Day-trip to Orang National Park

The path least trod leads to the wild. Three childhood friends, each who diverted to pursue different academic and professional interests- a student of medicine, engineering and cartography, decides to take a ‘walk in the wild’ after more than one and a half decades of hiatus.

Thursday, 1^st May, 2014 (May Day) was a thirst-thrust day for the nature-loving trio who to escape from the mundane city life let their foot loose into the wild and the wilderness.

We zeroed in on Orang National Park, a haven for wildlife amidst the sub-tropical vegetation. Orang encompasses parts of Darrang and Sonitpur districts in Assam.  The national park, though under the tourist map is by far a less frequented touristy destination compared to the world famous Kaziranga and Manas National Parks; although it is closer to the nearest city- Guwahati, the transport and communication hub in north-east India.

We commenced our journey at quarter to 8 in the morning and from Jalukbari intersection we navigated to the right crossing the Saraighat Bridge on the majestic river Brahmaputra and hit N.H. 15 on the north bank crossing Baihata Chariali, Punia, Bhebarghat, Dhula, Kharupetia, Ghansimuti, Burigaon, Dalgaon, Kopati Tea Estate. We halted in a roadside tea-stall for a short break in Burigaon. 

Since almost all national parks in Assam are closed to tourists by 30^th April, we took prior permission from the Department of Forest, GoA to visit the park. Two hours of drive and we left the hustle-bustle of urban life and entered into the park which gave us an excellent 360° view of the sylvan sea of greenery.

We skirted the park in a jeep with our tour guide Abdul Salam. Pink wild flowers lay strewn on both sides of the jungle track as if to welcome the late visitors in spring. This was followed by strangler vineyard-type trees, a vast field of tall sub-tropical grass, wild edible saag (herbs) to name a few. The vegetation type changed in quick succession after a few kilometers within the park. We spotted a flock of spot-billed pelicans near a beel (natural water-body). A sleepy rhino basking under the sun woke up to greet us in the late morning, a mongoose crossed our path, deer stood still for a photo shot, a mama elephant shielded her twin calves, a gui-xap (monitor lizard) made a rare appearance in front of us while the sighting of a troop of monkeys just during lunch time at Prashanti Tourism Complex in Silbori completed the jungle milieu.

Mid-way in the park we halted in a forest rest-house. From atop the hillock we spotted a few rhinos from afar, wild orchids clinging to and crowning equally wild trees. Our guide took us down to a rhino carved-out cave, which looked like the handiwork of river erosion. We were informed that the pachyderm frequents the place due to the presence of salt content mixed in the soil (which is drained out from the kitchen guest house).

The lunch in the terrace of Prashanti Tourism Complex at Silbori with plain rice-dal mixed with local kukura (fowl), matikanduri saag (a type of locally grown herb) not only quenched our appetite but also satiated our senses. The landscape, climate, the rich and varied flora and fauna is what makes a visit to Orang NP a pleasant and a fulfilling experience.

The drive back home, as the three of us listened to popular English hits of the 70s and 80s, germinated our plan for the next travel destination  to chill long - - - Shillong.

Facts about Orang NP-

1.       The place where Orang NP now stands was once a thickly settled village which became a ‘ghost town’ due to *Kalaazar (Black Fever, the word Kalaazar is derived from Assamese language; Kala- Black, Azar-disease).

2.       The national park remains open to tourists from November to April.

3.       Accommodation- Prashanti Tourism Complex, Silbori (8 double bedded rooms and 2 cottages).

Has anyone seen Padma?

Jaipur Hand

The first time I saw Padma Pegu, it was at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in New Delhi way back in 2008. My husband and I took Bus no. 615 from Munirka to Brahmaputra hostel, the last stop in the sprawling green JNU campus which is in sharp contrast to the otherwise urban concrete jungle of Delhi. JNU is located in south-west Delhi on the eroded off-shoot of the old fold mountain of the Aravalli. The university stands as a beacon of light for several students from the northeast corner of the country who flock there for higher studies.

I was sitting inside the bus while my husband was waiting outside. My in-laws were in Delhi from Dhemaji. For those of you who don’t know where Dhemaji is, let me first tell you that it is perhaps the worst flood-affected district not only in Assam but in India as well. The Brahmaputra valley is sandwiched between the eastern Himalayas to the north and the Meghalaya Plateau to the south. The river Brahmaputra runs from east to west throughout Assam (the river roughly bisecting the state latitudinally) from Dhemaji till Dhubri district before draining into Bangladesh.

The south-west monsoon winds during summer after picking moisture from the Bay of Bengal hits the Meghalaya plateau where it causes the heaviest rainfall on earth in Mawsynram (earlier Cherrapunji) in Meghalaya and heads northward towards the mighty Himalayas on the east. Rain-bearing cumulo-nimbus clouds strikes the lofty mountains bringing orographic or relief rainfall. Tributaries of river Brahmaputra like Subansiri, Jiadhal, Moridhal, Simen, Gai, Sissi etc. debouches in the plains of Dhemaji first after skirting the silent mountains of Arunachal. The river Brahmaputra and its innumerable tributaries become charged with strong currents and high volume of water, eroding river banks and embankments, and flushing out the excess water discharge on both sides of the river banks as flood water.

