The travelling salesmen who weren’t

This picture is from the most ill-planned and foolhardy trip to Tuting. But more about that some other time

When K and me walk around with our backpacks in Yingkiong, people often wonder what products we are selling. We know this because frequently people come up to us and ask us
“What product are you selling?”
Its not as if travelling salesmen are very common, but the rare ones bring the promise of unusual products from far away at a good bargain. In many ways, this ‘good bargain’ is just plain daylight robbery by these salesmen. But people here just lap it up. Transactions are conducted with great determination and resolve by the locals with constant assurances of ‘ho jayega’ to the salesmen. In truth, even after these ‘ho jayega’ bargains, the salesmen are the winners.
On the flip side though, it is probably a good bargain for the locals too who would ordinarily need to spend atleast a week’s travel to and fro to Dibrugarh to be even able to glimpse some of this stuff. K and me once met a determined bunch of Kashmiris with humongous sacks of blankets on their backs near Gelling, the last Indian village barely a half hour walk from the Sino Indian border. Some of the same bunch once joined us in our ‘palatial’ forest barracks in the village. They happily cooked raw papaya curry and played Kashmiri songs on their mobile. Surely, I thought this must be a colossal climb-down for these guys from the land of Rogan Josh and Gushtaba.
But they keep coming. And as long as they keep coming, we’ll have to keep answering that familiar question we hear so often on the streets.

Death in the hills–the tragedy of the mithun deaths

This article, co-written by Karthik and myself appeared in the June issue of Eye magazine brought out by the Indian Express. Among the many things that both of us have written about, this was one of the closest to our hearts. When one stays in a remote village for a large part of the year, one cannot but feel a deep sense of kinship for the fellow inhabitants. They cease to be study subjects and assume the role of friends and family. The least we could have done for them was to present their struggles and difficulties to the rest of the country. We hoped against hope that somewhere in some swanky office room, some IAS or politician would chance upon this article and decide to do something about it. Well, it doesn’t hurt to hope, does it?

 

Click here for the pdf copies of the article. Or just read on below:

THE TWO-month-old mithun calf lay by the side of the road. Its lifeless glassy eyes stared into nothingness, but its feet twitched occasionally in spasms before death finally came. The young mother stood unsurely beside the calf, licking it at intervals. Scenes like this played out virtually every day in the last few months,  reminding us of the epidemic that had besieged this remote corner of Arunachal Pradesh. The killer was a virus (Aphthae epizooticae) belonging to the Picornaviridae family, causing the dreaded Foot-and-mouth disease.

 

Bomdo village in the Upper Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh is peopled by the Adi tribe, the second most numerous tribe in the state. Further towards the north lies Tuting, the last town before the border with Tibet. The mighty Siang River flows below the village, while the snowcapped mountains to the north provide a glimpse of the spectacular beauty of the Siang valley. It's a picturesque agrarian society, except all is not well.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) had made its way into the mountains from the plains of Pasighat. The worst affected were the semidomesticated mithun (Bos frontalis) that were dying out even as their owners watched helplessly. Each day, as one more animal was found dead in the forest or beside the road, another few were seen salivating profusely from the mouth as the infection spread rapidly.

To a person unfamiliar with this region and the lifestyle of the people, it would seem to be just a minor problem. Surely, livestock die all the time across the country. So what was so different about these deaths?

It is impossible to gauge the scale of the tragedy without an understanding of what mithuns mean to people in these parts. The mithun is an integral part of the cultural and socio-economic life of a majority of the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh. Among the Adis, the number of mithuns owned by a man determines his wealth and prestige. Traditionally, it has been used for barter, paying fines as well as bride price. Even today, mithuns are used as a form of currency in villages across the state. The Adis are primarily animists and major festivals such as Solung, Mopun and Aran are inconceivable without the animal’s sacrifice. When a member of the Adi community dies, he is buried with the skulls of the mithun that he had offered in sacrifice during his lifetime.

An adult mithun weighs about 500 kg and its meat forms one of the most important sources of protein for remote tribal villages like Bomdo, which do not have access to town markets. Incredibly, this animal demands minimal care from their owners. Mithuns are free-ranging and reside in the forests around the village. The only attention they demand are occasional treats of salt that are provided by their owners. The price of an adult mithun in the Upper Siang ranges from Rs 25,000-30,000.

FMD is a highly infectious viral disease that affects both domestic (cattle, pigs, sheep and goats) and wild (buffalo, gaur, deer, wild pigs and many more) even-toed ungulates. Since its first description in 1546 and the discovery of the virus in 1897 by Loeffler and Flosch, it is considered to be one of the greatest threats to animals. The disease gets its name from the advanced pathological symptoms which manifest as lesions in the foot and mouth and excessive drooling of saliva. It spreads through contact. About 5,000 outbreaks of the disease have been recorded from India that have affected about three lakh animals resulting in an economic loss of about Rs 4,300 crore annually. While these figures are startling, it is derived mostly from livestock deaths in mainland India, while much of the mithun and livestock deaths in the hills remain unreported. Sadly, even the most accurate figures would not reflect the cultural and  socioeconomic losses that hill communities such as the Adis are facing.

