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

Day sixteen is about interactions with people. Our leaving early has been cancelled. We will leave after food. The Village Council is offering the meal; in other words my colleagues are about to roast – clean – cut the pig. All of them are enthused about this while I feel – not again! Socio-cultural differences or my being judgemental I wonder. The 2 nd cup of tea arrives and I get on to more important tasks. I also successfully persuade the hosts not to cut chicken for me; I would love to have just dal with rice. Some houses I will remember for long, this is one such house The people have been very nice during the adventure. From the young girl on Kaladan banks who offered soap to wash hands to the Village Council President who today asked if I needed warm water for bath. From the Forest Department person thinking I had erroneously forgotten my razor and offering his to the lady yesterday who on coming across my tired face offered an egg saying it would help. This is ...

Day fifteen is about questions on the Wildlife Sanctuary. I have milk tea after long and Ra comes over to convey some confusing news. I thank the house owners and move towards where the rest of the group is. On the way I see a couple of other colleagues rub their sleepy eyes. They join us.    After the discussion we move to Lesai. I ask Ja again to check out the trophies and we land up with remains of an Asian elephant. People of the house claim they found them in Lesai stream during 2006. The remains have been coloured in loud green. Saiha is ivory is local language - sai stands for elephant and ha for teeth. The landscape, at some time, was associated with the pachyderms. Today, we ask people if the last remaining elephant has been spotted in recent months! The Sai of Saiha I am reminded of The Tree Where Man was Born where Peter Matthisessen writes, ‘I can watch elephants (and elephants alone) for hours at a time, for sooner or later the elephant will do ...

Day Fourteen is about being amidst villages again. I a m hassled out of sleep early and we leave, tea in my hand and the freshly purchased jaggery in my bag. It is not yet 6.30 am. I record the location at border pillar 15. This is on the Burmese side and I realize there is another pillar with same number on the Indian side as well.  Here we made food after crossing both the border pillars After we cross the pillars we give our bags rest and decide to cook our meal. I am told that the rush was as the Burmese Army was expected at Ralie. The Village Council of Ralie had failed to inform them of our visit. But, here, back in India, they did not matter. I smile, look around, and see chicks in lieu of the planned baby goat! As the bamboo contraption holding chicks is put down they escape. Our group gets more excited in getting them under control than I have seen them during the past days. At some level I am envious of their simple joys. As the food gets ready we sit aroun...

We walk over to the neighbouring country to re-stock provisions and also to stay over for a night. The tea is warm and waiting. I decline the aluminium mug, take the bamboo alternative and tea vanishes inside me pretty fast. I put in my goods, lying around, in my bags. I have finally learnt to be patient with these and not rush. I also realize that since the treks in the western Himalayas this is the first time I haven’t changed clothes for a dozen days. Straps of couple of our bags have not been able to withstand the journey. 2 colleagues, within half an hour create replacements, with bamboo. Bamboo baskets to carry the bags; with bamboo straps. For more than the next half an hour I am left wondering on their skills with the equipment they had – dao ; the deftness of their hands. What could I manage with mine other than push pencil over paper! This will carry our bags  Ja is hardly noting down anything in his diary. In this scenario I have neither energies nor incl...

Day Twelve is about falling leaves and getting off the serious track I wake up at 6.35 am to a hoolock gibbon song. Either we love to set camps near their homes or they love to visit our camps or there are simply many of them here! Yesterday NT informed me of Mawhre being the only other forest patch in Maraland which houses hoolock gibbons. A little later, I see drongos, bulbuls and hoary bellied Himalayan squirrels at the camp. As we sit and chat 2 of our colleagues who had left a day earlier to get food turn up with rice, sugar and Burmese cigars. They had spent the night at the previous camp without either food or blanket. Before they arrive 2 others have moved to get food from Ralie- the nearest habitation on the other side of the border. I wish I could have accompanied. The food is late. I sit and chat. I realize the benefits of being unfamiliar with the language. Not only have I become more patient but also put in less time cribbing and complaining. As I walk...

Day Eleven is all about bamboo, more bamboo and bananas. Early at around 1 am I see one of the colleagues – a young boy - slice bamboo to get the fire going better. He is shivering and I recall this happening the previous night also when I had grudgingly got out  to pee. I ask Jo in the morning and he lets me know the fellow doesn’t have a sweater and further prodding brought forth the fact of his being not cared for by his father and step mother. Sometime during the day he breaks into a frenzy of sneezes and I offer him my sweater. He is taken back, declines as the first reaction and then thanks me. This is the loudest I have heard him since we got on walking. The sweater I have been clinging to since my days in schools will find a new home.   All around us! The food today is rice and dal. We are short of food – we only have enough for 1 more meal. 2 colleagues move in search of food to nearest village.   As the rest of us pack bags and get ready I see...

Day Ten is about looking with awe at both – hornbills and colleagues. We wake up peacefully knowing that we don’t have to move to another camp today. After tea, as I lay lazily, I see 7 oriental pied hornbills fly over our camp. Breath stopping – if that is the term. I finally am clear with the difference in their tail markings vis-à-vis the great Indian hornbills. Together they did not make that walk-stopping sound the great Indian hornbill made the other day. Border Pillar garlanded with a GPS I have a locally made knife (dao) with me; big one (13 inches, I measured yesterday). It is bigger than those used in Western Classics and heavy by even Mizo standards. I, with immense pride, use it to cut 2 big branches that appear in our route. A little ahead as I strike a 3 rd big branch, with what I feel is style, I get hit with a bang on my head. It is the other end of the branch. 6 years and little more of life at Sheopur , South Garo Hills and now Saiha are insufficien...

Anybody can teach? Published at Hindu EDGE here . Thanks are due to the team at Hindu EDGE. Few weeks ago, I read of a government servant, in Uttar Pradesh, holding a senior position, going to teach at a government school each Saturday. The newspaper article, of course, was highly appreciative of the ‘noble’ deed and how it would benefit the school. It also encouraged others to take up similar action. The article reminded me of a summer vacation, during school days in Gujarat, when we were supposed to teach the alphabet ( or was it numbers or both ) to under-privileged children. We were also given a book for this.   But, neither I nor my friends ‘ did ’ anything on this front. We had no idea what to do. Strangely, even schools display this behaviour. Last week, while reading a book on ‘S chools that educate differently’ I got to know of one in West Bengal which used to send 150 students, each week, to the villages. This was to ‘ reach out to the underprivilege...