 Dhemaji district is situated in the north bank of river Brahmaputra, tucked in the easternmost corner of the state, bordered by Arunachal to the east and north, North Lakhimpur district on the west and the river Brahmaputra forming its southern margin thereby separating the districts of Tinsukia and Dibrugarh located on the south bank. The district headquarters is Dhemaji, a small and sleepy town. It is one of the remotest districts in the country, only a dot in the map. The Dhemaji railway station is by far the least busiest in the country.

Culturally the district is inhabited by the Ahoms, various tribes like the Bodos, Mishings, Deuris, Sonowal Kacharis, Lalungs, Chutiyas all belonging to the mongoloid race. The people belonging to different ethnic groups, both tribal and non-tribal, have been residing in peace and harmony ever since the time of the Ahom rule who ruled Assam for six hundred years (A.D. 1228 – A.D. 1826). Chaolung Sukapha (reign 1228-1268), a Tai prince hailing from the Yunnan province of present-day Peoples Republic of China, founded the Ahom kingdom. Of late various non-tribals like the Kalitas, Nepalis, Brahmins and the tea-tribes have also settled in here due to easy availability of land. The recent influx into the district has been the Bangladeshi locally called in Assam as the mia or goria. Dhemaji is cosmopolitan in a bucolic way and inter-caste marriages now-a-days between Ahoms and Mishings, Ahoms and Kalitas, Nepalis and Kalitas, Mishings and Brahmins, Mishings and Bodos . . . an endless list of crosses are common.

The locals may not be cash rich but they are rich agriculturally. The farmers cultivate paddy mainly along with lentils, mustard, vegetables and spices like ginger, garlic, turmeric. It is believed that the region is so fertile owing to the rich deposits of alluvial soil that if people throw rice grains, the paddy plant will germinate after a few days. Pigs in the backyard and fish in the pukhuri (pond) are also reared by every house-hold. Apart from this fruit trees like banana, jack fruit, guava, mango, pomegranate, coconut, betel-nut, jamun, robab tenga, bogori, jalphai, aamlokhi, xilikha etc. grows in plenty, every home appears to be a sea of green. Needless to say, the people of Dhemaji are also very simple and hospitable. Girls from this part of the state are naturally beautiful (with absolutely no body hair), their beauty owing much to the natural beauty of the place with fresh air and weather, clean and clear water, no iota of pollution; are very artistic and creative where every girl learns to weave the gamosa (towel) and the mekhela-chhador. But here, men drink a lot (Arunabh being no exception). To some degree, the drinking habit is a part of the culture of the region. In Assam, we have different names for the home-made rice-bear- Xaj (Ahoms), Apong (Mishings), Laupani, Sulai etc.; used in the religious and socio-cultural festivals and ceremonies including marriage, death anniversary, ancestor worship, community feasts etc.

My brother-in-law was a research fellow in JNU who stayed in the campus and my mother-in-law and father in-law had spent a few days with their daughter and her family. From the window of the bus I saw Ritu (my sister-in-law) with her husband Rupak. They have an infant Soontu.  The couple was followed by Padma with Soontu in her arms. She was the baby’s care-taker. The baby was all milky white, very much like his parents. My husband was also a research scholar in JNU pursuing his Ph. D. from CLE, while working in an evening college under Delhi University. But owing to our work we decided to stay outside JNU.

I kept the book I was reading inside my jhola (bag) and got down from the bus to greet my in-laws. Padma appeared to be a beautiful young girl of medium height. She was probably in her early 20s. She had the innocent looks which added another bud of beauty in her. There was no dangling fancy ear-rings and absolutely no sign of any make-up. Her beauty was plain, simple and natural that required no white-wash of artificiality.  She wore a colourful top, (probably from Sarojini Nagar market) with a gaale, a sarong wore in Arunachal Pradesh (Dhemaji borders Arunachal). She must have washed her hair as it was a Sunday and her knee-length hair appeared to be very straight and fine silk. She had an hour-glass figure. She had distinct mongoloid features although her eyes didn’t have prominent epicanthic fold unlike other people of her tribe. Her nose was small but was by no means wide and flat. Her bright, yellow skin without any trace of body hair glowed in the afternoon sun as she walked with Soontu cradled in their arms.

Padma belongs to the Mishing tribe (earlier known as Miri), the second largest tribe after the Bodos in Assam but the largest in Northeast India as hill-miris are present in Arunachal too. The Mishings belong to the Tibeto-Burmese mongoloid group and their language falls in the Indo-Tibetan language group. She is not very well-versed in her dialect though she speaks Assamese fluently. The tribe is believed to be descendents of hill-Miris of Arunachal Pradesh. They worship Donyi-Polo (the Sun and Moon resp.) and are animistic by faith although many have embraced Hinduism, some even converting to Christianity.

In Assam, the Mishings are compared to the Sardars of India who are known for cracking jokes on themselves. One such joke is about a Mishing fish-seller (The joke was cracked by Arunabh’s childhood friend, also a Mishing, Girin Ngate Chayingia) who sells his catch in the Dhemaji weekly market held every Thursday and Sunday. A customer comes to buy fish and asks for the rate of the fish. Fish-seller replies- “Rs. Six Hundred only, Sir”. Customer- “Ram, Ram, Rs. Six Hundred? How come when the river Brahmaputra is so near?” The cunning Mishing fish-seller retorts- “Sir, your house in also very near to the SBI bank. But does it mean that the bank’s money is entirely yours?”

