To block road, to dam to fish

The other day as I was going through the Sumi-English dictionary by Lozhevi Sema, I found this verb:

yekhi: ala lakha, yekha keu akushino azü yekhakeu = to block road; to dam to fish.

While my friends weren't too familiar with this particular entry, it seems to refer to blocking either a road or a river (the latter for the purpose of catching fish).

This immediately brought to mind what happened last week as we were travelling back to Zunheboto after doing some cultural documentation in a few villages. We were crossing the Lanki River - which I dubbed the 'Lion King' river - when a rather peculiar sight greeted us.

The Lanki River


First, I couldn't make out where we were meant to ford the river, but the driver didn't have any problem plunging the car right into part of the river. When we emerged on the embankment in the middle of the river, there was a car parked on it, with a few men in military uniform standing around with guns - members of the Underground.

For those who don't know, there's an insurgency problem in Nagaland, with a whole 'government' running parallel with the government recognised by India. They're not terribly popular, given their penchant for violence and extortion. At least now there's a ceasefire between the Underground and the Indian Army, but there are also a number of different factions which still fight amongst themselves.

Anyway, the curious thing that day wasn't anything to do with violence. It was a steam shoveller in a pond. And it was blocking our attempt to cross the river.



What these guys were doing, was using the steam shoveller to dam the river and make a smaller channel so they could catch fish! In the process, they had also changed the course of the river, thereby blocking the usual road, and the car had to struggle up a muddy path, aided by a few of us pushing it up.



The verb yekhi would therefore be doubly appropriate to describe what happened here. Of course, damming the river this way and blocking all traffic just to have a bit of fun definitely doesn't make the guys in the Underground any more popular.

Failed illegal immigrant

On the weekend, the government announced that, apart from Pakistani and Chinese citizens, foreigners would require no special permits to visit N-East for 2011. They will require to register - I'm assuming at the local police station - within 24 hours upon arrival. They're trialling this idea for one year, and the permit exemption programme will apply to the states of Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. (Arunachal Pradesh is still pretty sensitive given that China still claims it as part of their territory and like people I've spoken with in Nepal, there's the belief that China will invade within the next decade or two.)

This is fantastic news, since I won't have to worry about getting a Restricted Area Permit or RAP (also known as a Protected Area Permit or PAP) the next time I come back this year. The process of obtaining one is lengthy. First, you either need to apply and travel as a group of four, or as a married couple. Since I am neither of these (although my pork consumption for the month is making me feel like closer to a group of four), it's amazing my friend has been able to get me two RAPs to visit the state.

Next, you need to already have a visa for India in order to apply for the permit. This sounds reasonable, until you realise that India tourist visas are valid from the date they are issued, not from a specified date afterwards. Given that it takes 6-8 weeks to be granted the RAP, this means having to get the India visa about 2 months before actually arriving in India. The first time I tried this, the consulate staff (or rather, the people the consular staff outsourced their visa processing to) were not happy that I was getting a visa so early and wanted to see my plane ticket to India.

On the application form on the RAP, which I have scanned and emailed to my friend in the past, it is also required that you state the route by which you will be travelling when you are in Nagaland. This means naming all the towns that you will be passing through even before you've got the permit.

If and when the permit arrives (my friend emails it to me), it is usually valid for only 10 days - I am so grateful my friend managed to get me an RAP that was valid for a month since I was here for the Ahuna and Hornbill festivals. It is possible to extend the permit, which did so I could stay till after New Year's, but this requires more time and there's always the chance it won't be granted so it's difficult to make long term plans.

You then have to make multiple copies of the permit. The reason for this is that at every major town, and for some minor towns, there's a security checkpoint. Foreigners are supposed to report to the local police station in every town they pass through to deposit a copy of their RAP. This is the most painful process because an already long 6 hour journey from Kohima to Zunheboto for instance, might take 9 hours, with 3 hours sitting in police stations answering questions, or worse, just waiting for the local police to come back if they're on duty at the time. It is also expected that you follow the route you specified in your RAP or questions will be asked.

And you have to leave when the permit expires!

I've been lucky in some aspects, some of which I will not elaborate on here. I can say that my last RAP extension granted me permission to remain in the state till 2 Jan, which was a Sunday, when inter-town transport is very difficult - taxis / sumos don't run and most people are at church or with their families. It was therefore difficult to leave by the date written on the RAP extension and I thought I would have to risk being an illegal visitor for two days (I'm leaving for Assam today), but it seems my attempt at being illegal has been foiled by the government of India.