 

There is also the very real risk of the disease spreading to other wild animals. This area is located very close to the Mouling National Park and the Dihang Dibang Biosphere Reserve. The community lands around the villages too harbour an incredible diversity of wildlife. As mithuns are free-ranging, they can very well spread the disease across the landscape.

The warning signs have been around for almost a year in the form of an outbreak among other districts in Arunachal Pradesh. Occurence of FMD was reported last year in September from Kurung Kumey district in western Arunachal Pradesh, following which it was reported from the east and west Siang districts in January this year. In the last two months, the disease has spread to the mithuns in Upper Siang district and caused the deaths of about 25 mithuns in Bomdo village alone. Several more deaths have occurred in other villages along the Pasighat-Tuting Border Road. These figures, however, are only of those animals which have been found. It is possible that the actual death toll is much higher as several animals could have already died within the forest and remained undiscovered.

This is not the first time that FMD has come to this part of the country or the state. An epidemic of FMD had also occurred earlier in 57 villages in the state between 1994 and 1995, infecting 6,237 mithuns and killing over 800 animals. Even the strain of FMD causing the earlier epidemic in Arunachal Pradesh was identified as the Asia1 virus serotype.

To their credit, the veterinary department is supplying free vaccines and medicines to the villagers. Unfortunately, the onus is on the villagers to come to the nearest town and collect the vaccines or the medicines. In remote areas, this is a major limiting factor as it involves a long unenviable walk in the absence of local transport or motorable roads. FMD can be prevented through vaccination of unaffected animals and enforcement of quarantine to stop carriers from mingling with other animals. Last year, the ‘Mithun Health Camp’ organised by the Krishi Vigyan Kendra in some parts of Papum Pare district, where medicines were distributed and mithuns vaccinated, raised awareness to a large extent. Similar programmes need to be implemented to stop future outbreaks.

It is a bit late to be able to do anything for the people of the Bomdo village and various other affected villages. There have been calls earlier to compensate mithun-owners for their losses, notably from senior politicians within the state. While this would certainly be of great help to people in these remote villages, eliminating FMD and eradicating such epidemics from the hills, would be the best possible compensation.

Meeting Mr. T

A post! A Post! Yup, when nudges become pushes and pushes turn to shoves, and one is forced to write, that is when the words finally tumble out. This is a small piece that got accepted in the Eastern Himalayas Newsletter (published from ATREE) in spite of its highly unconventional style. Since I have hardly posted anything about my work in Arunachal, this is probably just right for an introduction to my field site and work.
Also, I doubt anything longer than this would be able to hold anyone’s attention.
(Full Disclosure: All people, places and statements described below are completely non-fictional). Honest.
Hunting tales
I met Mr. T on the road to Moying. He was in an overloaded Mahindra Pickup that belonged to the JP Group, a company that was building a hydro-electric plant up north towards Tuting, the last ‘town’ before the China border in Upper Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh. Mr. T worked for the JP Group. He was a Telugu from Andhra Pradesh. It is easier and less embarrassing to just call him Mister ‘T’.
I was walking towards Moying village from my study village Bomdo in Upper Siang. My village doesn’t have mobile connectivity, so occasional trips towards a ‘network point’ were necessary to assure people at home that I was still alive and well. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no local transport and the 22 km till the ‘network point’ would have to be covered on foot.
The sound of the vehicle was a welcome noise and I signaled for a lift. Five minutes later I was sitting inside the pickup answering a volley of questions from Mr. T. Predictably, he ranted on about the constant rain, lack of mobile connectivity, remoteness and excess of jungle! So, what was I doing here? He wanted to know. I told him I was studying wildlife in community managed forests among other things.
Mr. T was shocked. “Really? What was there to study? People here kill everything and eat everything. I haven’t seen a single bird here!”
That was my cue. I told him it was surprising he hadn’t seen a single bird while I had recorded more than 200 species in one year within the vicinity of the village. I told him there was evidence of almost 20 species of mammals and although I hadn’t been very fastidious in searching for butterflies, I still managed to record more than 50 species. These people who had supposedly ‘killed and eaten everything’ must surely be doing something right, if such an impressive assortment of wildlife still existed after all their exertions. I also told him that having stayed in the village for extended periods, I now knew that we city dwellers eat a lot more meat than them.
Mr. T’s views were not very different from a vast majority of people. However, the supreme irony lay in the fact that when it came to biodiversity loss, nothing could beat his own company and their mega dams across Arunachal.
As I contemplated how to break the bad news to him, Mr. T asked: “Can you get me two totas (parakeets)? I need some pets.”
Oh well. This was going to be more difficult than I thought.
--------------------
The focus of my research is to understand patterns of village hunting in this remote Adi village and how it is affected by cultural, socioeconomic and institutional factors. The hope is that my study, and similar interdisciplinary studies, will begin to change preconceived notions about hunting and introduce greater room for debate on current policies that govern hunting.