During her stay in Delhi, Padma picked-up a few Hindi words and could communicate in broken Hindi with jata hu, ata hu, khata hu, peeta hu types (yes, in Assamese pani is ‘khana’ not peena and we have a gender neutral verb unlike in Hindi. Padma hails from a remote village in Samarajan in Dhemaji district. I came to know later that since her parents were too poor she and her other two sisters- Asha and Chanu work as helpers, she in Delhi at my sister-in-law’s house and her sisters worked as domestic helper in Assam. All three daughters supported their parents who were in their fifties. Their house stood on a stilted platform owing to the perennial floods that devastates entire villages spread all across the watershed areas of the tributaries of river Brahmaputra when the dark rain-bearing clouds hovers in the sky. Padma’s chang ghar was a ramshackle made of timber, bamboo, thatch and straw, plastered with old calendar and newspapers to mask the countless holes that dotted the walls. Their house had to be rebuilt year after year owing to the damages done by the floods. A distant Assam-type house in their village was all submerged with silt after the floods, so much so that only the slanting roof and the top portion of what was once the wall of a house, was visible.

My first visit to Dhemaji was in 2001 while I was pursuing M.A. in Geography from Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi. This was also the initial year of my relationship with Arunabh (also my cousin, cross-cousin to be precise, he being my father’s step-sister’s son). I don’t remember if I was ever taken by my parents before in my growing up years to my aunt’s place in Dhemaji. My Deota was the SDO of Dhemaji in the mid 70s, before I was born.

In 2001, I went alone to Dhemaji from Kadam in Lakhimpur where I stayed with Nilakshee Hazarika, my friend from GP Hostel of Jamia. I took a bus from Lakhimpur town in the morning. My friend Nilakshee and her elder brother dropped me at the bus stand. I was full of questions once I took my seat next to the window in the left-hand side, had to request the co-passenger to offer me his seat so that I could capture every scene and scenery in my mind’s lens. I told him this was my first visit to Dhemaji while I silently thought with a smile that this beautiful naturally endowed place will be my future home, my sasural (in-law’s place). On the left I could see the meandering rivers (with ox-bow lakes) calmly gliding by as it crossed the national highway. Fishermen in boats, young girls and ladies with koloh (brass water pots) or bathing on the river bank, cows and goats tethered in the grassy fields nearly. In the distance the foothills of Arunachal Himalayas could be easily seen as one traverse on N.H. 52. The greenery is fresh and pure. However, while I crossed a place called Samarajan, there was a drastic change in the topography. The place left an eerie feeling engraved in my mind for long. What I saw was a sea of silt till the horizon with several houses buried in the silt, with dark and dead uprooted trees being the only witness of the past devastation. The place was all barren and deserted. Like in the desert, sand-dunes gulping up everything but leaving only the ‘head’ before burying alive a human-being. The difference is the sand in the desert and silt in the drainage basin.

Even middle-class families who had large tracts of lands where they sowed paddy were rendered homeless overnight. The floods knows no rich or poor, no tribal or non-tribal, for when it comes, it comes alone- ‘before’ like a snake in a chicken-coop to devour the chicks  and ‘after’ like Bordoichila- the strong local wind that blows in April-May in Assam which causes much destruction to life and property in no time. Villagers stand as one in such a time, their grief, their loss and pain binds them intrinsically. Kids, old folks, women and even men shed tears, some silently while others don’t hide their emotions, children who become orphans for life, newly-married woman who become widow at a young age, parents who are too old to work who lose their son- the only earning member of the family- all lost to the floods. My husband told me once that there are people who had a happy-go-lucky-life before the annual floods forced them to beg in places like Guwahati or other better-off towns in Assam. In Assam, the Brahmaputra is a life-giver but it is also a river of sorrow for the people.

Villagers, even kids, who knows too well about the vagaries of nature leave for higher, safer places with their cows, goats, cocks and what other live-stock they rear in the brief non-flood period. In the flood-prone areas of Assam, particularly in the areas inhabited by the Mishing tribe, the house structure is different from the other tribal/ non-tribal people.  Every house stands on a wooden platform with the ground floor being used for keeping live-stock and the family members occupying the space above. During floods, they catch fish which is found in plenty hence the flood affected people are to some extent are not deficient in proteins. After the water recedes (and this after the politicians do an aerial check of the flood damage of the flood-affected areas and its people, their lives, their houses and their standing crops); the people carry on with their life, again building their lives from scratch. Village youths get together to make bamboo bridges. Children who couldn’t attend classes owing to the floods because their school premises have been converted to flood-refugee camps, walk miles and miles or cycle down the village roads for education. It is here in Assam that some HSLC students of a particular centre were not able to arrive on the examination on time because the boatman turned up late at the ghat. Apparently he had a hangover.

The pukhuri (pond) during the rainy season is a breeding ground for fishes but the same pukhuri which dries up partially during the water-deficient days, before the monsoon outburst in the region, is changed into a paddy-sowing basin by some clever village bloke. The villagers no longer wait for government aid to trickle in even though post-flood period is the time of maximum risk as all water-borne diseases like diarrhoe can thrive at this time.

