Friday, August 31, 2007

Valley of Flowers

As I returned, an image frequently came to my mind, an image similar to that of Klaus Kinski in German classic Wrath of God, an image in which a man overcomes every challenge with authority, climbs hills and crosses streams, and with irritated disdain throws away the arrows that dared to sting his mighty body. He enters deep into woods and then even sails out of it, winning all and defying everything.

But far from the forest, away from all enemies, and out of any danger, he staggers, stumbles and falls flat on his face, dead purple with poison.

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The Grind (Govindhat to Ghangharia Trek, 14 km): - 14 is a number which doesn’t hold any particular significance for us when denominated in km. But in hills, this distance seems to be a long, long way. No wonder some trekkers have named this trek “The Grind”. However, the so-called grind is grounded by hundreds of men and women everyday, of every age, who in their ordinary slippers walk merrily past the out-of-breath trekkers, all thanks to their religious inspiration.

Though a bit tiring in start, this trek leaves you refreshed by the end. You meet people and talk to them, and then leave them behind; and see them again when you relax at one of these numerous dhabas in the way. Smiles and greetings are exchanged and the caravan moves on. You are neither lonely nor bored, and moreover, you forget every pain in the embrace of beauty. Literally walking through clouds, you slide along the curves of Alaknanda, who gurgles with ecstasy and fills up the whole sky with puffs of steam. I hopped down off the track, lied on a rock and listened to her soothing chatter with eyes closed. Ah what an experience it was!



Now we come to the valley of flowers after 4 km trek from Ghangharia. Without wasting words, let me summarize - the juice is not worth the squeeze, unless you enjoy squeezing as such. I mean that unless you are a random adventurer, or a botanist, Valley of Flowers might disappoint you. At least our experience was quite underwhelming, may be because of our high expectations with the place itself, the place that was the protagonist of our plans.



No doubt, VoF is amazing in many ways and had the weather been better, perhaps we’d have witnessed something else! But I will say only what I have seen, without getting intimidated by its fame. First, we were not able to find those thousand varieties of flowers. Secondly, the season recommended to visit the valley is the season of Monsoon, which meant intermittent drizzling and dampness all around, enough to douse every fire you want to kindle. One of our fellow trekkers, who came there exclusively for the purpose of photography, practically couldn’t take out his camera. I ventured to take out mine, only to shoot monochromatic arrays of rain-beaten flowers with heavy mist in background. When you walk back to your hotel after a 4-5 km trek, you are welcomed by dampness all over – damp bed, damp clothes, and dampened spirit! And the only way out of that damp, stinky, stuffy hell is that 14 Himalayan km long grind. You feel helplessly trapped!

The Trap: - We woke up at 3.30 in the night to catch the first bus from Rishikesh to Joshimath. The idea was to reach Joshimath in afternoon and proceed for Govindghat immediately. We reached Joshimath in afternoon but could not proceed further because the buses for Govindghat plied only in morning, when the gate was opened for vehicles. This is something hardly anyone talked about in his/her travelogue – Gates. These gates are opened for limited duration in a day and if you plan to travel in the hills of Uttaranchal, do plan your itinerary keeping this in mind. More about planning will follow later in this post.



VoF had left us damp and disappointed, so we cancelled our plan for Hemkund (a holy place for Sikhs, 6 km steep trek from Ghangharia, amid ponies and pony-craps) and instead planned to go to visit Golden Temple in Amritsar and Wagah Border. I invoked my gods, wrapped crape bandages around my creaky knees and ran down the grind, and then patted myself for doing that without getting any injury.

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The sunny weather of Badrinath dried the sticky dampness of Ghangharia off our minds and bags. Despite being a holy spot, Badrinath looked curiously clean and quiet, and breathtakingly beautiful as well! I didn't expect that soothing silence there - echoing from the high walls of snowy hills. Perhaps this was because of the 'off-season'. This is when the gods come back to their lofty abodes, after their devotees go away, having done all their noisy nonsense.

It was something as wonderful as living in "Annie's song", or "Fursat Ke Raat Din". You feel a surreal sort of timelessness there. Sitting on a chair in open sunlight, and surrounded by majestic mountains, you feel as if you have been there since a long long time. The valley enfolds you in her lap, caresses you and makes you oblivious to everything but a pleasant brightness, which is seen even if you close your eyes. Even now, after a fortnight has passed, I can see that brightness when I close my eyes. I can still feel that cold touch on my skin.

Having relaxed a while there, we stretched our limbs, rubbed our drowsy eyes and finally set off to enquire about next bus to Haridwar. But at the bus stop, which seemed to be dozing, and its people playing cards here and there, we heard the breaking news – Roads to Badrinath blocked because of heavy landslides!

