In those days, one had to wait it out at the Dibrugarh guest house in Assam for news and confirmation about aeroplanes or helicopters with space for people and animals and luggage to be sent out to Ramnagar in Arunachal Pradesh. I had been given instructions to meet the paramilitary desk and introduce myself and they would have a jeep to go out to the guest house. They did not do this for everyone. It was a courtesy because I was to be part of a multi-team effort to go to the most remote parts of India and participate in a long duration campout with many others.
Our group was assembling at the guest house and the team leader nodded
at me in a rather cursory manner. I was quite upset. I had flown out at
extremely short notice from Mumbai to Kolkata and on the next day out to
Dibrugarh. I had been traveling non-stop except for a very brief nap at the Dum
Dum airport and onwards to the last regular airport in Eastern India. A team
member explained that the leader had actually been quite warm towards me and
that he was a senior government officer from Kolkata and that this was much
better than his welcome to fellow Bengalis.
I felt better at that and went up to the team leader and asked if
there was any way that I could help since he was moving about, talking to many
people and trying to coordinate various actions. He was startled. He had not
expected that a ‘Bombaywala’ would want to help so willingly. So what, I
thought, we all have our prejudices and perceptions.
“Ok! Come with me and do not wander away,” he said, almost
grudgingly. “You do not know the language here and by the way these locals do
not speak Assamese or Bengali. These fellows and some of these ladies are from
many tribes in Arunachal and they do get by with some broken Assamese and
Hindi. They refuse to speak Bengali even if they can understand it. Try talking
in English and they will be very happy. That is the best respect that you can
give.”
I smiled politely and laughed a bit. “I am in these parts for the
first time. Never been to East India. I will learn.”
“We have to hire a group of cooks and this is as good a time as any.
We have to search amidst all these waiting groups of local people who want to
return to Ramnagar. We actually need the cooks to be from that place so that we
do not have to hire inefficient guys from here and have to send them back. We
will be traveling from Ramnagar to other camping spots and all that area is
Lishu country in the Daphabum ranges. We need cooks who know the area, who live
in the area and we need tough guys, those who know how to cook in the tough climatic
conditions out there.”
This was the first time that I had heard that it would be tough out
there. “What tough climatic conditions? Are we not going to be camping in good
alpine tents and in local circuit houses and in the local panchayat settlements?”
“Yes, Yes. We do have good equipment. But we do not carry the local
climate with us. We are helpless with that.”
This was getting to be rather cryptic. I had seen the desert and I
had seen the Western Ghats. I had seen the winter at Bharatpur and at Aligarh.
So what if I had not been to the Himalayas. We were not planning to go up the
Everest in any case. What was it about the Eastern Himalayas that one had to be
worried about, especially with the climate?
I walked up to the team leader as he started talking to a mixed
group of elders, young men and elderly women. They were seated together around
what looked like four baskets filled with live chicken, large hens and roosters
and young ones. Two of the youngsters had their hands busy with managing four
goats. One of the elders had a very young mule nearer to him. The ladies were
seated on large gunny sacks of potatoes and yam and arbi (colocassia).
My team leader was speaking in a mix of Assamese, Bengali and broken
up local tribal dialects and Hindi and some words of English. Each time that he
would speak in English, he would point at one of the elders and he would be met
with a lot of nodding and ‘yes, yes, yes,
yes’. I had my own doubts that they had actually understood. I was wrong.
A young man replied in English. Perfect convent school English. “Yes,
Sir. You can get good cooks who can help you in your camping. A father and son
are here right now in the guest house. I will call them. Both are good cooks.”
One of the younger lads ran off to a neighbouring group and
explained the matter and two men came up to meet us. They introduced
themselves. The younger one introduced the elder, and said, “Apu. He is Apu.”
And then, proudly, he extended his hand to introduce himself, and said, “Apu. I
am Apu. Son of Apu. He is my father. I am son.”
The English speaking young man explained to me, “Apu is first born.
His father was first born and so he is Apu. His first born son is also called
Apu. But his actual name will be different but we all call them as first born.
It is a great honor to be the first born son of a first born father. They are
good cooks and also very good hunters. The best.”
“Hunters? What do we need hunters for?” I thought, worriedly. “Were
we not going to carry our food supplies?”
My team leader was not worried about this issue, I realised, as I
watched him explain his needs to Apu and Apu. He wanted them to be familiar
with a list of food items. He ticked them off very fast. Steamed rice, lentil
soup, chapatis, vegetables to be made in good Bengali gravy, non-vegetarian
items to be made especially like in the army and paramilitary cantonments, not
in the Assamese or Arunachal manner, sweet dishes like kheer and other items with milk and sugar, and especially, he was
very particular about this, they needed to be able to bake cakes and custard
pudding in stone ovens, out there in the tough climatic conditions below the
Daphabum ranges south of Ramnagar.
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