The curious case of the nosy healer

Quasi imaginary conversation with a ‘city slicker’.
Me: “What do you do when you are sick?”
Him: “Pop a pill.. stupid”
Me: “Umm.. what if there are no pills?”
Him: “Guess I’ll just have to go to the 24 hr pharmacy or go to the doc’s chamber”
Me: “Lets say there is no pharmacy, 24 hour or 2 hours. Lets say there isn’t a doctor’s chamber. Lets say there isn’t a damn doctor at all and lets say you’re so far away from the nearest pharmacy that it’ll take you two days just to reach there if you walk. And you will have to walk because, lets say there are no vehicles.”
Silence. More silence.
Him: “Lets say I hit you on the head with this <expletive> hockey stick? Would that be enough to shut your <expletive> <expletive> <expletive> mouth and your <impressive expletive> questions?”
Needless to say, I decided to quasi-stop the quasi-imaginary conversation. But think about it. Its not so far from reality as you may think. People staying in remote villages face such situations across the country, and since northeast India is especially badly connected with remote areas, our joke is their reality.
I meet a fair share of interesting people during visits to such areas, but none are more interesting than the traditional healers and masseurs found in these villages (see story on the ojha of Garo Hills). They are the medicine men and women of the villages, using a combination of herbal medicine, massage, acupressure, and folk remedies to put an MD to shame. You may very well use the ‘Q’ word and call them quacks, but the villagers will tell you innumerable tales of how people were cured and even ‘brought back from the jaws of death’ by them.
So, there I was in a Monpa village called Mukto, 80 kilometres from Tawang at my friend Sangay’s house. There was so much beauty around, I was overdosing on it. The buddhist ethic meant that you woke up in the morning with laughing thrushes hopping around and … and well, laughing at your dropped jaw (this is worth mentioning as the most bird-brained bird would think twice before coming anywhere near any village in northeast India, unless they wanted to end up as barbecue'). Live and let live really happened here. But I digress.
Sangay had hurt his back the previous day trying to lift something heavy, making his old hernia injury flare up again. The sub-zero temperatures at night didn’t help the cause. There was ‘supposed’ to be one government doctor in the village. As happens very frequently in remote areas, he was not interested in spending his time in a village and had been untraceable for the last few days. So, we had to meet meme Wangchu (pronounced maymay, meaning ‘grandfather’ in Monpa language).
As we wove through the small alleys separating the stone and mud houses in the early morning chill, Sangay turned to me and said “you may be surprised”. It was an understatement. We knocked and entered the dark room with just one small wood fire with a huge kettle perched on top of it. A man was bending over the fire with the traditional Monpa yak hair cap on his head. As he lifted his face up, I could see that his nose wasn’t a nose anymore. It was almost like he had started morphing into an elephant with the nose lengthening itself into a trunk.
 

After the initial talk and introductions, Sangay told him his problem. He rolled Sangay’s T shirt up and felt around for what seemed like pressure points and tangled nerve points. After identifying his target spot, he kept one finger on it and with the other hand lifted a burning log out of the fire. He spat once on his index finger, took the orange coals and pressed his finger into it. He kept it there for a very long time until his finger too seemed to be glowing and smoking. This glowing finger he jammed into the target spot which happened to be in my friend’s back. I could see Sangay biting his lips in the pain. Meme repeated this a few more times at two other points. The treatment was declared over, for the day. Sangay was advised to come everyday and get a hot jab in his back. His face wore a grim look. We were then offered some butter tea. As we headed back from meme Wagchuk's house, I asked Sangay how he was feeling . “Better. I think”.
The following day the pain returned and we had to ride a bike in zero degrees to the nearest town (Jang) only to find that both the doctor’s there too were away. And to top it all off, the only medical shop in the town didn’t even have a painkiller. But that's another story. I did do some research on meme’s condition and it seems like its a bad case of Rhinophyma. I remembered him lifting his nose up to drink his butter tea. It didn't seem to bother him half as much as it was bothering me. Atleast he was there, when nobody else was. The people of Mukto sleep peacefully knowing that doctors may come and go, but meme Wangchuk will always be there for them.
PS: I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was an attempt to have a meeting of all the ethnomedicine practitioners in Arunachal recently. I hope meme Wangchuk went for it. Read about it here: www.ias.ac.in/currsci/10mar2010/607.pdf

In Absentia

Picture taken at Upper Siang, Arunachal. One of the few reasons that led to PFA and subsequently HIT 

After what seems to be an interminable pause, this blog is finally back. What do I have to say in my defense ? Let me try, but before that listen to this :

The best part about procrastination is that you are never bored, because you have all kinds of things that you should be doing.