The eastern Himalayas where north-east India is hidden from mainstream India are a nature-lovers treasure-trove. It is here that the lofty Himalayas running from Kashmir in the west to Arunachal in the east takes a sharp hair-pin bend to blend with the Patkai Hills, Barail range before submerging in the waters of Bay of Bengal only to re-appear as Andaman and Nicobar group of islands. A carpet of green with the smells of wild orchids is captivating beyond description. But sadly much has been eroded due to human greed, lost forever due to rampant destruction and a great part due to ignorance of the local populace. Here, “the water tastes like water and the fish tastes like fish”. Development in this region is only a word to be found in the government files and not miserly used by politicians and bureaucrats alike. Here, construction of a bridge across any tributary in the Brahmaputra or in river Brahmaputra itself may take more than a ‘generation year’ to complete, meaning grandchildren often hearing from their grandfather, who has in turn heard from their grandfather which is passed on to their grandson,  and so on and so forth, that a bridge will be built. But how soon, only time can tell. People who could run to safer areas when the flood water stealthily creeps in thank their stars for living to tell the tale about a mother and daughter, locked in a final embrace, tied to the latent umbilical cord even in death, as they meet a watery grave in one such floods.

Padma’s youngest sister, the fourth daughter in the family was abandoned in the very hospital she was born. Her father told the doctor that if his wife delivered yet another daughter, he would only take his wife back home and not the new-born girl child. After the delivery the wife went back home, alone. Dr Medhi of Silapathar was the only doctor then in upper Assam’s north bank in the then Dhemaji sub-division, the remoteness made more so due to flood havoc that cut-off the place from the rest of Assam for most parts of the year. The kind doctor and his doctor wife accepted the new-born in their family where she got a shelter for life. Well, that is another story altogether.

My brother-in-law after completing his research moved to Manipal University in Karnataka where he joined as a faculty. His family joined him later. Padma decided to return home- to Samarajan in Dhemaji. She had saved some money and hoped to open something on her own in her native place. She had enough of Hindi while in Delhi, no tongue-twisting south Indian language for her to learn, she decided. For most Assamese, all south-Indians are Madrasis, like all Hindi-speakers are Marwaris. She returned during the Christmas-New Year time i.e. 2-3 weeks before Magh Bihu is celebrated in Assam. There are three Bihus celebrated in Assam. The first- Rongali or Bohag is celebrated in mid-April to welcome spring and to usher in the Assamese New Year. Magh or Bhogali Bihu is celebrated in mid-January, when the farmers’ granary is full, to mark the end of the harvest with a community feast and the third Kati or Kongali Bihu in September/ October when farmers plant tulsi (basil) in their field and lit sakis (earthern lamps) to pray to the Almighty for a good harvest.

Padma’s mahi (maternal aunt, younger than one’s mother) from Gogamukh had invited her for Bihu. Gogamukh is a small town on NH-52 as one leaves North Lakhimpur district and enters Dhemaji. One may find it strange to see Bihari vendors selling chana-chur, jhalmuri, bogori, jolphai in cylindrical wicker basket even in this remote part of the country. Padma was the only one in her village who had crossed Assam and reached the country’s capital. Hence, she was a star in her village plus in all the areas where her aunts, uncles and cousins lived and worked viz. in Lakhimpur, Majuli (yes, the largest riverine island in the world), Sonitpur, Golaghat, Jorhat, Sibsagar and Dibrugarh in upper Assam, in both north and south banks. These places are dotted with tea-gardens, where both unskilled and semi-skilled labour is in high demand. It won’t be wrong to surmise that one Mishing may be related to another Mishing, as I discovered from Madhumita Doley, my Mishing friend-cum-classmate from school and college days. Almost anyone with a Mishing surname- Pegu, Kutum, Taid, Mili etc. was her relative.

Padma’s looks beautified more so by her fine clothes are a major attraction for her young cousins. She treats her other distant cousins (here every Mishing is in some way related to the other) to the salty, S-shaped cookies, the only fancy-looking eatable found in the village shop which sells rice, dal, oil, salt, candle, match-box and a few spices apart from the usual tamul-paan (betel-nut and betel leaf) and bidis.

Feasting over, Padma is about to be dropped back home by her mahi. They are waiting in the national highway for the early morning bus which will take them to her home. The highway is a highway to hell- I mean if you want to shake all your 206 bones at one go. Here people joke that the road is not full of pot-holes but pot-holes are full on the road, present after every millimeter on the highway. During the non-monsoon period here, buses take a ride over the silt, pebbles, cobbles of the bank, cross the shallow water of the river to reach the other bank for the absence of a bridge. All passengers are safe except the bone therapy during the ride.

Padma and her mahi wave at the bus heading towards the district headquarters Dhemaji. It is a night-super bus which plies between Guwahati and Dhemaji. It is comfortable and spacious on non-rush days. But now due to the Bihu rush, morhas have been placed in the aisle to accommodate the short-distance travelers.  Since Padma and her mahi has to get down before reaching Dhemaji town they occupy the front seat with Padma occupying the one next to the window on the right-side. She always enjoys the bus ride except when fellow passengers vomit inside the bus. Once on her way to Golaghat to visit her other aunt she had a bitter experience. She had occupied the last left-hand side window seat. A lady 3-4 seats before her felt pukish and out popped the lady’s head to vomit. Before Padma realized what was happening, a white, sticky substance smeared her left cheek. This was 3-4 years back but she always remained alert while inside the bus from then on. She loves to smell the raw dust of the village, to watch the greenery of her native place, something she missed in Delhi, as the landscape changes with the ride after every second like a film reel. Even the greenery in JNU in Delhi appears to be artificial green to her now.

It is winter time when dense fog settles all along the highway, when dawn of the day has set in but the sun is still not bright. Part of the road has caved in at a few places but the bus driver is aware of every pot-holes and ditches. Some of the passengers from Guwahati who took the night journey are still asleep. Padma and her mahi who was still chewing pan-tamul, chatted with each other in their normal decibel unmindful of the sleeping passengers. Suddenly the bus comes to a grinding halt and passengers are tossed around. Padma feels an excruciating pain in her body for a few seconds before she faints . . .

