

Wake up and feed the Mithun

2008-05-18T13:36:00.000+05:30

The time at bomdo village started off on different notes. first of all, i was glad to meet the inspection bungalow caretaker dungé yalik in the village the only person i knew well before i set in alone to the village. Met his beautiful kids, and dungé himself will figure later in the commentary.
Well, for starters i slept well and the day started with feeding the home-mithun that dungé and in laws own. The last time she came home for salt, dungé doesn’t even remember, so it must be a long back. This lady is beautiful and didn’t take her seconds to get acquainted with me then she ate salt from my hands, take a look...

Then the day took off and i visited old fallows close to the village. The good thing with Adi cultivation sites is that every place has a name. I felt really good when i saw a fallow about 50 years old needed for my study and then there’s a small sequence in a one-year fallow called kanyong you would like to see.
When we reached the place, the mithuns came closer, one by one; they all thought we had salt. Finally we were surrounded by five of them! Before that we had seen a non-venomous snake; a kukri.

The evening was full of conversations with the village leader (head-gaam), second-in-command (gaam-buda) and others, with a tinge of the local rice beer of course.

The next day i planned a long trip with a local boy who ensured at least ten times if my legs can make the trip he has in plan for me and the timing we leave. As far as i saw he was convinced I can’t wake up at 4 in the morning and walk the rest of the day.

The day started at 425 and we left to go to fallows and forest adjoining the villages at about 5. Clouds figured we were having a field day and pitched in. So by 6 it was pouring and we decided to give a break for some time considering the fact that i was carrying expensive equipment. We reach a temporary house called poyup built in the jhum field of gaambuda and he welcomed us. Here, while i stayed a couple of hours i realised how hard people work for the rice they eat all year. In comparison with people like us walking to the nearest grocery store, haggling over the price and bringing home a bag, these guys literally slog their arse out. I took a video of the people planting rice seeds after the biggest chunk of work for the year; clearing the forest that is. Whats impressive is that theres a tune to planting “ho ohh ho ohh ho ohh” which supposedly help in not tiring them.

Then, we walked to some more fallows and got to a 50-m waterfall which was even more beautiful than the stream i visited the earlier day and i took a dip again, its beautiful and full of life, take a look…

Further ahead we saw a red-headed trogon (my first time) and a small chick in a nest, I couldn’t figure which species.

Then i got back to the village, before i forget i gotto tell you i met a Telugu guy in bomdo village, only about 5000 km out of place. When i saw him i was really excited and i shouted to him, "telugaa meeroo" which means are u Telugu and he nodded and coolly said that he would meet me later in the day. He looked at me as if i was a leaf that fell on him while he worked and few seconds later got again busy in his work which was to build a canal in Bomdo.

The next day i packed out of bomdo to reach back 'my' village Ramsing and then in the evening after couple of rice wine glasses, decided to type this!

Wildlife Valhalla

2008-04-07T14:46:00.000+05:30

Nothing against the Adis, but ALL wild meat is food. I found out theres not a single species they have a taboo against. The mouling national park has few staff who rarely patrol the forests. The one saving grace about the park is that it is inaccessible for a large part of the year, during winter, in the months of Nov-Jan is when Adis from the villages venture into the high altitudes in the park (highest point Mouling peak: 3000 msl) to hunt takin, pheasants and whatever else they can garner.

Gone fishing!

2008-04-06T15:56:00.001+05:30

Sundays are supposed to be lazy and I didnt look forward to it really, another boring day in the office I thought, but Tamang da in our office said we could go fishing, so we went.
Tamangda has discovered a new fish species and found two new records for the State. He knows about fish ecology including what each species eats, where and when it breeds and has about three years of data about fish populations in streams around Itanagar. I have told him to publish a book since he has collected specimens of 48 stream fish species.

But one thing he doesn't have is a degree, and he happens to be our office clerk! The world is full of paradoxes I thinks!

This guy was stuck to this rock inside the water and why!