Lest you start getting any ideas from the above statement, let me assure you that I have been suffering from two very serious forms of psychosomatic disorders that have prevented me from discharging my duties to the fullest. One may be familiar to my fellow ecologists as PFA (Post Fieldwork Angst). It may also be referred to, in a casual and disparaging tone as PFFT (Post Fieldwork Full Tension) by those ecologists who are not affected by it. This disorder is brought about by the return of the affected persons to large cities after a prolonged stay in remote forests, mountains, islands and other such exotic locations. This condition has known to be more pronounced if the individual has been in a place where taxes on alcohol are extremely low. However this point has not been established completely. This may not be the appropriate forum for a discussion on the detailed prognosis and treatment of the disorder, however it is accompanied by extreme sensitivity to loud sounds, pollution, reports, meetings and most socially accepted forms of ‘work’.

After spending the greater part of the first two months of this year in some of the most beautiful parts of Arunachal Pradesh, and returning to Bangalore to experience the worst summer in many years. There was no way I could have escaped.

The second disorder is of a much more general nature and may be familiar to most people in my age group (please note how I did not say ‘your age group’). The condition is known as ANUS.

Actually not. I just made that up. ANUS stands for American Nihilistic Underground Society. No kidding. Check out their website here.

What was (is?) affecting me is known as HIT (Hyper Introspection Trauma). As a person recovering from a HIT, I am unable to introspect much on this disorder and I am sure you can understand that. You are free, however to form your own interpretations, but please be kind to me.

The good news is that its all behind me now. I will surely try to live up to the regular nonsensical quality of this blog and provide you valuable information on useless stuff that you wont find anywhere else.

In-Discipline

As we are constantly reminded during our coursework at ATREE, we are in an ‘interdisciplinary’ course. I thought I knew what all that was about before I joined.

I thought wrong.

It turns out now that not only is all that I thought of ‘interdisciplinary’ (ID) redundant, but it has four other cool guys it likes to hang out with. There’s CD (cross disciplinary), MD (multi disciplinary), TD (trans disciplinary) and PD (pseudo disciplinary). Okay, I admit I made up the last one, but judging by the undisciplined rate of the growth of disciplines, it spells trouble for us. Actually being a firm believer in evolution, it becomes even more uncomfortable to tell people that I’m in an ID course! I’m not going to rattle on about this, but let me tell you that there are apparently at least 17 certified people in this world who know the differences between ID and its pals. I can certify that I’m certainly not one of them. As an aside, and I kid you not, there are apparently people studying interdisciplinary practitioners to see how they work!!

In one of our many readings for the coursework was a paper on practicing interdisciplinarity. If it was meant to be an advertisement for interdisciplinarity, it falls flat. Instead, it will terrify all prospective ID practitioners because of the range of reasons it provides for the failure of ID to take off. Practitioners, it says, need to rid themselves of their biases and value judgements that are a part of their training in any discipline. Then comes the serious part. That many of the barriers aren’t actually in our hands at all! Then the final nail. Parent institutions should be convinced that the outputs that emerge from an ID collaboration should not be weighed by conventional disciplinary or departmental standards! Is that a realistic situation? With just a handful of people around who have even heard of ID, doesn’t look like good times ahead.

As ecologists and ID practitioners, we are expected to bridge the gap (divide?) between the natural and social sciences and find collaborative answers to all the burning problems that the environment faces. As if it wasn’t intimidating enough already. Oh, did I mention that nobody is still very sure how to do that?

I think I need a drink.

I’ll be back!

To all of you who have almost given up on this blog because of the long inactivity, let me tell you what happened.

Only three letters.

PhD.

Yep, I finally got into a PhD program and am stuck with this thing called ‘coursework’ down south in Bangalore away from my favourite Northeast India. The last few months have been spent far, far away from the field. Thus was the full-time biologist torn apart from his intermittent notes in the field.

But I’ll be back. Or as that joke about Arnold Schwarzenegger goes.. (all the action heroes in Hollywood were asked which classical composer they wanted to play in a new movie. Stallone and Bruce Willis chose Mozart and Beethoven respectively. Schwarzenegger made the obvious choice. “I’ll be Bach” he says.)

The only trip in the last few months was to Agumbe in the Western Ghats. It lived up to its reputation of being one the wettest places in Karnataka. Here’s a picture from the view point in Agumbe after a night of rains. You can almost see the Arabian sea and the city of Udupi in the distance!

“You will snap!”

Staying with the Meghalaya survey and my encounters with various specimens of the human race belonging the State Forest Department, I consider it my duty to illuminate my readers on what we ecologists face on a pretty regular basis. It needs a lot more skill and experience to deal with them than with a rampaging elephant in musth. In hindsight many of these incidents may seem funny but I can assure you that when it does happen, mirth is the last thing on our minds.