It was a very last-minute announcement and I don't know if it will make a huge impact on foreign tourist numbers this year, since most people don't even know about Nagaland and the other NE states. It might have a bigger impact next year, and with more publicity.

In the meantime, tell your friends to come visit NE India this year!

Sex sells fireworks?

Happy New Year from Nagaland!

Now, going back to Australia for a second, most Australians associate (or have associated) Canberra with being able to legally purchase porn and fireworks. It's a bit of a misconception, since fireworks are no longer freely available in the nation's capital and seriously, who buys porn in shops anymore?

Anyway, I have a point somewhere here. With Christmas and New Year's over, there's been a helluva lot of fireworks (locally known as 'bombs' here). While fireworks for New Year's is fairly standard for me, nowhere have I seen Christmas celebrating with such prolific use of explosives. It's a wonder I got any sleep on Christmas Eve.

But - apart from the loud intermittent blasts throughout the night - it was the packaging that really caught my attention. Most packaging looks fairly tame, bordering on family friendly even, but note the position of the woman's hand in this picture:

Others, on the other hand, are a little more shameless.

It's almost like a combination of porn and fireworks!

Okay, not quite, but I do find it hilarious that you're able to purchase these potentially life-threatening and sexually explicitly marketed babies, given that people aren't even allowed to go to cinemas here because it's considered a sin against God.

There are some things I don't think I'll ever understand.

Christmas in Nagaland (III)

It was back to Natha New on Christmas morning. After tea, biscuits and fried Sümi sho, we were off to the village where lunch was ready for us at 8am - my stomach no longer knows when it should be full, so I just eat when I am fed.

There was a morning service (yes, another service) at the local church, before another service up at the feast venue, which was H S Rotokha's brother's compound.

Remember the butcher's area from the day before? Amazing how some pine leaves and a few chairs can transform the place into the VIP area.


I was eventually asked to sit on one of the chairs on the little 'stage' area, which I always find embarrassing, but at least I got a good view of the entertainment. The women of the village put up two comedy skits, though given my lacking listening comprehension skills in Sumi, Nagamese and Hindi I wasn't able to follow them. But  I did certainly appreciate the physical comedy.



The Chief Officer (I think) from the local Assam Rifles was also invited and he was treated to the show too. The man's so massive he looks like he could crush you with his bare hands...



After food, it was time for the bamboo climbing competition. The day before, two bamboo poles had been erected with a large chunk of meat (a pig's leg) and a bottle containing about 1,000 Rs dangling from the top. The idea is to climb to the top of the bamboo pole to claim the prize.



To make the climbing experience even worse more fun, the whole pole is greased with pork fat. The only way to get up without sliding down is to apply ash on the pole to rub as much of the grease off. Standing on the downwind side of the base, I got quite a bit of ash in my face...





After about half an hour, one guy finally made it to the top of the left pole. I observed that he had waited for the others to clean off the grease before attempting to make his first climb. He later also managed to reach the top of the other pole. Very clever.

The victor


It was a great way to end the celebrations. And soon we were back to Zunheboto where I ended the day at Nito Mount singing songs late into the night by a bonfire.

Oh, what a great Christmas.

Christmas in Nagaland (II)

I was invited to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the distinguished H S Rotokha (or 'apuh Sükato')'s home village of Natha New, which is so close to Zunheboto town, it might even become a suburb (or assa 'colony' as sub-divisions of towns are known here) of the town.

The village of Natha New


H S Rotokha was throwing a feast for the villagers on Christmas Day, and by the time I arrived at the village on Christmas Eve, preparations had been well underway. I was told that all up, 8 pigs, 2 mithun and 1 rooster had been slaughtered for the feast (that's for another post).

H S Rotokha and his wife, in front of the women pounding rice using akhumu, big pestles, in the big aboshu, a long log-like structure with little depressions carved from a single piece of wood. Basically, a very big mortar.




I got to try my hand at pounding rice in the aboshu. They also dressed me in head gear meant for women...


Some men were busy making baskets out of bamboo.


Others were busy cutting up the pork and mithun meat.




Once the rice was pounded, it was used to make Sumi sho, often translated as 'Sumi bread', although it's more like a steamed rice patty wrapped in a banana leaf.






I personally prefer the fried version, which reminds me of the shel roti I had in Nepal.

Later, it was off to the local Baptist church for the evening service. I found the sermon, given by one of H S Rotokha's daughters, a little hard to follow given that a) I didn't understand most of it, and b) towards the end, the sound of fireworks ouside got very distracting.