This was the fish catch for the day; we often threw out individuals which were young and didnt catch species that were relatively small. In all we got about 35 individuals of 7 species. Then, Tamangda called it a day...

So heres the natural history and pix of each species as claimed earlier!

Anythings recyclable!

2008-04-03T16:44:00.000+05:30

I know this much about the communities in the north-east: they are resourceful; they have an amazing array of handicrafts they make out of bamboo and cane, maintain their knives very well, preserve their livestock meat for almost a year and brew some delicious drinks. But this was something new I came across.

As I was walking in Yingkiong, the headquarter of Upper Siang district, I noticed a vibrantly shining bag and wondered how such a bag ended up in a pan-shop. I was further interested and when I walked up to the shop I saw hundreds of pan masala, tobacco and biscuit covers and the lady in the shop was meticulously cutting and preserving these, later to be used to knit bags. These strips are washed and then knit to make them bags. One of the bags posted below I would’ve picked up; however these are really expensive because of the labour involved; this one costs 450 rupees! I couldn’t afford it and wondered if any Adi person in the place would be able to too, but then I put that thought behind and was pleasantly surprised by the innovation in front of me. Maybe the cost can be cut when many wrappers and labour is available. Not a very weak bag this one is too, for when I held it, it was moderately heavy and stronger that a cloth bag too I think!

Anyone who would’ve seen me walk away from the shop would’ve thought, “ here’s a young man walking in gaiety, satisfied with life!” I was indeed happy, coming from a city which may dump a crore packets like these a day, I was hopeful of starting this in Bangalore as well.

Migam and the Muntjac

2008-02-23T18:18:00.001+05:30

Today (18th feb) was the day I visited the village Ramsing after two days at the forest camp, so I thought people from the village and I could watch a movie at Parme bhais home. While we were half way through the movie I was invited to another friends place who had taken down a barking deer alias muntjac today at about 3 pm. I was told its a Serow so I hurried to the place. When I reached, it turned out to be an adult muntjac quite big in size, about 35 kilos in weight. Here’s the pic:
This guy was shot while feeding on fruits of a tree and the guys waited for it after seeing its hoofmarks. When I saw the body, as usual I was little dumbstruck and kept quite a while. I had two paths for conversation in front of me, obviously I couldn’t keep quiet, that too after tasting a mug of millet beer. The first path was to ask him why he hunted down the species and if it really is necessary to eat wild meat when meat of pig and high protein mithun meat was available, with the occasional chicken and duck. I also felt I should ask him what made him so gory as to take down this animal, does he believe the deer has no family, no one to take care of and if it is really very different from a human. The second conversation topic was to take in details; as many as I could about this species and others he has hunted down in the last few years. A little buzzed, I went for the latter and the details were fascinating too. The guy turns out to be one of the five expert hunters; a Migam, as they call in the local Adi language, the chief of the village, Solung Apang would also be called a Migam I think. Ramsing has had the highest turnover of muntjacs this season, since October 2007 the hunters from the village have taken down a hundred of them, its a record for the last five years. The number dwindles between 20 to 60 since the year 2000, with the highest this season. In a sense, I maybe wrong, but it seems the number of muntjacs in the forest surrounding the village hasn’t gone down. So I ask him further about Serows and Takins, they are both found close to snow, he said. The Migam told me that once he had seen 5 muntjacs together; a family, which is a large number even for a group. He also reported that he himself has seen at least 10 more individuals in the surrounding forest. He had noted the place where the guy feeds and posted his brother-in-law at another point and both of them sat motionless from 12 till 3 pm. The outcome was a 35 kilogram or more muntjac.
So the broth in the pot was cooking as all the times I have been here and some wild meat cooking in the pot, it also turned out that I was invited to have a sumptuous meal there. I refused the offer, feeling bad since in two occasions earlier I had eaten the meat. However after another two mugs of beer, I tasted a piece of the liver, tasted alright. The conversation went further and the grandma there who actually knows no hindi and I know pittance Adi liked me and named me ‘Ruksan’ after a memory of someone she had seen before. Now at the end of her meal she offered me a piece of the stomach; an offer I could not refuse if I didn’t want to hurt her sentiments, I took it, tasted like high protein sponge actually.
At the end of these events enters my good friend Obit with some kids who had brought a frog to eat, this one...