I will spare you the details of our anxiety, as Akshaya and I had to catch our train and flight in Delhi. And we could do nothing but wait for the roads to get cleared. There I realized the futility of making smart plans in Uttaranchal, where landslides are as common as sunrise and sunset, and more so during Monsoon. And I couldn't resist a smile at the arrogance with which people make their itinerary, and flaunt on websites without even mentioning that their plan is only tentative, and subject to change as per situation.

Infact, everything, including your life, depends on the mood of the mighty mountains. When roads are blocked, or cracked, you can hardly budge. When they are okay, you never know when one of those millions loose rocks decides to roll down and takes you, with your car, deep in the ditch. We got to see a sample there as well - a Bolero lying in the gorge; I could almost see it go dancing down after beaten by a hard rock.

At that point of time, the only thing in our minds was - to escape from there.

The Escape (Helang to Gulabkot Trek): - We reached Joshimath by a jeep, and the driver said that we will go ahead, as far as we could. This is how locals live there, in parts. Life is hard there and man is soft to his fellows. We saw how drivers help one another by stopping the passing vehicles and spreading the news of landslides. They know that helping others is the only way to help yourself in crisis. The vehicles go as far as the road is good, and then the people cross the damaged area by foot and sit in the vehicles standing on the other side. We were ready for this idea by then. But the landslide in Helang made the road unpassable and we found ourselves stuck in the way. The only way left to us was to climb a hill to reach where we could get vehicles.

This was the high-point of our challenges. I would need a separate post to describe this journey in detail. This 'trek' was already full of adventure since we didn't know how far and how long we had to walk, and to add more spice in life I lost my way. Way ahead of the caravan and lost in my rhythm, I couldn't notice where a path stole its way down amid dense bushes. I was surprised to find myself alone but I was convinced that I was going in the right direction. But it was going like forever. I had no idea how far my destination was. And it was useless to ask others. After every 2 km I walked, anyone whom I asked would say the same, 'just 2 km more.'



Right then I realized that I would never be able to forget that moment - absolutely alone at that height, and looking at the road below, which looked like a serpent from where I stood. Thankfully wild animals didn't find me interesting enough, because at that place even a monkey was enough to kill you, or imbalance at least, which would have anyways meant the same. And that forest was full of them, and bears, and leopards as well, as they say. Though this trek couldn't tire me, I'd admit that there were moments when it scared me. There were points where I could have fallen thousands feet down, had I slipped or panicked, or even looked down.

In the way I met many gadhwali people, and they left a very good impression on my mind. They are brave, kind and chivalrous. You talk to them for 5 minutes and they invite you at their home for lunch! They save your life and then refuse to take anything in return, as a token of gratitude. They are so unlike us urban people, who have nothing else but smart arguments and phrases to offer to others.

Reaching Gulabkot at 11.50 AM, I waited for my friends till 1.40 PM, by looking at passing vehicles. I wondered how they would cross those two points. My cellphone was lying dead in my pocket. Finally, I decided to catch a bus and meet them in Haridwar, as I was not sure where they were. I waved a passing bus and lo! Akshaya was there inside. I knew that I had lost my way, but nothing else!

See the selected snaps of this trip here.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The step-children of India

The mainland India is celebrating 60 years of independence and the media is singing the success songs of democracy. Our leaders are talking about nuclear deals and our intelligentsia is pondering over bulls and bears of sensex. All this is fine. But to what extent this is true to the reality that concerns we the people? Take a map of India and see for yourself where these talks and celebrations actually make sense. Mark red where they don't. You'll get a red map with few dots scattered here and there.

The following article (with minor changes, taken from here) shows us an India most of us hardly ever knew. This India lives in a state called Manipur, located farthest east in the map. Read on.

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It is worse than J&K. "Freelance insurgent groups" ensure that even the ministers pay up extortion demands. Not only funds for development, but also those for counter-insurgency operations, go to the militant groups' coffers!

The arrest of 12 militants belonging to four rebel outfits from the official quarters of three Congress legislators and an ex-legislator in Imphal the other day made for screaming headlines in the national media. What did not is more shocking and not only symptomatic of the mess that Manipur is in, but also mainland India's apathy to the plight of the hapless people of the state.

For more than two weeks now, pharmaceutical companies have stopped supplying drugs, including critical life-saving medicines, to the state. The reason: militant groups had demanded a larger slice of the profits made by the drug companies in Manipur. Consequently, drugs are in severely short supply and relatives of many patients have been flying out of the state to procure drugs from Guwahati, Kolkata and even Delhi!

Incomprehensibly, the state government hasn't done anything beyond issuing a perfunctory appeal to the drug companies to resume supplies and holding out the flaccid promise of 'ensuring security' to them. And till just a few days ago, Manipur had been reeling under a desperate shortage of cooking gas due to a nearly three-week-long strike by drivers of trucks transporting LPG cylinders protesting the abduction of two of their colleagues by rebel groups. As a result, people had to buy LPG cylinders for as high as Rs 750 to Rs 800 a cylinder!

