Auto accidents in Dimapur

Accidents involving autos / auto rickshaws occur quite frequently in Dimapur, from what I've seen in the papers. Most seem to involve alcohol consumption, so I'm not surprised. Of course, I'm always amazed that not more accidents occur (in Dimapur and in India in general), despite the apparent chaos on the road.

On Republic Day this year, after the end of the 36 hour bandh, I was sitting in my bed watching TV when I heard a crash from the street around 8,30pm.

Looking out, I saw an auto had been T-boned by a Gypsy (at least I think that's what it was).


A crowd gathered around quite quickly. Some guys pushed the auto a little bit in order to let the few cars plying the road circumvent the accident site. In the absence of trained paramedics, I saw two guys haul the driver out of the auto and carry him away, his arms around their shoulders (a big no-no if you're in Australia, but necessary in places where you can't expect paramedics to arrive in time). I couldn't see what condition he was in. Thankfully, there didn't appear to be any passengers in the auto at the time.



By 9.15pm (45 min after the crash), a truck arrived to tow the vehicle away. I was actually quite impressed by how quickly it came.

I'm not sure what happened afterwards. I don't recall seeing any mention of it in the local papers, which sometimes report on traffic accidents. Maybe someone might know more about this?

Getting from Dimapur to Kohima / Getting around Dimapur

I have to admit, it's been almost two weeks since my last post and I'm currently in Singapore. The thing is, I lost internet connectivity my last few days in Nagaland because the top-up I paid for at the Reliance office the week before never went through *grrrr* (I paid for it, but my credit was never topped up). I then had an extremely full-on week in Guwahati at the NEILS 7 conference, which I will blog about soon.

What I was wanted to talk about in my last post before leaving Nagaland was how one gets around Dimapur.

Here's the exit from the Dimapur Railway station, as seen from the opposite side of the car park. Anyone entering the state by train will come out from this exit.


If you're looking to go to Kohima, walk straight out the exit. Close to the other side of the car park, you should see a stand for shared taxis to your left. There's a counter with a sign that reads 'All Nagaland Taxi Association' (or something like that) that sells tickets up for Rs 200 a person. You'll get a seat number assigned to you. If it's seat no. 1, you're next to the driver. The other three numbers mean the back row.

Whether you look local or not, if you're carrying luggage, you're sure to be approached by touts offering rides to Kohima for the same price or slightly less. They're not usually too dodgy - the main reason these guys don't go through the ticket counter is because there's a limit of 4 passengers if they go through the ticket counter. Otherwise, they can squeeze in a 5th person in the front row next to the driver. And maybe even a 6th person at the back... That's probably why I prefer buying a ticket at the counter, because I know I'll have more space.

If you're staying in Dimapur and need to get to your hotel, your best bet is to catch an auto rickshaw, or 'auto' as they are commonly known in this part of the world. You can see a few of them parked outside the station in the photo above. Just tell the driver where you're going and ask for the fare. The word for 'fare' is bhara or bara (since most people don't produce the breathy stop) and 'how much' is kiman. I tend to say Bara kiman?, though I don't know if that's good Nagamese or not.

One convenient thing about Nagaland (and in other parts of the NE) is that the drivers will often respond with the English numbers. Most locals would also struggle to count in Hindi or Assamese, except maybe in multiples of 5 or 10.

What I notice about Dimapur as well, is the lack of big buses, which you see all over in Kohima. Instead, you see autos plying up and down fixed routes, often with signs showing the areas they are allowed to travel in.

From the railway station, you will see autos with the sign 'TOWN AREA', which is pretty straight forward, except if you're like me and haven't quite figured out what the town boundaries are. I expect Hong Kong market and City Tower would fall under this category. Another sign you might find on an auto around the railway station is 'RLY GATE TO CMD' (see the photo in this Nagaland Post article). It took me a while to figure this one out, but it stands for 'Railway (Station) to Chumukedima' - Chumukedima is the last little village before the checkpoint if you're heading from Dimapur to Kohima.

If you want an auto all to yourself, tell the driver 'hire', state your destination and ask for the fare. You don't always have to say 'hire' - for instance, it should be obvious if you're coming out of the railway station with all your luggage that you want the auto all to yourself.

Finally, if you're travelling around in a shared auto, don't forget the magic word to make the driver stop and let you down: 'SIDE!'

Bandhs

For many people in South Asia, bandhs are a part of life. The first time I heard the word, I thought it was just the local pronunciation for 'ban'. I soon found out what a bandh really was. In fact, I'm living through another one right now.