So I looked at the guy and told my friend, ‘since you have 30 kilos or more of wild meat, can we let him go’ and he smiled and let him go. This was my small victory, king for a day, fool for a lifetime maybe. Both songs by ‘Faith no more’, a super band.
Thats that for now.

Mouling reprise!

2008-02-23T16:38:00.000+05:30

This trip to Upper Siang district was really a continuum to the last trip, it ended with a surprise macaque barbeque last time and millet beer, this time to continue with other species-barbeque and other local drinks. This time I approached Ramsing village from the Upper Siang district headquarter Yingkiong accompanied with an MSc junior Robin. So after two days travel we reach Yingkiong and cross the Siang River by a bamboo raft, some pics...

The first picture is of Robin taking pictures of sandbars and the second one is a picture of sandbar with my poorly pixeled camera! The raft was in(de)geniously made with Bambusa gigantica, I call this bamboo! Although water is welcome from the front it leaves from the back of the raft which has gaps in the bamboo. I was slightly paranoid with my camera, laptop, lens, binoculars and books on board. But we reached, we had to cross only about 40 m but with the Siang, alias Tsangpo in Tibet; a river with a characteristic of rapids, it took about 20 minutes.
So there we were back in slightly familiar terrain. The evening was spent with watcher, Abot who cooked a decent meal which was followed with a decent sleep of 7 hours. The next morning started with a view of snow capped mountains north-east of Ramsing village, perhaps Dibang valley.

The plan of the day was to walk towards an Indian river; the Siring river which originates from Mouling National park. We (me & Robin) did some good birding and reached a 75-100 m waterfall...

The walk was mostly aside rocks and ravines and we spotted about 30 bird species, most of which I had not seen before. The evening was spent at the village homes, one of them being the leader who was just about to prepare his dinner. This is the chief who has been elected to be so by the entire village. He definitely has the panache and the know-how from what I gauge of the last time I met him, here he is, the majestic chief Solung Apang.

The last time I met him I was overwhelmed with the roasting of a rhesus macaque and this time three different species of mammals; one of them probably a parti-coloured flying squirrel (the right most), two hoary-bellied Himalayan squirrels (top and centre) and large species of rodents yet to be identified. It almost feels like I am naming a basketball team or a press meet in order. So the chief first made small-mammal-stew breaking the legs of each of these guys and putting them in the pot and the guys were lined up on top later to be roasted.

Then, I took picture of his catches over the last few decades, hold your breath...

Of the ones I could recognise, there’s wild boar, serow, muntjac, rhesus macaque, langur, Asiatic black bear and god knows what not. I felt a bit giddy and lost as to where does all this stop or whether it does. Whether to raise awareness in city for people to use less electricity, recycle stuff, promote locally-made products OR to tell these communities to spare the rare species, the Serow, Black bear, Clouded leopards, etc. I was a bit lost; perhaps man is just as invasive a species as the IUCN’s list of worlds 200 most invasive species, the list doesn’t feature the one species genius enough to ensure extinction of everything else along with it! Tell me what you think. I am all for the chief except his taste of food!

