Planet Article

A GUN FOR CYCLOPS

While ridding through some dirt tracks in the village of Longithang, in Wokha, Nagaland, I had a fall that left me with a slightly bruised right arm. Upon reaching the village, I took off my jacket to clean the bruise and a really concerned village elder advised me to get a tetanus toxide injection. He took me to a young chap who promptly gave me a shot with a disposable syringe. Impressed with his deft handling, I asked whether he was a medical student. “Oh no! I am a farmer and this is just my hobby.” Hobby?! That means that he was practicing or even worse, experimenting on me! The damage was done and there was absolutely nothing that I could do but curse my luck..My photographer friend Anuj Singh and I were riding through Nagaland as part of our Northeast India tour and since the injection didn’t turn me into some green gremlin, we continued with our tour. Motorcycling is the best way to see the remote places in the Northeast, the risks notwithstanding. Wind (and dust) in the face, trees overhead, the road rushing beneath the legs, bugs under the collar and getting soaked to the bone are all the tangible joys of motorcycling. While a car keeps you boxed in, a motorcycle gives the rider a 180-degree view (or is it 360-degrees?).

Riding through the district of Mon, we made our way to Dimapur; then deciding that the place didn’t carry anything of bikers’ interest, we pushed on to Kohima, the state capital, 75 kms away. On the outskirts of Dimapur, the Nagaland Police flagged us down for a mandatory permit check. And then, I remembered. I had left the Inner Line Permits in the hotel. Anuj and I wore our best smiles and tried looking as innocent and harmless as we possibly could. I guess we must have impressed the officer and he was satisfi ed with our driving license and the Press cards (they do come in handy). Couple of teas and a few smokes later we hit the hilly stretch for Kohima.

Kohima is the fashion capital of the state. Girls invariably create a fashion fusion, perfectly blending the traditional with contemporary styles, especially with those beautifully woven traditional shawls. Kohima also gives you an amazing range of cuisines that requires a rather adventurous palate. Most things that move, are perfectly edible for the Naga appetite, and maybe that is why Nagas have such fi ne athletic built. I am an animal lover to an extent but when somebody gave a few pieces of a barking deer meat, I promptly ate them.

Kohima War Cemetery is a sight to see if you are looking for a tranquil moment of retrospection. With its manicured lawns and perfectly aligned graves set among tall pine trees, it has an overwhelming feeling of peace. Soldiers as young as 17 year-olds had fallen in this battle, where the 2nd Division of the Queen’s Army fi nally halted the Japanese advance. A little distance from the cemetery lies a M3 Lee Grant medium battle tank, exactly where it was abandoned on the 4th of May, 1944.

Next day, we set off for Khonoma, 20 kms from Kohima. Khonoma is a legendary village famed for its fi ght against the British troops whose advances the villagers repulsed a number of times. There are a few ‘forts’ in vantage positions from where the villagers fought the British troops. Th ere is also an amazing 7-foot tall muzzle-loading gun, made in the 1850s that was used against the British troops, which is still in perfect firing order. With its huge muzzle and its gargantuan weight, the long gun seemed like it packs one hell of a recoil. A gun fit for cyclops!

With the Angami Naga students’ body disallowing anybody in the village to cut and sell trees even if they own it, a major step is taken towards environment protection in the state. Khonoma has been declared as a Green Village by the environment agency of the UN. A trek of two and half-hours from the village took us to the famed Dzukou Valley. It is a rather tiring trek but as we topped the ridge, the sight of the green carpet like valley with wild rhododendrons of different colours took our breath away.