The word is sometimes translated as a 'strike', but it's different to the kind of labour union strike one might experience in the West. The word bandh comes from Hindi बंद which means 'closed' (pronounced like 'bund', but with a longer vowel sound, i.e. 'bahnd', but my friends in Nepal say it's pronounced more like 'bahn-duh' over there). Unsurprisingly, the main feature of a bandh is the forced closure of private businesses. Shopkeepers who dare open their doors are subjected to violence and arson by the party or organisation who called for the bandh.

In addition, public transport is not allowed on the road but in some instances, all vehicular traffic is banned. Of course, with everything shut, it's not as if most people have anywhere to go.

There are exemptions granted to certain groups: pharmacies and hospitals are allowed to remain open. Autos on 'hospital duty' and 'school duty' are allowed to ply the roads (or autos with signs that read 'hospital duty').

Bandhs can last a few hours to a few days. They are usually announced a few days before by the group calling it, typically in protest of the government, or a perceived grievance caused by the government. They can also be limited to a particular town or district, or they can be state-wide.

Last Tuesday there was a 24 hour state-wide bandh in Nagaland, but the announcement came pretty late. It was mainly in protest of the army because it wouldn't let one of the leader of one of the main Underground factions go to Zunheboto (which I'm told has since been surrounded by army personnel who are intent on keeping out the two other main factions who've been fighting for weeks). Autos were still plying the main routes in Dimapur, but all the shops were closed.

My friend Lauren tells me there's a transport bandha in Kathmandu today because of the rising price of fuel.

Over here in Nagaland, we're having a 36 hour bandh that started at 6am today and will end tomorrow at 6pm. it seems to be for the same reason as last Tuesday's bandh.

It's not a particularly dangerous situation, but it's a huge disruption to everyday life. It's not as if shopkeepers want to close their businesses, though to government workers, it probably doesn't make much of a difference as long as they still get their salary. In any case, I'm not planning to leave the hotel today and tomorrow. Given that tomorrow's Republic Day, I wasn't planning on heading out anyway.

At least there's still room service.

Airport security in India

If you're ever had to enter an airport in India, you'll probably know that you need a print-out of your boarding pass just to enter the airport (though I wonder if they've started accepting screen displays on people's smart phones). No boarding pass, no entry.

But if you're seeing friends off and really want to get inside the terminal, there's usually a booth where you can purchase an entry ticket to get into the airport. I assume the entry fee is mostly to keep 'undesirables' out of the actual terminal, forcing them to congregate right outside the exit to the airport.

A few days ago I was seeing off some friends at Dimapur Airport, Nagaland's only airport. Unlike most airports in India, there aren't hoards of people waiting outside for arriving passengers. The reason is that there aren't that many flights into Dimapur, and many scheduled flights, especially the Indian Airlines ones, get cancelled - I see cancellation announcements most days in the Nagaland Post.



It was therefore no surprise that when my friends entered the terminal, walking past the non-working scanners, I was told by the soldier at the door that I couldn't follow them without a boarding pass. So I asked if I could buy an entry ticket.

The flat answer was: No.

Why?

I didn't expect the soldier to answer my question, but there was a helpful notice at the window where entry tickets are usually sold.

"SELLING OF ENTRY TICKET HAS BEEN BANNED W.E.F. 15TH JAN 2012 TO 31ST JAN 2012 DUE SECURITY CONCERN AT DIMAPUR AIRPORT ON EVE OF REPUBLIC DAY"

Oh, Republic Day. Not the happiest day if you're living in NE India.

I might stay in my hotel room the rest of the week watching the Australian Open.

Dimapur Supermarket

Any visitor to Dimapur should know where 'Supermarket' is. It's close to the Railway Station and there're a few hotels around, including the Hotel Saramati (really not worth it for the price) and the De Oriental Dream hotel, and the Kachari ruins are right around the corner. Locals will know when you tell them you're going to 'Supermarket'.

But don't expect an air-conditioned shop selling groceries. The place is more a complex than an actual supermarket. The signs all seem to suggest it should be rightfully known as the 'Naga Shopping Arcade' and to me, it's definitely more a 'shopping arcade' than 'supermarket'. The whole place certainly looks past its prime, but there are a few shops selling traditional 'tribal' clothes and items.



There are also lots of shops selling more modern clothes.


But what seems to define the place (and my friends use them as a landmarks) are the coffin shops available.






I think I saw two of the coffin shops open the other day during the state-wide bandh. Curious...