Between rice and millet beer

2007-11-21T16:42:00.000+05:30

This time I had reached the entrance to the northernmost national park in the north-east, the Mouling National park. Mouling in local Adi means red blood that signifies one of the tree species found in the park that has red latex. The villagers and department officials have horrid stories of people being bitten by poisonous snakes, chased by pythons, etc. etc. and I was getting more and more excited! The park is remote and few surveys have been undertaken by the Forest Department and a single herpetofaunal survey in 2002 by Samrat Pawar. However the two days I spent were outside the national park discussing with the villagers about shifting cultivation. A hunting festival was on in the village during my visit; each Adi (the local tribe) hunts as many animals as he can and gifts the meat to his in-laws. During an evening rice-beer session with the Adis, the village leader invited me over to his house for some millet beer, so went, happily. Soon as I got to his home, I saw skulls of many wild animals, amongst the ones I could recognize; few monkeys, few barking deers and many wild boar. Then I was offered millet beer and was slightly tipsy already!
Then, the gaam leader brought a monkey and kept it in front of me; I was startled but quickly gathered myself and tried to identify the species. I was hoping it wasn’t one of the rarer species such as pig-tailed, stump-tailed or assamese macaques and was glad it wasn’t one of them. It was a rhesus macaque male. The next thing the Miok (the leader, in Adi) dunked the body in fire and slowly roasted the monkey part by part. I was shocked but was trying to remain calm and kept swigging the beer. I soon figured I was invited actually to taste the meat and I admittedly told the leader that I can’t eat it because it looks too much like a human and he obliged me by not forcing further.
Later we got back to the ramsing camp and cooked our meal and slept. This memory will remain fresh in my mind. This trip was made without a camera but for me it didn’t seem like I need one!

High on low-pani!

2007-11-02T15:05:00.001+05:30

This morning in Nafra, Arunachal started with a bone-racking top-of-the-sumo ride till the place called Rurang, 12 km away, where I was headed to see some abandoned jhum fields. The first thing we did there was to have a mug each of local corn beer called 'lao pani'. My field assistant cum friend Nigam was carrying his gun, for him it was a business-as-usual trip. Everyday of all my field days, I have hoped to see animals and many of them, but this day I was hoping we just see only signs of life such as footprints, scat, dung and feeding signs. Earlier, in a place called Buragaon my field assistant brought along a sling shot and within an hour he brought down two birds; a red tailed minla and a brown cheeked fulvetta.

This time, I tried to tell Nigam him that we need not hunt as we go along but he didnt care. He went into an animal-path and with his first shot got back some feathers of a dead bird and said that the meat was spoilt due to the gun shot. the second shot a bird escaped and I was mentally smiling. Then along the path we saw footprints of wild boar and muntjac. Then we walked into a local jhum-home and we were offered a mug each of lao-pani and some roasted corn and colocasia. It was a meal I thoroughly enjoyed. Another Miji local passed by and sat with us and with a shout told his mother in a home below to cook something for us to eat. We walked into the next house and another two mugs of corn beer and local eggs, boiled, were offered to us. We then went into the next house and we were offered raw salted ginger and a mug of corn beer! In return, all I did for all these Mijis was to take their photographs and will develop them and give them a copy in my next trip to Rurang.

Each of these houses were made of bamboo, the fuel being used was wood, food was stuff grown in plots nearby, tobacco too and wine was made from corn. There was nothing that had to be 'manufactured' and then I was thinking; At first look the hills look derived of forests in small patches; 2-3 ha per family and therefore these families were destroying the forests, but overall what was their ecological footprint and what was mine. Even sitting here logging this I am using up electricity, computers, internet and what-not. I promised myself to be careful before pointing fingers at others; at least in this respect.

But definitely the worst combination is brewed when people in remote villages have access to towns with guns, bleaching powder, snares, etc. The day after visiting Rurang, I headed to a halmet close to Nafra called Nakhu and locals there were boasting that they caught about 20 kgs of fish with just 1 kilo of bleaching powder. In other places too I had heard of other methods to catch fish; with a bomb or with a live electric wire.

In my trip to Upper siang, a local Adi person obliged me by letting me join him in one of his trips to check rodent-snare traps. My friend Takeng had laid about 25-30 traps and laid some jobs tear millet as bait. In the morning I was with him the traps had caught 15 rodents, all of the same common Indian species, the bandicoot.

Therefore in the north-east, it seems impossible to stop hunting once for all due to its links to tradition and culture. But by spreading awareness, it may be possible to convince the locals to use less destructive hunting and fishing methods and spare the rare species and give them time to recuperate.

