Tokalo: Day Sixteen

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 just the tip of the iceberg. I wonder if I deserve this. Has my being non-fussy that has pleasantly surprised people? Or in a scenario that even people from Saiha do not visit these villages people are happy that a strange Gujarati has landed? Or is it simply because my parents have been nice to all around them that I am reaping benefits?

The table which scarred me

I visit the 2 shops with Ja, we buy some centre-fresh and leave the almost year old biscuits. A house nearby has a table with 3 legs; each one made with elephant bones. I go into stunned silence. The neighbours have a bunch of traps. These are for catching mongooses, weasels, rats and other species. We make one of them work and the smart me hurts a finger.

NT makes an entry as I am about to get full on rice. The budgeting has gone awry and some of the colleagues helping with the luggage want to leave; we also have to buy food and send the posts. He looks tense and as he settles the remaining of the colleagues decided they will be better off working at their village rather than rough it out with us. They want to leave, we are not worried. I will, however, miss having them around. This trip though has also made it clear on multiple occasions – that there are always options. 

The walk today is long and along a path used by the villagers. River today has a different meaning for us. We do not walk and scamper around it but see it happily from the road and also talk about it with people. Where there are no water pipes life revolves around rivers.

Traps, works of art

Langston Hughes wrote “I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

I see a group of pompadour green pigeons on a leafless tree. About 10 of them, unbothered by our presence, 3 pairs of eyes and 2 binoculars, awaiting sunset. They are large, beautiful and have a stately air about them. Never realized green, yellow and brown together could be so eye-catching. Walking along as I see a crow perched atop a lean tree Jo points to a kingfisher. It sits patiently like we sit to chat in a tea-stall; only it is atop a stone in the middle of the river surrounded with wet reflections of trees. It is the blue eared kingfisher.

Burmese beauties look down on the tobacco containers and a sole battery

Our walk today is to the villages of Lope, Supha and Meipu. These 3 villages lie on the fringes of the Wildlife Sanctuary. They are neither large, 35, 40 and 75 house-holds respectively, nor far from each other. The Forest Department has plans to have them settled at one place. Distilled nonsense!

Lope the first we visit is small and for some reason doesn’t give a feel of being a happy village. I visit one school and a church – prominent dots on the village map. I see another of these BSNL satellite phones. They work - must be a boon in these places. We meet 2 teachers. They are from Saiha and work with the Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan. They are not 12^th pass. Supha is next village enroute Meipu where we intend to stay. I stop for water and begin chatting, in some minutes it is a full-fledged meeting. I take pictures of hornbill casques, see a volley ball match in process and a dog drinking water from a pot being filled from a pipe. Today I do not move around the village but enjoy sitting outside the house.

Who stays currently? Who will stay later? 

We then move towards Meipu. We have informed the Village Council President of our visit, proposed meal and overnight stay. The village council has been dissolved and the ex president is today at Saiha. We meet others and the food preparations begin while tea makes it pleasant presence felt.

People come to discuss our visit. Jo goes overboard in context of both length and content of talk. I snap at him. I later understand that it is natural to act in that manner with all the attention and importance he is getting all of sudden.

The lady of the house goes to sleep at another house leaving this one to us. It is late. I get a bed and blanket and having walked 15 kms don’t take much time for the next step!

Day Seventeen here.