On the importance of tones

Even though I've looked at Sumi tone for years (and I can speak another tone language, Mandarin), I still feel like I'm tone-deaf when I listen to the language. Fortunately, I've been getting a lot of help with Sumi tones thanks to my friend Cana, who apart from being a gifted artist, is also a gifted musician.

Sumi has 3 contrastive tones: low, mid and high, all of which are fairly level (except when there's intonation involved). This means that there is a change in pitch height results in a new word, e.g.

apuh [à.pù] ‘father’
apu [a.pu] ‘water scoop’
appu [à.pú] ‘son’

So apuh with low tone means 'father' and appu with high tone means 'son'. The change in spelling is a fairly recent one, which hasn't been universally adopted. But the main thing is, when you say the words out, the consonants and vowels are all the same, the only difference is pitch.

I find the high tone easiest to perceive, but I often get the low and mid tones mixed up. I was actually pretty amazed (I suppose I shouldn't have been, but I still was) when Cana told me that the low and mid tones are closer together in pitch than the high. That was something I'd demonstrated in an acoustic instrumental study of the language a few years ago.

The other problem I have is, when I speak Sumi, I have a tendency to put a slightly higher pitch on the last syllable of a word that I try to stress. As an example, the word ana [ànà] with low tones on both syllables means 'rice'.

But every time I answer the question "Ana chu va chu mphi?" 'Have you eaten yet?' (lit. "Have you eaten rice yet or not?"), I end up saying "Ana chu va." 'I've eaten' (lit. 'I've eaten rice'), pronouncing ana as what speakers perceive as [àná], with high tone on the second syllable. I know it should be low tone, but somehow part of me just wants to stress the whole word, and I end up using a higher pitch to do so.

At least ana [àná] with high tone doesn't mean anything in Sumi, but speakers can still tell it's wrong.

In a similar vein, when I was staying with friends in Kohima a few weeks ago, I was trying to learn a few phrases in Kohima Angami / Tenyidie. In contrast to Sumi, Tenyidie has 5 tones, all of which are fairly level as far as I can tell, and I still can't tell the difference between most of the tones. Anyway, it didn't stop me from learning a few key phrases.

One evening, when asked if I was hungry, I replied with A merü mo. I thought I was saying "I'm not hungry." The verb merü means 'to be hungry' when there's low tone on the final syllable.

Without realising it again, I'd said merü with a high tone on the second syllable.

My friends all burst into laughter immediately. It turns out I'd said "I haven't vomitted."

Climbing Mount Japfü

Over the weekend, I was in Kohima, where a friend had invited me to come on a trip up to the summit of Mount Japfü. A friend of his was organising the climb. At 3044m, it's Nagaland's second highest peak (after Saramati). The starting point was Dimori Cover, which I estimate is about 1500m above sea level (Kohima is about 1400m).



I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I wasn't particularly fit, especially having spent the past 2 months with barely any exercise and putting on weight from eating loads of pork fat. I realised the day before that it was also a climbing competition. Given my history of back and knee problems, I thought getting to the top would be competition enough for me.

The winner of the competition, who happened to come from my friend's village Khuzama, made it to the summit in a time of only 1h 22min.

In contrast, it took us (well me, mostly) 5 hours.

I was definitely not ready for the climb. The first part was easy enough.


We then walked past jhum fields owned by the nearby village of Kigwema before we entered the forest. But the going got a bit tougher as the gradient got steeper. The path was also pretty slippery with mud from all the melted frost on the ground.

And once we got high enough, most of the terrain was covered in snow. It was pretty, and my friend was thrilled to see snow, but it didn't make the trail any less treacherous. Especially when most of the path was already pretty steep.


At some points, ropes had been laid because the path was practically vertical.


The scariest portion was this set of 'steps' cut into the rock. This was a practically vertical climb, with no safety equipment at all (apart from having a person below to cushion one's fall, which is not ideal). I suggested that the organisers could have set up a rope here, or better yet, a step ladder.


But with a lot of help from my friend, I somehow made it to the top.








And it was definitely worth it for the view (as well as the bragging rights, and the little certificate they gave us at the top).

There's a little cross at the top, which I assume marks the peak.


I was told you could see the Dzükou Valley from the peak, though I'm not quite sure if this photo shows the side of the mountain where the valley is located - I was way too tired when people were pointing it out to me.


But I did note that we could see Kohima in the distance.


Coming down was another ordeal. After negotiating the near-vertical sections, I had trouble with the muddy path and kept slipping. I'm definitely not as surefooted as most people I know here and needed my friend's help a lot coming back down.

Thankfully we made it safely back down the mount. And the return journey only took us 3.5 hours!