When she regains her senses, she finds herself in Dhemaji Civil Hospital. Two days has passed – 17^th and 18^th January and she couldn’t recollect what those two days were in her life. Slowly her thoughts weaved a web of clear recollection of the bus accident. Something like a truck crashing against the bus. The pain was still unbearable for her and she felt dopey. She saw her mother and two sisters. Her alcoholic father was not around. Her mother’s eyes were like two swollen ice-bergs ready to melt. Her immediate sister Asha was soothing her by her bedside. Her head was bandaged. There had been six stitches. She enquired about her mahi and was informed that the elderly lady suffered some minor bruises in the accident. She was lucky to survive the accident but unlucky because her right hand was gone. Her lotus stem-like hand, it was truncated out of her body. Her beautiful feminine body minus the right-hand looked incomplete, like a fruit-bearing tree with its man branch chopped. Her hour-glass figure looked disfigured now. On her left hand, only two fingers remained- the little finger and the ring finger. The middle, index finger and the thumb was gone like her right-hand. The moment she realized this she cried like a widow. She would never be one because no one would marry her. Of what use was her ring-finger now?

She learnt how to weave at a very young age after dropping out of school. But now she will never be able to weave the colourful and vibrant Mishing mekhela-chaddor with her own hands in the tat-xal (handloom) anymore. With her hands she would caress the calf and the goats, fed the fat pigs which her family reared. She will never be able to prepare xukan mach (sun-dried fish/ smoked fish) and cook the tasty gahori (pork) with bah-gaas (bamboo-shoot) and bhoot joloria (the hottest chilly in the world) which her family relished. How will she fetch water from the pukhuri. No more flapping her hands and gyrating her body to the rhythmic beat of dhool, pepa, gogona for the Bihu dance or the much loved gumrag dance on the Mishing festival Pohrag. How will she live now, what will she do, how will she survive, who will take care of her? Will her parents support her for life in their poverty? Will her sisters and their husbands, when they get married? All these thoughts made her mind heavy.

Once released from the hospital, Padma would sit and brood, sit and brood, as day stretched to night. Her father who came home drunk would spend all his money which he earned on sulai, the country-made liquor (the home-made apong­- rice-beer was preserved for festivals like the Ali-Aye-Ligang). Very soon her two sisters left home because they couldn’t be without work for too long. Her mother was Padma’s only life support. There were times when she felt like plunging herself in the nearby pukhuri (pond). She felt helpless and hopeless. Soon the kids of her village ridiculed her. “Haat naikiya bai, haat naikia bai” they mocked at her. Her father would bash and kick her, even when she was monthly sick, for she couldn’t give him money, money to drink, to drink and drown in his misery. To drink and die.

Readers’ you may want to know what happened to Padma after this. I was in Gurgaon at that time when I rang up my mother-in-law in Dhemaji (saved as DheMa in my mobile) to ask about Padma’s well-being. This is what my mother-in-law narrated to me over the phone about what happened to Padma. That was before September, 2011. Once the call was over, my mind drifted to the busy MG Road in Bangalore (now Bengaluru) to attend the four days training programme on Digital Image Processing and Geographic Information System in the Regional Remote Sensing Service Centre. I was searching for a book in the open book stall in the pathway to gift my boy-friend Arunabh as a souvenir because he was a voracious reader and happily picked up Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray. When I was about to pay for the book my eyes suddenly feel on the book-keeper. Both his fore arms were missing from the elbow down. What I saw in his eyes was strength and determination for he lifted the book and with some difficulty handed the books (I took another book) to me.

My sisters-in-law and I on our part did what we could to financially assist her. I don’t even know if the money we gave her was made to good use or whether her abusive alcoholic father snatched it away from her for his drinks. Two years later I relocated to Guwahati in my home state. Padma was on and off my mind. In 2012 London Olympics when I was in Bokakhat (where Kaziranga National Park is located) I saw how Natalia Partyka of Poland played table-tennis in the London Olympics. She was born without a right hand and forearm.

When I asked about Padma again over the telephone, my mother-in-law informed me that she left with a person. I was elated to hear the news for I assumed that some kind-hearted person accepted her the way she was and was even willing to spend the rest of his life with her as husband and wife. Here, my mother-in-law corrected me by stating that she left with a Hindi-speaking person, probably a north Indian. Immediately my thoughts drifted to the villages in Sohna in Haryana where I had conducted field survey along with my classmates during M.A. under the guidance of Prof. Rocket Ibrahim of Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. In the four villages where the socio-economic survey was conducted I had met young girls from Assam who were in all probability sold off to families of young boys, boys who looked no more than 18 years; and elderly men, men who were old enough to be the girl’s father. In places like Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, the Punjab and Rajasthan where the sex rate is highly skewed, young girls from impoverished families from remote places in the north-east, West Bengal etc. are lured by nefarious men with a promise to either marry or under the pretext of providing them with a job. Innocent girls are first enticed and later trapped and exploited in sex racket and when they realize the ulterior motive of the ‘good Samaritan’ it is too late. In some cases, the family of the girl receives a paltry sum, in other cases the money never comes. In Assam due to perennial floods many have become forced refugees. Children and women living in flood relief camps become easily gullible to human trafficking in such conditions.

