Tokalo: Day Thirteen
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 inclinations to pester him beyond
what I have already done. Jo, on the other hand, is less stiff now and appears to be enjoying and applying himself to the task on hand.
We have fish again today and I wonder on how
much fish I have consumed during the adventure. I would have had as much put
together during the past decade. Our hygiene standards leave a lot to desire. I
need to voice my thoughts on this. I also realize that changing of habits is a
lengthy process and one with a bad success rate. The survey will teach me to
adapt better.
As I walk in these forests I realize I still
love walking alone. Mind is free to wander. Not driven by conversations of and
with people. Also, much as I love being amidst the plants and trees I am also
glad that I do not know too much of their leaves, trunks, flowers, and as corollary
do not bother to identify or analyse them. I enjoy being near them, feeling them, smelling
them and touching them.
This is for catching fish
Janisse Ray writes of this in Forest Beloved, ‘Something happens to you in an old-growth
forest. At first you are curious to see the tremendous girth and height of the
trees, and you sally forth, eater. You start to saunter, then amble, slower and
slower, first like a fox and then an armadillo and then a tortoise, until you
are trudging at the pace of an earthworm, and then even slower, the pace of a
sassafras leaf’s turning. The blood begins to languish in your veins, until you
think it has turned to sap. You hanker to touch the trees and embrace them and
lean your face against their bark, and you do. You smell them’.
The landscape changes, the dense bamboo of the
rain-forest gives way to a landscape that reminds me of Manas
National Park. I move alone and am not afraid of moving quick without help from trees and their hanging parts.
Taking the locations today is a quick act as both the satellites and sun shy
away from shying!
We come across few houses amidst this scenery where
people are cultivating rice, vegetables, mustard, bananas and undertaking
poultry. This by all counts is the most scenic cultivation field I have seen.
NT is surprised and says the Wildlife Sanctuary has been notified on table and
his colleagues have never been to these parts. Parts where families from Burma
cultivate without any permission or care. We have a good laugh over this - not
that we had other options.
The other view
One of these families’ hut was empty and we went
in to discover a veritable treasure of traps. Net-traps, rope-traps, bamboo-traps
– the expert had them all. I was stunned! Here was in action what Parry had
documented during 1920’s and the museum at Aizawl had put up sketches of. I
took with care the images of these dearly hoping that they made sense enough
when I saw them on the computer. Another hut we entered had a tortoise caprice
besides the grains stored. I sit near the huts as the colleagues take rest and
realized that the scenery has striking resemblance to the English countryside
described, of a hundred years ago, by authors whom I share my room in Saiha
with.
Traps continue to appear as we move. The ones we
tried out amazed us with their precision. I took images
before destroying them. I knew people would put another in place soon but I may
have saved a couple of, if not more, barking deer at least. However as I
destroyed them I also felt a tinge of sadness at bringing harm to a piece of
art, an art that was in any case fast vanishing with the changing world and in
words of a friend causes significantly less damage than the development
projects.
We come across fishing nets. Bamboo fishing
paraphernalia would perhaps be more apt term. These we looked at with awe and moved
on.
A lone hut amidst the forests and fields
We walk down the Rala river to Border Pillar 15 and stay put near having walked from 9.30 to 3.30. We put up at Ralie, a village in Burma since there is none on our side. We have informed the Village Council President of our visit in advance and hope he has informed the Burmese army. Since we began this adventure, logic, if it exists, has been eluding me. But, by now, rather than worrying, I have begun to enjoy.
At the village we go first to a resting shade
built for visitors adjacent to a playground and have tea. I then go for a walk
in the village, see not a single tin roofed house, but come across more than a
few arecanut and coconut trees. I go to a shop that is difficult to locate and
buy 250gms jaggery for 50/- Indian rupees. The shop-keeper returns the change!
I then go for a bath, body aching from walking over stones and itching from
walking under bamboo – cane. I remember colleagues, couple of days earlier, distinguishing
between a full bath and tribal bath and opt for the first option. I am
accompanied by a duck, 2 cows and of course the younger folk of the village.
Bathing places are still melting and courting places as Lorrain had stated!
Colleagues prepare a delicious meal - vegetables
mixed with chicken. I was touched by the manner in which they invited me for
food. Others are away drinking and as a proof create an undesirable scene on
their return.
This too was meant for fishing
We then move to the house nearby to sleep. The house has a verandah but no door to close the entry to verandah; I will have cold night. The rooms other than the one I lie in are in dark and I have no idea of the family members or rest of the house as I sit down to write at the only table in sight. The host family has lent us mattresses and pillows. These could be extra or even at cost of bringing hardship to themselves – I will never know. Innumerable such instances of sheer gratitude, over the years in these hills, have made my existence humbler.
One of the helping colleagues comes to ask NT
for money that they could see move in the VCD place with; of course charged
with Solar Power and gets Rs. 100/-. I realize how easily money flows in
Mizoram. NT tells me that tomorrow we will get a baby goat for Rs. 1,000/-, today we were getting an adult female but he
does not like taste of female goats! I am of course surprised at his priorities
but neither am I jealous nor do I ponder over them. Suddenly we are told to leave before
the morning meal next day to avoid further confusion and chaos. NT then becomes
unlike his usual cheerful self. He conveys with his ‘please don’t mind’ prefix our
leaving time for tomorrow as 6.00 am.
The other view
As I am about to sleep wondering, for some
moments, how I lost my dao today a person from Lopu who joined us the other
day comes in to share the blanket with Jo. He too, like many here, smokes
before going to bed.
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