I wasn’t feeling especially perky when I realised that the rickety local bus had dropped me 2 km. short of the Forest Rest House after a five hour ride across some of the worst roads I had ever seen. Saddled with three bags, I made the walk in the afternoon heat to reach Darugiri Reserve Forest in East Garo Hills. Visions of a mountain of beer bottles were rudely snapped when I realised that neither was there a ‘giri’ nor any ‘daru’. In the absence of the Range Officer I was asked to meet the hero of this post, the Beat Officer (BO from now).

I was directed towards the lone tea shop (which was also the lone shop) near the Rest House. A man was standing outside the shop with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and looking mildly harassed. I was introduced by the forest guard who quickly left the scene. The BO took one look at me and pointed to the coin booth in the shop and declared “trunk call”. For a minute I thought it was a joke about elephants, because i didn’t even know that ‘trunk calls’ existed anymore, that too from a coin operated phone. He was apparently waiting for one. I decided waiting would be the prudent thing to do.

Trunk call over, he decided he wanted to interrogate me. Midway into this conversation I realised that he had no idea what a Slow Loris was, even after I showed him a photograph. I hoped that this was just his ignorance and not an indicator of its actual absence. The situation was soon clarified when the tea-shop lady declared that it was very much present in the Darugiri and adjacent Dambu RF. With some difficulty I managed to plan out a survey walk in the Dambu RF for the evening. BO, however kept referring to ‘Dumbo’ which I soon realised was his version of the same place rather than some insult aimed at me. He asked if I had a camera. When I showed him the camera, he contemplated it and turned to me and said “You will snap!”.

I was of course pretty close to snapping for some time. This declaration had nothing to do with that of course. It was his way of saying that he believed I would be able to take some photographs.

Evening came and we were dropped at a point from where would start the night walk in search for the Loris. Five minutes into the walk, BO lit a cigarette. I had to tell him to ditch it and thankfully he did it without any complaint. Soon we saw a bright eye-shine and with the spotlight discovered a Red Giant Flying Squirrel (Petaurista petaurista). I was thrilled and took a video with my digital camera. BO was excited to see me snap. In his excitement to make sure I got the best ‘snap’ he offered to throw a stone at the squirrel to make it fly! You can actually hear him say it in the video below.

I took out my field note book to note down the sighting. BO came over and started peeking at what I was writing. When he realised what it was he advised me “Write Dumbo RF”. As if I could forget.

After an hour of walking, we heard what seemed like the ’Hells Angels’ approaching. There were motorbikes and sounds of screaming alcohol induced frenzy. Three motorbikes laden with boys had got into the forest road and were roaring full speed towards us. We barely managed to get out of their way. I wondered what else the day had in store for me.

Meanwhile we had reached a small guard house in the forest. BO informed me that there were two staff staying here and that I should ‘snap’ them. By then, I had stopped asking too many questions. The men were summoned. From the sounds coming from inside the house it appeared the two guys were stone drunk. BO immediately changed his mind and said “Let us go. You cannot snap them today”. As we started walking away, the men evidently emerged from the house and started pleading with us to come back and ‘snap’ them. They sounded extremely drunk and edgy. I looked around at BO and the other two guys accompanying us. Nobody seemed in any mood to turn back. As we walked away in the darkness, they kept shouting and one of them started wailing and crying.

It had ceased to become funny anymore. I felt sad, really sad for these men. What conditions did they live in to  bring them to this state of emotional and nervous breakdown? There was nothing to do however. We walked on and as we neared the end point, BO declared “You have now seen Dumbo”.

The careless woodpecker

Of the many interesting experiences during the recent survey in Meghalaya, this is probably the one that I managed to photo-document the best. It is a prime candidate for an independent post!

We were surveying the Nongkhyllem Wildlife Sanctuary in the Ri-Bhoi district of Meghalaya. It remains the only sanctuary in the Khasi Hills and is one of the best areas for bird-watching in northeast India. The Range Officer had advised us to camp inside the sanctuary along with a team of Forest Department staff. It was almost as if he had read my last post (Surviving Surveys) and wanted to disprove the 3 forbidden C’s theory! Although our survey for the nocturnal Slow Loris meant that our walks were to start only after the sunset, I couldn’t resist early morning bird-watching walks. It was during this time that we came across one of the most diligent and yet careless animals I have ever seen.

We were walking on a forest path and the particular area in question had plenty of bamboo. We could hear the ‘tok tok tok’ noises of a woodpecker in the vicinity. From the sound, it seemed really close. I was with Wanphai Lyngdoh, a good natured and intelligent Beat Officer and colleague Swapna. We stopped in our tracks and tried to identify the direction of the sound. As we tiptoed towards it, the sound kept getting louder and louder until it we felt that whatever was making it must be within an arms reach! But we just could not see a thing! Try as we might , we just couldn’t see any movement. It was then that I noticed the hole in the bamboo. Watch the video below.