Padma could be in Paltan Bazar in Guwahati, in Sonagachi in Kolkata, GB Road in Delhi, sold by human traffickers to a pimp. She may be living in a bordello in any of the red-light areas of the country with a new identity as Champa, Rupa, Kamala, et. al. But deep in my mind I pray to God that the Padma whom I saw for the first and the last time is still the same Padma today. I pray that the man, with whom she was last seen, took her for the Jaipur Hand*.

By Karobi Gogoi Borgohain

*The Jaipur Hand, like the Jaipur Foot, helps disabled persons (disabled by birth or by accidents) to regain mobility and dignity by providing artificial limbs. The organization is based in Jaipur, Rajasthan.

Padma- how she would fetch water from the river and learn swimming in the noi. Her attaining puberty.

Dibru Saikhowa

It was nearly 6 years back when I was in Delhi that I saw a few pictures of Dibru Saikhowa in one of my friends’ orkut album (facebook was not commonly and frequently seen in the faces of computer screens then) . The person was my husband’s friend who was from upper Assam and he had been to the Dibru Saikhowa National Park during the peak monsoon season. Before this Dibru Saikhowa was just a dot for me in the map even though I was a cartographer, churning out maps for a travel guide where I was dedicated worker.

The trees half- clad in water (like a bucolic lady attired in the traditional mekhela-chaddor in ankle deep water) drained by the tributaries of the mighty and majestic ‘only’ male river of India- the Brahmaputra was enough to send an invitation to my eyes and feet. In between I had been to north, west and south India and visited places like Ladakh, McLeod Ganj, Dalhousie, the Valley of Flowers and Hem Kund Sahib  . . . blah, blah, blah. I am an Assamese from Assam and Dibru Saikhowa is in Tinsukia district in Assam, upper Assam to be precise but I was nearest to church but farthest from God. Amen.

It was not a distant dream. I have read in The Alchemist that if one really wants something, all the powers in this universe get together to help you achieve it. Perhaps all my intrepid former colleagues- Madhu Madhavi Singh, Jasbir Sandhu Athokpam, Ragini Govind aka Phoolmati, Ankur Guha, Pradeep Thapliyal, Deshpal Dabas, Meghna, Sapan Pradhan et. al. prayers were there with me. God finally heard their prayers when I resigned from my job, a job where I was charting out something else in the latitudes and longitudes of my mind.

Tinsukia, roughly translating it from Assamese into English would be ‘one with 3 corners’ though I didn’t see any such corners while traversing the length and breadth of the town, is the nearest town where one can get down from a bus or a train. Anyone hailing from any of the three corners of India- be it west, north or south India, has this notion that north-east, particularly Assam for that matter, as a matter-of-fact, is infested with militants, mosquitoes and malaria (like Delhi and its NCR is with three-sixty degree dangerx365 and dengue). Little do they know what lies beneath the curtain. You have to come, see and feel on your own. You don’t have to believe me or my words. Trust that.

Tinsukia is the commercial hub in upper Assam and hence vehicular traffic moves at a snail’s pace (or like the internet connection at mah home). Buses to and from Guwahati, the gateway to the north-east, ply daily both during the day and at night. Travellers and tourists please note that Dispur is the administrative capital and NOT Guwahati. Dispur neighbourhood lies to the south of the city of Guwahati. Travellers and tourists also note that in Assam we don’t have rhino rides unlike horse-rides and elephant-rides neither do grooms come to the bride’s place on rhino backs!

Assam may be a far-flung state connected to mainland India through the chicken’s neck but the state is visible in both the Airway and the Railway map of India. Had it not been for the naturally rich natural oil and the green three leaves and a bud ‘chai’ (tea) the state would have appeared in the national dailies only for the deluge and the ULFA/ SULFA, the latter being the surrendered UGs. In the present decade the ratio between the two fractions has become skewed since whatever ULFA members are there, they must have become permanent citizens of our neighbouring country Bangladesh in much the same way Bangladeshi nationals have adopted Indian soil in Assam. They don’t need passport and visa to cross India and can occupy any square inch in Assam. Well, I was concentrating on connectivity, Dibrugarh is the nearest airport from Tinsukia and there are two railway stations in Tinsukia, one is the old Tinsukia station and the other one in New Tinsukia Junction. Get down in the former if your destination is Dibru Saikhowa. Once you have arrived at the airport in Dibrugarh or the railway station in Tinsukia head straightaway to Guijan Ghat. The road is all straight except a few pot-holes (and if you are pot-bellied the ride to Guijan Ghat will be a fine balance. If nothing else at least your belly will shake like an earthquake tremor as mine did). You will cross a few hotels and resorts (provided you don’t have any relatives anywhere in the vicinity) but I won’t recommend you in staying there. If you are the adventurous type (like me) and is not scared of water (unlike me) and love to be in the lap of nature (100 % like my scanned copy) then dash towards Dibru Saikhowa Boat Safari  (Defining Comfort in Adventure Travel  as the leaflet reads) haboured at Guijan Ghat. The boat is in its infancy stage, only one and half months young so it is still clean (including the loo, ladies).

Just to update you about the packages- like Tinsukia with the three corners, the boat safari also provides 3, nothing more and nothing less than that.

“Sun Light Package- as the name suggests duration is between sunlight to sundown 9 am to 4 pm, fooding- breakfast, lunch evening tea & coffee, snacks (fish fry, pakora etc.). The major attractions are dolphin Point, fishing. Angling, beach sports, migratory birds watching (winters), tariff Rs. 1000/- per person, for children between 6-12 years it is Rs. 500/- Minimum 10 persons and 40 % discount for students.