The real netherworld

2007-10-19T11:49:00.000+05:30

‘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. Heres 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 wildife!

The trip to zuko, zuko...

2007-10-09T15:38:00.000+05:30

‘Have cool, will travel’ was the motto of that trip in the year 2005, obviously picked up from a Megadeth’s song, who picked it up from where? I will let images speak louder than words, but to give you the general sequence of things…

Me and a special friend from Manipur, Bobby and his special friends met at Kohima in July 2005, to get to Dzukou valley. We spent an evening buying supplies, with the adventurous thought of living up in a cave, trying to feel nostalgic about what homosapiens did thousands of years ago. Apart from that, more importantly, we wanted to see the valley half submerged in pink with the mass-flowering of the endemic lily, Lilium chitrangadae.

Thats Jakhama, the place (12 km away from Kohima) the trek begins from. The walk from Jakhama to the valley took us through a gradient of disturbed evergreen forests; initially up heavily human-modified forests and later into rhododendron patches and then down to the valley. Bro, our friend, who likes to be called nothing else but 'Bro', told us we need to keep shouting "Juko juko", if I could post an audio clip on the blog, I could tell you phonetically!

The walk was a bit tiring, amateur trekkers that we were; the walk took us six hours, I think the valley is about 10 km, not counting the angle-effort from Jakhama. We reached, and lo the valley was breathtaking, take a look...Mount Iso from Manipur is hiding behind the clouds.

Once we saw the valley, everything was relaxed and it was as if we just switched in to a zone where time stands still! We walked on and on looking for caves to stay. The ones nearby were all taken since July is the prime season when local kids visit the valley too. Here and there small shrubs were in bloom some white, some yellow and most pink, for the lily was in bloom. Everybody we met seemed happy; it was as if in the tranquility of the valley everyone was at peace. We moved on and found a small cave, enough for four of us and we parked. Heres the cave we booked for two days!

Next what, we needed a bath, enough to override the fact that the water was chilling. We braved in and bliss drowned us. Don’t we look happy? That’s me and bro.

The night was full of stars and we saw three satellites moving together in a triangular shape, and we couldn’t believe it was happening. Bro had taken some smoke before and we were wondering if we were affected too! We cooked noodles and in the small fire we made, bro dumped in the corn we bought. It was only then I realized that corn, when put into fire without peeling gets boiled and not roasted. We had forgotten chillies, but in the cave somebody had left salt, some masala and chilles in a cover(for us? ). After the corn was ready with the dao our local friend ‘Pashchata’ carried we cut in strips of corn into the maggi and it was a sumptuous meal. We did not tell the maggi company otherwise they would have patented this recipe!

Morning was full of walks around the valley like an animal excited bout new territory. We did see the lily up close and its looks subtly beautiful, check it out.

And in the gently undulated grassy slopes, Bobby was occasionally meditating, the person in the picture is bobby and not a girl!

We spent another two days in the valley, meeting and greeting people and occasionally grabbing a bath from the nearby dzukou river. The river freezes in winter and me and bobby promised we would be back some winter of our lives; that hasn’t happened yet. As the convention goes whatever we could not finish, like food and goods we left in the cave for the next batch that would live in the cave, just the way somebody left chillies for us!

Here are some of the conservation problems in the valley. As it happens, there might be few places on earth un-affected by the destructive ways we humans adopt.
* Everybody who comes to the valley writes in their names on the rocks, take a look at the cave picture. If there was a way to prevent this, the valley can retain its natural state.
* People dump covers all over the valley and these look definitely out of place.
* The locals burn the rhododendrons and once the trees are leafless, call it dead wood and use the same for fuel wood. There must be something the Forest Department can do about this. Afterall there could be an alternative of less conservation value for fuelwood than rhododendrons.

Me and Bobby also promised we have something to give back to the valley, a campaign to follow up the above, hasn’t happened yet and these thoughts are indeed cached in our head and hearts somewhere and we will return to follow up on the cause.

Cheers to other wander-lusty people.