yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Speaking of my journey in Mizoram after received the Earth Hero award ~ This is from RBS Earth Heroes Awards evening during October 2013 at Hyderabad ~ Many thanks to RBS and friends who have been a part of the journey ~

Highway 39 - Journeys Through a Fractured Land Sudeep Chakravarti 2012 Fourth Estate  Read a book that hit me hard - heart and mind - after long. It is raw and direct; neither has pretensions nor tries to be diplomatic.  A review (by me) may not have done justice to the sheer starkness of the issues the book hit me with. I share some 'unconnected snippets' that stayed with me long after I had read it; travelling in the very region it talks of.  Text in red is what the author has heard in conversations with locals while the blue colour brings out the author's voice.  A lot of money is also wasted in Nagaland because Nagaland isn’t permitted to do the planning, which has to be in conformity with what Delhi wants – and Nagaland can’t do the planning because Nagaland doesn’t have the resources. So it’s a waste for taxpayers in India. Their money is being wasted in Nagaland. And because we don’t pay tax here there is no transparency . . . th...

Woh shaam kuch ajeeb thi Yeh shaam bhi ajeeb hai Woh kal bhi paas paas thi Woh aaj bhi kareeb hai

This piece appeared in Deccan Herald on 9th October 2012. In case you are surprised with the title - must confess - it did come as a surprise to me too ! We were at Phura, a small village surrounded by wet-rice-fields in Saiha district of Mizoram.  I worked in Saiha for 3 years on  conservation education work with students and elders in the area.  As we visited our favourite tea-stall for the last time for the day we saw a tortoise on a bench. One of its legs was tied with a thin string to the bench After the initial confusion, we discovered that it was alive and one of us rushed to get our camera, pad and pen from the forest guest house where we stayed.  Mizoram is one of the 8 states that form the bio-diversity rich part of our country, commonly referred to as the north-east. Saiha is the southernmost tip of not only Mizoram but also north-east India and its amazing forests are a part of the vast wild landscape that stretches deep into Myanmar. A l...