After several confused minutes, the truth finally hit us. The bird was inside the bamboo! We were standing right next to the hole and it didn’t have a clue about our presence. Of course we still had to verify it. Wanphai and myself spoke in signs and quietly approached the bamboo. He then put his hand on the opening. Finally, the woodpecker stopped its drumming. It seemed to have finally woken up to the circumstances with the absence of the only light source.

We placed the bamboo on the ground and wrenched out a piece. And there it was. Sure enough, there was a Pale headed woodpecker (Gecinulus grantia) sitting inside. We took it out slowly, frozen as it was in complete disbelief and shock, took a few pictures and let it go. I had never seen a Pale headed woodpecker from so close. Actually, I had never seen any woodpecker from so close! As we saw it fly away, I couldn’t help whisper a word of advice to it : “ Dude, it is important to build a nice house, but you really should watch your neck. Its a jungle out there!”

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Surviving surveys

Most first timers who embark on ambitious projects to survey northeast India soon discover that the skills necessary here are slightly different than in most other parts of India. Surveying here, depends less on your grasp of wildlife and ecology and more on how you handle a relentless line-up of 'spanners' in your work and a fantastic variety of colourful and motley characters. This rich variety of characters is rumored to be even more species rich than the ecological wealth of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot situated northeast India.
With my considerable experience of 'spanners' and 'characters' from previous experiences, I had already prepared myself and slipped into the 'shit happens' mode. For the curious newcomer, this is a physical and mental state that is brought on by the enlightening and tranquil-inducing acceptance of the fact that sooner or later, you are going to be, well… basically screwed. Once you accept the fact, and in fact even start looking forward to it, it can be a strangely fulfilling time for your spiritual development. Each time you listen to the news on radio, you expect a strike (bundh, if you prefer), each planned meeting with a forest department official you expect him to be out of office 'on tour', and every time you see your rucksack loaded onto the back or top of the bus, you expect it to be your last glimpse of it. But soon, all the hard work will pay off and it becomes second nature to expect the worst. When it does come finally, there is a sense of immense happiness and you are able to react to it in much the same way that a Zen monk might have.
Most forests in northeast India are under community control, so it’s a no-brainer that if you are planning to survey a lot of areas, you'll have to meet a lot of people. But some of the more pristine (very inappropriate word for most places) patches of forests are government controlled 'Protected Areas'. To do anything there, you'll have to meet the Forest Department.
Aaah! The Forest Department!
Some of the best campfire stories that I have heard from my wildlife biologist friends have not been about wildlife, but about colourful encounters with entities in the forest department. Personally, some of the best times I have had, have been with forest guards, the lowest rung in the battered old bureaucratic machine. They can be especially good drinking partners, although you need to be prepared to listen to a whole litany of grievances. Dealing with the top dogs can however be a little tricky (ranging from a game of chess to a game of Russian roulette).
The case gets even more interesting if you want to do any one of the three forbidden C's. Those are a strict no-no. Any reference to them will usually elicit a response that is more spontaneous and instinctive rather than voluntary or learned. Years of conditioning have taught them to go straight back into their carapaces at the slightest mention of the three C's - Capture, Collect and Camp.
Thou shalt not capture any animal/bird/insect
Thou shalt not collect any biological specimen may it be a plant/animal/insect/shit/tissue (a friendly warning.. Don’t ever ever say tissue)
Thou shalt not camp inside the forests of the Protected Area, no matter how large it is and how difficult areas are to access.
Yet, that’s not all. As someone said "the true source of our ignorance is this - that our knowledge can only be finite while our ignorance must necessarily be infinite"
I learnt something more about the immense swathes of ignorance that I possess. I had discovered a companion to the three C's. It was called Crowd.
A survey for the Slow Loris, a nocturnal primate would necessarily have to be conducted only at night when we would go around with torches looking for its characteristic orange eye shine.
Good.
An innumerable range of miseries ranging from rogue elephants to armed robbers and insurgents apparently awaited us if we went tramping into the forest at night.
Not Good.
The solution? Take a whole goddamned regiment of forest guards, beat officers, drivers and even the casual hanger-on. In short, a Crowd.
Not Good. Not Good at all.
As expected, the lorises just weren't biting. Can you blame it if there are eight guys, three guns, five torches, plenty of bidis and generous doses of amusement?
There it was. I had finally found my 'spanner'. Atleast the first one, that is.
Enter Zen Monk. Take a break. Speak to the motley bunch. Explain the necessity for silence. Drop a few names. Promise a pack of cigarettes to the first guy who spots a Loris.
There is a distinct improvement in the proceedings. There is some silence and even the driver has stopped fiddling with his mobile.
Good?
I switch back to 'shit happens' mode.

Coming soon - surveying Meghalaya!