Moonbeam Package- duration 6 pm to 7 am, fooding- welcome snacks, evening tea & coffee, snacks (local fish fry, pakora etc, dinner, farewell breakfast, attraction- night fishing, bonfire, night view of Dibru Saikhowa NP, tariff- Rs. 1000/- per person, children 6-12 years Rs. 500/- (minimum 10 persons) and 40% discount for students.

Star Package-Duration 2 days, fooding- breakfast, lunch, evening tea and coffee, snacks, dinner (speciality: traditional fish cuisine), attraction: Dolphin Point, bird watching, tracking of feral horses, beach sports, bonfire, angling, fishing, cruising through criss-cross tributaries in small boat, facility for roasting by guests, tariff: Rs. 2500/- per person, children between 6-12 years Rs. 1200/- (minimum 10 persons), 40 % discount for students.

Arranged on demand- lodging, boating, trekking, bird watching, environmental studies, birthday parties, conferences, picnic and various occasional parties.”

Save the Rhinos(e): One-horn or No horn

Save the Rhinos(e): One-horn or No horn

The Government of Assam is apparently weighing the pros and cons of de-horning the rhinos. In this regard, an advertisement appeared in The Assam Tribune, Guwahati dated Wednesday, 19th March, 2014 from the office of the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests [Wildlife], Forest Department, Government of Assam. The advertisement invited opinion of all citizens of Assam on trimming of horns of translocated rhinos and those that strays out of rhino bearing areas from the national parks and wildlife sanctuaries in Assam.

The Great Indian one-horned rhinoceros (Rhinoceros Unicornis) of Assam is the pride of the state for which many foreign and domestic tourists visit Assam, the horn being its real and prized speciality. It is ‘a remarkable cultural heritage to the people of Assam’. The horn of a rhino is not just a mere body part but a vital and integral one having some symbolic connotation.

Wildlife experts claim that de-horning jeopardizes a rhino's own safety and dignity. De-horned mothers may not be able to protect her calves from predators. Trimming of rhino horns is unethical, aesthetically disfiguring, grotesque and an act of desecrating the animal. Moreover, there is no guarantee that poachers will not target the rhinos even with trimmed horns as the horn grows rapidly. Chances of death may also occur if the horn is cut too close to the germinal layer, as happened to a rhino in Majuli after its horn was surgically removed by forest authorities in March, 2013.

Assam has witnessed the loss of over 20 and 40 rhinos to poachers in 2012 and 2013 respectively. In the current year six rhinos have already fallen prey to poachers in February, with the number adding to two more in March. Poaching is an organized criminal activity (more on the evil side) which promises very high and fast returns (the shortest route from rags to riches overnight) albeit involving minuscule risk to the poacher.

The fact that militants have taken to poaching of rhino horns has been proved with the recovery of bullets of AK series rifles from the killing fields. The poorly equipped forest guards manning the parks are of no match to such armed militants. The Assam Forest Protection Force must be trained as done in the Indian defence wings like the Army in order to combat with the insurgents since the Indian defence establishments have the state-of-the-art-techniques to combat terrorism and the necessary training, infrastructure, discipline, etc. to grasp the nettle. Poachers from even neighbouring Nagaland and Manipur have a close nexus with dealers who smuggle illegal wildlife body parts across the border.

The rhino is targeted mainly for its horns because in many Asian countries particularly in south-east Asia mainly China and in the middle-east, it is believed to have some medicinal properties including its use as an aphrodisiac. Hence, the weeding out of the illegal trade- rhino poaching or any wildlife body parts must be not only at the grass-root level involving local community participation from the fringe villages of national parks but must be addressed at an international dais at a broader spectrum as well.

In the western hemisphere, Prince Charles, a long-term wildlife conservation campaigner, along with his son Prince William have made an appeal in the UK for an end to illegal trade of ivory and rhino horn and called on the international community  to ensure protection of Indian wildlife.

Newspapers have been reporting on and off about the late release of funds by the Finance Department meant for wildlife conservation. (Mr Gogoi Senior, are you reading? It won’t burn a hole in your pocket/ exchequer). Even salaries of frontline staff working round the clock from the forest camps to keep poachers at bay, is delayed at times. This is a major impeding factor for the ground staff often ebbing their morale and motivation and eroding their dedication to work.

Even if the poacher is caught, the loophole in the law plus the absence of stringent punishment does not act as a deterrent for the ‘poor’ poacher (soon-to -be -‘rich’). Ground reality (as flashed in TV news) is when a poacher is apprehended the entire village from where the poacher hails, gherao the forest officials. And when a rhino is butchered, the national highway is very often blocked with every A-Z associations and organizations chanting slogans against the forest force right in front of the Forest Department. Arre, how can the officials work under such unexpected and uncalled for pressure, as if their office work pressure is not enough? Do they run chasing-off poachers or run to save their own skin from the public ire? In the melee, a suspected poacher vanishes into thin air or a real one moves away scot-free. The locals instead of providing support to the administration resorts to burning of the effigy of the Forest Minister and forest officers, shouting Murdabad, Murdabad! I am sure there are other peaceful ways to express protest in a democratic and civilized society. Public resorting to vandalism like trashing of forest personnels, damaging emergency rescue vehicles of the government and engulfing it to flames is no solution. Otherwise what difference will be left between us (humans) and the wild beast?