Couple of days later, we rode off to the district of Wokha. Th e distance of 85 kms from Kohima, as usual, took more time than required, and the reason was not the serpentine road, of course. The sight of the whole valley, bathed in the majestic golden rays of the evening sun made us stop and behold. Realising that we were getting late, as we mounted on our bikes, a jeep with a couple of smart young men in it, flagged us down. They were very friendly and polite but they asked all sort of questions and we realized they belonged to one of the underground organizations. When they figured out that we were no threat to them, they invited us to a roadside house for some tea. One of the men was carrying a well-used AK 47 and he was kind enough to show me how it works. I would have loved to fi re it but…

The moon was high by the time we took leave, and in the Northeast, life comes to a complete halt after sundown. In case of a mishap or a breakdown, you won’t fi nd a soul for miles on end. As if to prove the theory right, Anuj had a puncture in the rear tyre (he almost specialises on getting his tyre punctured!). We got the bike up and running in about 45 minutes and as we rolled a smoke, we realized that not a single vehicle crossed us all this time and the only living thing we had for company were the crickets and the sporadic call of jackals far away!

Wokha is like a Wild West town that has a square where everyone meets everyone else. Th ere are no hotels worth the name and so we stayed in the village of Longsa. Village stays are always better and for us motorcyclists, who always seem to travel on shoestring budget. In winters, there is severe water shortage in most places in Nagaland, and we had to trek two kms downhill to get water from a stream. We fetched water out of courtesy to our host which sure was backbreaking work. After the fi rst day, we switched on our ‘dry clean’ mode. We sure smelled awful but there were no ladies on the rear seat for us to worry about.

About 29 kms out of Wokha Town on the way to Mokokchung, there is a hydro electricity project run by NEEPCO. An old weather-beaten milestone 4 kms out of town, points the way to the project site. Twenty nine kms of a slow, tiresome journey later, we came upon a small clearing about 5 kms from the NEEPCO complex where there were two small bamboo huts selling tea, eatables, fruits and the omnipresent tamul (betel nut and leaf). As we entered the fi rst hut, a wonderful sight greeted us. Bang in the middle of the room, inside an empty corrugated box of Pepsi, sat a chubby little girl and keeping her company was a black Drongo bird! Th e mother appeared a couple of minutes later and when I asked what if the baby cried, she replied, “Oh! Some passerby can take care of her for sometime.” On our way back, we stopped at Sanchobeni’s (the mother) place again for tea. The little girl was still inside the box but the Drongo was gone. Eaten, I presumed.

NEEPCO has built a dam across the Doyang River that has resulted in a huge water reservoir. As we neared the dam, Anuj rode up to me and hollered, “Did you hear someone whistle at us?” “Must be the wind inside the helmet,” I hollered back. But as it turned out, it was the whistle of the security personnel. They caught up with us after sometime and after a very, very lengthy and intense interrogation at the police outpost, we were allowed to proceed but only after a known police offi cer from Wokha Town vouched for us. Dams are always sensitive areas and we were lucky not to have been shot for not reporting at the check post.

We pitched our two-man tent on the bank of the reservoir and loaded our bikes on to the ferry to go to the villages on the other side. After a bit of riding through the villages, we returned to the tent and helped Andrew, our boatman, catch some fish. At night, as the moon shone in all its glory, the ripples on the water shone like diamonds. A small dugout tied at the bank bobbed in the waves and made a rhythmic sound. Sleep was the farthest thing on our minds as we sat by the small fire, roasted the trout, smoked and drank black tea in bamboo mugs by the dozen, as Joe Satriani’s guitar work drifted in intermittently from somewhere afar.

It was a peaceful easy feeling and I didn’t want it to end but we had deadlines to meet and a train to catch to Delhi. Back to the polluted, loud, cut throat world of the big cities.

When you travel in Northeast India, you better carry cash or at the most, some SBI Traveler’s Cheques. Credit cards are just pieces of four inch coloured plastics.

Visit these places before ‘civilisation’ pollutes them. You wouldn’t want to see a McDonald outlet in the middle of the jungle, would you?

Tags: bikers, fashion capital, gremlin, india tour, medical student, motorcycling, nagaland, Northeast India, outskirts, photographer friend, right arm, teas