Been waiting and waiting to type out a decent blog entry, but just cant seem to find the time. So here's a teaser and I promise some awesome stuff soon!
Seeing some fantastic sights in Meghalaya on this survey that I am on currently! Its much too fun to be in the field than to be blogging! The last month was spent mostly in the Garo Hills, my old haunt and I managed to see some of the West and East Garo Hills. Right now enjoying the awesome beauty of the Khasi Hills. Doesnt seem like there is much wildlife left here, but it doesn't hurt to try :)
So, just hang in there.. will post soon on the Garo Hills trip, before I head off to field again after this short break!

After the chase

Its been a good month and a half since I left the Garo Hills and I must say that I am missing it to some extent. What I did miss out on in the meanwhile was blogging about some of the field experiences. I have realised one important thing about field blogs; they are quite unlike the revenge of Beatrice Kiddo and are in fact 'a dish served piping hot and fresh'. There's nothing worse than trying to recreate a month old field experience with the help of our rapidly failing memories and a few hurriedly scribbled notes in the field note book.

Which is why after the initial inactivity, I've abandoned the plans of writing about the wonderful visits to the Balpakram plateau, a day long trek across the Siju WLS into the Balpakram National Park. But, I just had to post something from the Anacpatal elephant trail adventure with my former colleagues. I have on my hands a masterpiece of a video of the great Vincent a.k.a Bensen Sangma taking a free dive into a pool on the Rongai stream in Balkhal aking. Don’t miss this video of him first doing an impression of an ape/macaque on top of the rock and then going for it! The cameraman was Bappi Marak while I was in the water with a fish eye view of the proceedings.

You will be forgiven for thinking that these actions seem a bit strange and over-the-top, but after having a close shave with elephants (just an hour back) people can be driven to strange heights of euphoria! They of course have different ways of expressing it, and I would completely attest to the fact that jumping into the cold water from a high rock on a mountain stream is actually a fantastic stress relief activity!! Try it sometime, but don’t wait for wild elephants to chase you before you do it :)

The peak of legends - part 2

The ojha's fame had preceded him. I knew of him long before we finally met. The first of many stories that I heard of him was about his remarkable knowledge of medicinal plants. Stung by some mysterious insect or infected by some disease of the limbs, a woman in a distant aking was in severe pain. She had been taken to a number of ojha's none of whom could make any difference. Her affected limb appeared to be rotting away, when she was brought to the Baghmara hospital. After a week of no improvement, she was taken out and straight to our ojha in Hansapal. He treated her and within a fortnight, she was back to normal. It was difficult to say how much truth lay in the story, but sometimes you couldn't help wondering if there really was some vishalya karani lying hidden in the mountains. Incidentally, there are various viewpoints about what the magic herb that Hanuman took back to revive Lakshman really was. Some believe it to be the humble neem (Azadirachta indica) and others that it is a fern Selaginella bryopteris (see story). In the Garo Hills, that plant is known by the local name samjanggi and is believed to be found on the Chutmang peak which itself is equated with the gandhamadan peak of the Ramayan.
Some months ago I had heard that the ojha was unwell and may not be able to walk again. Further enquiry revealed that a wild boar wounded by a hunters bullet had charged into the ojha who had been nearby. It had ripped out his right calf until it was hanging only by the skin. It would have probably killed him if he hadn't held onto its head for dear life. As a result, there were severe injuries to the hand too. Carried back from the jungle, he lay in bed for four months with herbs and leaves bandaged around his leg. He refused to go to a hospital and refused stitches. Nobody expected him to stand up even. Yet, eight months later, as we reached his house, we learnt that he was not at home. He had gone to the forest to collect vegetables and medicinal plants.
Nightfall. A bath in the cool water of the stream to wash the grime and the sweat away.
As we sit and gulp down the rice and a curry made of wild yam (results of the ojha's foraging) we make small talk and plan for the trip to Chutmang the next morning. I bring up my favourite topic - cryptozoology. Unlike other people who tell us stories of the wildman, the Yeti of the Garo hills, the mande burung, the ojha seems strangely reluctant to talk much about it. After a little persuasion from us, he admits that he has seen it. He points to his recently married daughter who is serving us and says she was just a child when they both saw it. It was a fleeting glimpse, but she was terrified and couldn't speak for a whole month. The ajaju, the orangutan lookalike he has never seen and it probably doesn't exist. You can sense the fear, respect and sincerity in his voice. He volunteers no further information. I know its time to stop although I'm bursting with inquisitiveness. Another day, I tell myself.
For now, I need rest if I have to climb that crazy peak the next morning.

The peak of legends - part 1

The Garo Hills is a mysterious and forbidding place. There is no dearth of myths, legends and 'spirits' here. Virtually every natural object has a story and most times these stories can scare the shit out of you. I'm just starting to discover the place and its amazing cultural and mythological richness in addition to discovering the amazing wildlife in the forests. One prominent landmark here in the South Garo Hills is the Chutmang peak (1032 m.a.s.l) inside the Balpakram National Park. This is one peak that is the subject of so many legends that it takes on an aura of its own and is no more just a small wrinkle in the earth.