Let’s go by examples: Maheswar Basumatary used to earn his living by lending a helping hand to poachers active in Kasugaon division of Manas NP. Thankfully the scenario changed when he realized his mistake and surrendered to the Government of Assam eight years back. He later joined the Bodoland Forest Protection Force taking part in various operations in nabbing poachers. He was even successful in convincing other poachers to surrender. He is presently occupied in the nurturing and rehabilitation of a rhino calf whose mother fell to the bullets. Maheswar Basumatary’s name is honoured in Jeevan’s “Special 10 of the Year” (Jeevan Initiative is a voluntary association of the state).

We cannot simply copy-paste and ape from Africa where it has been conducted as a means to deter poaching. We cannot be even sure of the ramification on the trimmed-horn rhino in terms of its behavior after the loss, the horn’s role in attracting its mate, mate selection, mating and procreation, mother-baby nursing and nurturing, its use as a body-weapon defence, navigation and removing impediments from its ‘straight’ path etc. Probably the male rhino will look a shade less ‘manly’ (and what about its impact on the rhino’s manliness?) and rob off the feminine beauty and grace of the females. Well, if a section of humans believe that the rhino horn could be used as an aphrodisiac; can’t it also be the same for the living-being on whose body it grows?  Moreover, I surmise not much research has been carried out on the evolutionary aspects of the rhino horn. So, how are we to gauge its latent role in the animals’ evolution? The horn of the rhino cannot be treated as a mere vestigial body part. No parallelism should be drawn to that of cutting one’s (humans) hair or nail with that of rhino’s de-horning. How can the Forest Department vivisect the very animal they are suppose to protect? In this age of animal rights activism, no one has the right to do it, neither poacher(s) illegally nor the Department of Forest, Government of Assam legally. Every animal has the right to move freely with its nose held high.

If one goes by logic, in case there is an imminent physical threat to us, do we increase monitoring, remain alert, take precaution or do we go for a ‘body-part cut remedy’? Sounds illogical, right? Well, if the Government of Assam can propose such an absurd, cruel, weird and illogical move, so can its citizen.

Gathering citizens’ opinion on de-horning of translocated rhinos could mean that there is a cul-de-sac beyond which the Forest Dept gives up because it cannot face the lurking danger? It sure will send a wrong signal to the poachers.

  

Will we have another bank: a ‘One-horned Rhinoceros Bank’ where the valuable horn will be preserved for safe custody? And what is the guarantee that trimmed rhino horns will not be stolen from such banks? When a rhino is killed by poachers at least the public gets to know of rhino poaching. If the rhino horn is stolen from such a bank I doubt if we will ever get to know.

I vividly remember the numerous trips to upper Assam: when we accompanied our parents to our ancestral home in Golaghat, or to visit my two brothers who studied in a boarding school at Digboi or in some of Deota’s official tours to upper Assam. While crossing Kaziranga, my Deota would halt the vehicle on spotting a rhino and all of us would get down silently and quietly watch admiring the rhino esp. it horn from afar, from the national highway as it grazed the grass. And if we were lucky enough we even spotted mama and baby rhinos together. Ah! What pleasure it was for the senses! That was three decades back. In the present context, when I raised the question to my young nephew who is reading in class VIII in Sanskriti- the Gurukul, whether the rhino should be de-horned, his young mind reasoned that “it must never be done because God has created it this way”. “Dumping the rhinos from the frying pan into the fire” is the most apt response on translocated rhinos poached in Manas, as rightly commented by one of my animal activist friends. As it is the translocated rhino will be already traumatized because of change in its habitat. Chopping its horn will be rubbing salt in the wound.

Perhaps the Forest Department, Government of Assam, cannot see the wood for the trees if it decides to de-horn the rhinos as a step to curb poaching. The Forest Minister had stated in the Assembly that the final decision on the matter of de-horning the rhinos would commence only after the expert committee submits its report. If this gets a green signal, de-horning the rhinos would be the most extreme and bizarre measure that cannot be justified from any angle. If translocated or straying rhinos are de-horned, a rhino crash* (pun intended) is inevitable. (*crash or a herd is a collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses).

While voicing my protest against the imminent government move on de-horning, I would at the same time like to salute the forest guards who live in relative isolation in remote forest camps inside the national parks, surveilling the parks 24x7 (my personal observations based on my countless visits to Kaziranga NP, Pobitora WS, Manas NP), working under adverse conditions and circumstances more so during floods; I also salute those who have lost their lives while on duty in trying to shield our one-horned rhinos from the hands of the poacher. I would also commend on the hard-work, dedication and determination of forest officials and personnels of the Forest Department. Managing such a herculean task and colossal force is not everyone’s cup of tea.

While I write this as an animal lover, please take this to be the voice of thousands of citizens who share my viewpoints who cannot write and hence cannot reach you via email or by post; citizens living in other states of India and in other countries who may not be aware of such a government move but who in all probability feel more for Assam as well as feel for the rhinos in Assam, than we do here.

Until then let’s keep our fingers-crossed so that the tide could be reversed. Let’s also hope that we don’t get to see butchered pachyderms anymore and pray for their safety. Amen!

N.B.- Those of you who agree with my opinion, pls write to the PCCF (email:  pccf.wl.assam@gmail.com) voicing your viewpoint before 30^th March, 2014 with the subject- “Opinion on proposed trimming of rhino horns”.

By Karobi Gogoi

The writer is a digital cartographer-GIS Quality Specialist,

an educator and an ardent animal lover (by-fault)