Find all this very appalling? The average Manipuri, whether in the Imphal valley or in the hill districts buffeting the valley, doesn't. For the simple reason that all this, and more, has become commonplace, part of normal life in the state. For the landlocked state, National Highway 39 that enters Manipur from Nagaland and winds its way through the hill districts dominated by various tribes before touching the Imphal Valley and going up through the hills again to end at the Indo-Myanmar border at Moreh is the sole lifeline.

And taking advantage of the state's dependence on NH 39, militant groups frequently block this lifeline through bandhs and 'curfews', thus crippling life in the state. It's like all roads entering mainland India being blocked and supplies of foodstuff and all commodities, including fuel, being stopped. An unimaginable scenario, and one that would have not only resulted in a huge outcry, but also invited swift and decisive action. But in this remote part of Northeast India, the lifeline remains a 'no-traffic' zone for weeks at a stretch.

Last year, various militant groups and other organisations blocked the highway for a total of 146 days to highlight demands ranging from integration of Naga-inhabited areas in Manipur with 'Nagalim' or 'Greater Nagaland to better health facilities. Since all commodities and materials required by the people of the state, save for some rice and vegetables that grows in the sprawling Imphal Valley, comes in through NH 39, the severe shortages that resulted, and the consequent suffering of the people of the state, from this highway being blocked for 40% of the year can well be imagined. But did we read or see anything in the national media about this? Compare that to how the media would have gone into a frenzy if people in any other part of the country, leave aside Delhi, been subjected to such sufferings.

But the Manipuris' sufferings don't end there.

Lack of even basic civic amenities, healthcare, education and job opportunities, interminable power cuts, scant water supply and the twin threats posed by rapacious rebel groups and the trigger-happy security forces for whom human rights hold no meaning puts the life of a resident of this state beyond the pale of description. Nowhere else in the country, not even in Jammu & Kashmir, are citizens' fears and sufferings so acute.

No one ventures out after dark when the streets are taken over by gun-toting soldiers who have the power to detain people on mere suspicion (it's a different matter than many of the detained are roughed up and maimed or, if unlucky, disappear). During a recent visit to Imphal, human rights activist Babloo Loitongbam told me: "Manipur is a classic case of functioning anarchy; a situation where the state has failed, but people have evolved ways of getting things done and maintaining whatever small semblance of normal life is possible, often with the help of non-state entities". Even getting a glass of water is a struggle, he says, adding that a feeling of dark depression and dread envelopes him whenever he returns to Imphal from the rest of the country or the world.

Yambem Laba, Director of the Manipur Dance Academy tells me that people have "got used to" the dismal conditions. "We have developed the psychology of the oppressed," Laba, the ex-chief of the Manipur Human Rights Commission, says. The oppressors are, as is normally thought, not only the security forces but, to an equal or even greater measure, the militant groups that extort money wantonly and issue diktats at will. The entities most responsible for the plight of the people of Manipur are the "freelance insurgent groups". Laba calls them 'freelance' since their only aim is to extort money and harass people, they lack any ideology or goals and exist in a permanent state of flux, shifting allegiance from one major rebel group to another.

It is a small state, but Manipur has more than 20 rebel groups, most of whom have been demanding sovereignty for the state or the small portions of it they claim to represent. Three of these groups draw inspiration from China and Mao and have, at various points in time, received assistance from that country. And most of the remaining have no ideology at all. But all extort a lot of money from government and private sector employees, traders, businessmen, contractors and politicians. It's an open secret, we are told calmly, that even the Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police have to part with a portion of their monthly income.

The 'tax' imposed by the militants ranges from five percent (of the income) for a small farmer or petty trader to 12 or even 15 percent for a senior officer or an affluent businessman. And on top of this, 15 to 20 percent of the outlay on any project, even a small road repairing work, goes into the militants' pockets. Every item that's sold in Manipur is 'taxed' by the militants.

Each group has its own area of influence and dominance carved out and is the undisputed master in that area. In nearly the whole state, barring the small pocket of Imphal town, it is the militants' writ that runs and not that of the state administration. The rebels have often triggered violent clashes among the various ethnic groups in the state, like the infamous Kuki-Naga clashes in the early 1990s that left more than 750 people dead. Fratricidal clashes and bloodshed are common.