It is also called Kylas (in obvious reference to the famous Mt. Kailas of
Hindu mythology in southwestern Tibet), maybe for the similarity in shape or the perpetuation of a legend by the local Garo's who are believed to have come from Tibet at some time in the past. Another legend relates the huge plateau within the national park (the 'Balpakram' from which the National Park gets its name) to the remnant of the mountain of medicinal herbs that the mythical Hanuman of Hindu legends carried back to save Lakshman's life. But my favourite story relates to the grandmother of Goera (the deity of strength who makes thunder and lightning). One night she decided she wanted to block the Simsang river and set off with a mountain which she uprooted from the place where the plateau stands now. But before she could reach her destination, a cock crowed. She panicked, thinking that morning was coming as was Goera's wrath if he discovered her deed. She left the mountain right where she was. That is where Chutmang stands.

The Garo people believe that after death, all spirits go to the Balpakram plateau. But before they can do that, they need to pass through the Chutmang peak. I figured it was appropriate enough for me. I still hadn't been to the Balpakram plateau, so maybe I should visit Chutmang first. Admittedly my interests were a bit different from all the spirits who preceded me. The peak, although located within the National Park, can be easily (well if you count a six hour uphill walk as easy) accessed from the Gongrot and Hansapal akings. Hansapal aking had long been on my priority visit list because of the amazingly rich community forests that still existed there. Our contact in Hansapal too, was a character. He was an ojha, a medicine man dealing with herbs and with the best stories on all the mythical creatures of the area !

Crossing the Simsang river on a dugout with Kamal and Ajay 'the elephant' Desai!

Excuses, excuses and.. promises

This was supposed to be easy. Leaving Delhi and coming to stay in Meghalaya in the Garo Hills was like moving from hell to heaven. Forests all around, lush green and inviting, rivers, elephants, rains, mosquitos and leeches! All the things that I loved. So how difficult could it be to write a couple of lines for my blog once in a while?

Apparently it was (not that I didn't contribute myself!). Here I present a list of excuses .. those of you who have been to northeast India, may find them familiar...
Electricity is a rare creature at most times of the year and 'fluctuates' between four hour powercuts per day to four day powercuts per week. When that happens there's not much you can do except to listen to the exceptionally elaborate orchestral melodies performed by an army of mosquitos.

The internet. Its amazing how we have taken to a 'broadband' connection and its associated perks in the cities. I hear myself complaining of the absence of a broadband line and the inability to rightfully download pirated movies and songs. Not to mention the inability to blog. Oh yeah, that was the original point of this whole ramble, wasn't it? Well, so here I was looking at this flimsy telephone line and the 'dialup connection'. You do remember it right, the one where the modem tries its best to sound like a mosquito near your ears? And then after 7 tries and disconnections you finally hit the jackpot and connect!

Just to realise that the day you'll access ANY website with this bitrate, it'll be winter in hell.

And just when it seemed there was no way this would work, from the gloom comes this brilliant inspiration. Email!!

Yes, like the amateur blogger that I am it took me some time to realise that you can post on Blogger through email. No more struggling with websites. Just send a mail and its posted automatically. So, there is hope after all.

Now, since there aren't any excuses left, the balls are firmly in my court. So, stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed!

The moonwalking insect..

This is one of the most fascinating insects in the world which could be right below your very feet and you may never have seen them! Its the antlion (known a little less politely as 'doodlebugs' by the Americans and "ari-jigoku" or "ant hell" by the Japs).
Here in this video taken by me in Meghalaya, an antlion larvae does its distinctive backward crawl into the sand even if its just a handful.
Antlions belong to the order Neuroptera and the family Myrmeleontidae. The adults are much larger than this puny one in the video. They lie under the ground in their holes with their heads covered completely by sand, waiting for the unsuspecting ant, spider or some other bug to pass by. When it does come along, the unstable sand tunnel collapses and the insect falls straight into the jaws of the waiting Antlion. Its easy to spot their characteristic conical hole openings in the sand.

In the beginning..

To start the first post with such an inane and cliched heading doesnt seem very promising at all, does it?
I'll save you the agony and keep it short. This is just to let you know that this blog is gonna live upto its name - the key word being 'intermittent' !
Simply because I'm not gonna have the luxury that you have of sitting in front of your computer with a loyal broadband firing away. No, this is gonna have my posts from the field (mostly north-east India) and I'll be able to post them only -- yes! you guessed it... "in-ter-mittent-ly"
So you'll just have to live with that.
This blog is primarily a response to people who complain that I don't write enough (what is enough?) and some others who claim that my periodic disappearing acts to the field and drastic changes in physical appearance doesn't help their memories nor my social life. So there..