Tokalo: Day Nineteen

Day Nineteen is a long walk  

Tea comes over. I see the route mapped thus far, on GPS, and get eager to look it up on a larger screen. Ditto with the images. I pack. Food is ready and soon we all too.

Part of the morning meal

A few hundred metres up the Tika and we are in a tougher terrain. We shift our trail for, as Jo says, ‘there is no human way’. This ‘easier way’ has me walking on trees, some sleeping and others dead. I hone my mountaineering skills – take weight of body and bags on my hands, hold crevices in rocks and move upwards. Knees have cuts as we reach the top. The smart me is for some reason in shorts today. I also come across one of the largest tree I have even seen – so huge. Awed and numbed at the same time – I touch it. Respectful silence. Though I know my picture taking skills will not do justice to it – yet I try. On reaching the top – help demolish a trap.

We move across and then down towards the Khopai river. The slope is steep and the bamboo soft. So soft, it crushes if held too tight. It also showers flowers on us. I fall with a thud once and unlike other falls smile takes a while to make its entry in the scene.

Baiting 

The group that has moved earlier has left posts enroute to mark the route. We are on track. In this rainforest country crisscrossed by rivers and rivulets finding the right track is difficult and a shade of doubt ever exists. As we move some of us get hungry and finish the balance rice from the morning – with salt and water. I take some ‘imported’ jaggery with water.

I see about 10 traps on the way. We saw only a few along Tika river. Along Khopai, however, they seem to be in abundance. Colleagues who had gone ahead had destroyed or de-activated all of them but I noticed some of them baited with crabs while some were smaller and compact pieces of art compared to others. These are all bamboo traps – primarily meant for small cats and civets. The animals are crushed to death. I am later informed that this primarily is the handiwork of people from Bymari. Lomasu people have Kaladan at their footsteps to fish besides the trade with Burma so they do not much venture to hunt and trap. What does one say to a person who had to walk 3 odd kms to fetch water from a trickle, with little signs of external help – is he wrong in getting his meal?

Just before moving from the camp

As I walk I again wonder how we can approach fishing. If the rivers that form the boundary are part of the Wildlife Sanctuary should we distinguish between fishing for self consumption and that catering to markets? Is it possible? Or between fishing by traditional practices and that by using recently evolved means? Some of us felt that the pools we came across a day or so ago had poisoned water. How will we get a clear picture of what is happening on this front? These and more questions - people however should continue to fish.

Today we put up to post 72. We are short of the original plan – 100 - for the posts. On occasions the terrain was just too difficult to stop, take bearings and put up post. There were times when the boundary was  unclear and we left gaps. At times the dense canopy did not allow the GPS to function. The initial plan was to put 100 posts along the periphery of the Wildlife Sanctuary. As a result of all this in some stretches the points are more frequent than in others. We have tried with all we then could.  

Abundance of these too

Today morning we realize that we will take much less than the 8 to 10 days that we had envisaged it would take to reach Lomasu. Earlier estimate too was that Lopu was mid-way which is why we had half isent to Lopu. Now we have crossed Tika and begun the journey downwards the Khopai.

In the morning I suggested that we should stretch ourselves today and walk as further as we could. By evening I was wondering why the route was so long. We reach the camp very late today. It gets dark. The GPS battery gave up when I put on display light in the dark. Absence of torch makes us rely on our shouting skills to find colleagues and the camp in the darkness. Darkness different from that in the cities. Here, it is dark dark. We are thrilled when we finally manage to walk into the camp.

As I gulp the second cup of tea I realize, and not happily, that this is our last camp site and suddenly feel empty. Dinner today has the edible cane and rice. The surprise is the box of rasogullas. Celebration of sorts for having completed – almost – the survey. We take one piece each, with sliced bamboo, from the big cup and sip a little of the sweet syrup that goes with it. I address some of the cuts I have embraced today. The bamboo and cane have been less friendly today. Body is now experiencing an uncommon sensation. The parts are not aching but the entire body is simply too tired. The body has either become partially numb or begun its journey to becoming numb.

 No question of writing today. No bothering of else. I see the stars above me on a clear Mizoram night, a rare occurrence. Recall the amazing times put in on the terrace at Udaipur gazing at the stars. How we associate places with events!

Day Twenty here.