That evening we headed back to Zunheboto town for the night. The surrounding hills echoed with the sound of fireworks, which everyone referred to as 'bombs', for hours. I don't think I've ever heard had a Christmas Eve quite like this, or experienced fireworks (not just firecrackers)going on for such a long stretch of time. While it wasn't exactly a constant cacophony and there wasn't any grand climax, every few minutes you'd hear some more 'bombs' go off. This went well into the night.



It's amazing I got any sleep that night, but next morning we were up bright and early to head back to Natha New for the feast.

Christmas in Nagaland (I)

A few days ago, a friend back in Australia asked me if it even felt like Christmas over here. It's a fair question, given that I am in India, where the majority of the population are Hindu.

Nagaland is different. Most people in this region refer to the rest of India as 'the mainland', and if you look at a map of modern India, you can see that the whole northeast region looks like India putting an arm around Bangladesh. More importantly, Nagaland is predominantly Christian - Baptist, to be precise. (According to an unsubstantiated claim on Wikipedia, Baptists account for 75% of the state's population, making it even 'more Baptist' than the state of Mississippi. where only 52% are Baptist.)

Since the beginning of December, people all over the state have been busy putting up Christmas lights and Christmas stars (big red stars usually fixed to tall bamboo poles) even though most households don't receive constant power and the added drain from so many lights causes power disruptions / load-shedding times to increase.

To most people, today is the first day marks the first day of Christmas celebrations with shops closing early (earlier than usual) downtown, only opening again on the 26th. And how are people celebrating? By going to church. First there's an evening service today. Tomorrow there'll be a morning service and an evening service. On Christmas Day there'll be another morning and evening service.

But then, comes the eating. One thing that has passed on from traditional pre-Christian life are the big feasts thrown by important members of the community. This usually happens back in people's respective villages and all the villagers are invited to partake in the feast. I'm sure I'll post more on this at some later stage as I've been invited to the Natha New village tomorrow. I was told that two days ago they already slaughtered about five pigs and one (or maybe two) mithun.

Most people here - like many people in the Northern Hemisphere - are tickled by the idea of Australia celebrating Christmas in summer. Ironically, given that it is quite chilly here right now, I don't think it would feel like Christmas to many people here if they were in Australia or Singapore and it was warm and sunny.

Will probably post again after Christmas. Bring on the praying and feasting!

10 hours on a bus

On Sunday at 4pm, I left Dimapur with Ab. and a whole busload of farmers heading back to Zunheboto after the Agri Expo. Given that sumo tickets are sold out till after Christmas, this was the best option for the return trip to Zunheboto for Christmas. The trip was meant to take 12-14 hours, though it only took 10 hours in the end.

Now, 10 hours on a bus doesn't usually sound like a long time to be since I've been on much longer bus rides and I usually end up sleeping most of the time. This time however, I was aware that we were travelling at night on some very winding and badly maintained roads. I was also aware that there was no heating on the bus and that we was going to get very cold at night, especially as the bus approached Zunheboto.

Ab. rugging up for the cold night.

The seat would've been more comfortable if I could've stopped it from reclining all the way back every time I leaned back.

The worst thing about the trip was that just as we were leaving Dimapur - and in a scene reminiscent of the last time I was leaving Nagaland via Dimapur - I realised I was down with a case of food poisoning. I'm not sure what it was, though I'm happy to blame the pork chow mein I ate at the Agri Expo just before leaving (I really don't do well with chow mein in this country). So basically, I spent most of the trip trying to fight off the accompanying nausea from the food poisoning, while trying to field questions from farmers who had no idea who I was or that I didn't understand most of what they were saying. I did manage to will myself to sleep at times, but the bumpiness of the road and the cold later kept waking me up.

As usual my survival instincts kicked in and somehow I made it to Zunheboto 10 hours later. At 2am. We were told that the reason for leaving Dimapur at 4pm (and not a reasonable like say, 11am) was so that we would arrive bright and early in Zunheboto between 4am - 6am when transport would be available. Of course, arriving at 2am meant that the town looked like this:

Ab.'s father came to pick us up shortly after. We made it back to Nito Mount where they broke the lock to the room in the guest house and I collapsed in bed, weak from the journey and the food poisoning. Thankfully, the diarrhoea only kicked in after I got back.

Feeling too weak to stand up for long stretches, I spent most of yesterday in bed, eating mostly bananas and a rice porridge mixed with the some leafy greens (which the Angamis call galho). But given the iron gut I've cultivated, I'm pretty much back to normal today.

So I survived my first night bus ride in Nagaland. And while having food poisoning to boot!