The obvious question then is: why doesn't the state do anything to curb militancy? The answer is simple: the state can't. And more than the largely corrupt politicians in Manipur, it is New Delhi that has to bear the burden of the blame for Manipuris' untold sufferings. For decades now, the union government has been content with relying on the army and para-military forces to contain the militants. But the security forces, despite the blanket powers given to them by the much-reviled Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), have failed miserably to carry out their mandate. Because it's a mandate that cannot be fulfilled. The reason: New Delhi, thanks to its myopic policies, is responsible for keeping militancy alive.

Let me explain this conundrum: holding the view that militancy stems from socio-economic deprivation, Delhi's glib response has been to pour in millions of Rupees into militancy-affected states like Manipur. But since no mechanism is put in place to ensure proper utilization of these funds (audits in these states are a farce), most of it is siphoned off by politicians, bureaucrats and contractors. The militants then want a share of this pie and get it by holding out threats to the vulnerable politicians, bureaucrats or contractors. This is easy money for the militants, and it emboldens them to hike their demands and start extorting from all others, including businessmen and even petty traders.

When the politicians, including ministers, pay up, there's little that the common man can do except not follow suit. Thus, a flourishing parallel economy that finances not only the militants, but also the politicians, takes shape. Since militant groups wield enormous power and use it to decide the outcome in elections, contesting candidates have no option but to seek the rebels' help in winning. The rebels help whichever candidate pays them the most. Very often, such deals are struck at the party level with one or more groups supporting one party or the other. And if that party comes to power, it's not hard to imagine what favours and concessions they extend to the group that has helped them in the electoral battle. The help is in the form of outright rigging and issuing diktats to the electorate to vote for a particular party or candidate; and the voters dare not defy the militants.

This is all an insidious game and arrangement and the security forces, as well as the state administration that anyway has already been co-opted and compromised, can do little to stop it. The union government is well aware of all this, but prefers to turn a blind eye to this vicious cycle that feeds militancy. Because it is also complicit in the game—a portion of the funds that politicians siphon out of the central grants finds its way back to the pockets of politicians in Delhi. That's the price the powers-that-be in Delhi extract for keeping quiet and allowing the loot to go on.

Also, like other militancy-affected states, Manipur, too, gets huge funds for fighting militancy. But once again, most of these funds are siphoned off by politicians, bureaucrats, police officers and even high-ups in the army and para-military forces. A substantial portion of it, quite naturally, goes to the militant groups. So here's the supreme irony of the situation: not only funds for development, but also those for counter-insurgency operations, go to the militant groups' coffers!

Is it any wonder then that the politicians, the bureaucrats, the police and security forces and the elite in Manipur don't really want militancy to end? If insurgency is curbed, not only would the flow of funds for fighting insurgency dry up, attention would also shift to proper utilization of development funds and greater transparency in the government's functioning. Why would Manipur's politicians and those who gain from the present situation want that to happen?

Now then, given this complex and hopeless situation, does the news of militants being caught from legislators' official quarters seem so shocking? It is a given that politicians have to seek support of the militants and in return for that favour, politicians have to pay large sums of money and provide other assistance like safe shelters to the rebels. No one, with perhaps just a couple of honourable exceptions, contests elections in Manipur without an understanding with the rebels. The union government knows it, but for reasons elucidated above, keeps quiet. All parties are guilty of having close ties with insurgents. And so, they can never be expected to make a way out of this impasse in Manipur.

As for the other stakeholders in Manipur, including the central security forces, it suits them fine to allow things to continue as they are in the state. Only, it is the largest group of stakeholders — the suffering masses of Manipur — who are paying a heavy price for the shenanigans and chicanery of the political-bureaucratic-security establishment in the state.

Friday, August 10, 2007

To Valley of Flowers

Dec 2006: I was reading "Snow Country" by Kawabata and was taken into the white world of star-lit heaven. Suddenly, and inexplicably, I felt embraced by the mysterious charm of hills, its rivers, its air, and above all, that strange cold magic that seeps through your skin and makes you its own. Ah, the faint memories of my previous visit to Manali came before my eyes and enchanted my heart. Finally, compelled by the desire and in a state of drunken ecstasy, I called up Akshaya, "Let's go to Manali." As it happens, he said "yes". Sanket, after his usual bridal protest, conceded too. And in the very month, we were on the hills of majestic Himalayas.

Aug 2007: "No" is an unacceptable word between two sensitive individuals, unless one of them is a lady and other out of sense! So I promptly said "yes" when Akshaya asked me to "rekindle the fire" in Valley of Flowers. Don't read between the lines, that just meant to patch up things between old friends who were not in talking terms. As it happens, within 2-3 days tickets were booked and the stage is now set for the big game - the trek to the land of thousand fairies. Wait for 10 days and then we'll get to see the snaps of the valley at avalokan. And these 10 days will be kept forever in the book of our memories, like flowers. Amen.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Not Yet

When I am lying in the grave
And many a century has rolled past,
Were mother earth to ask me,
"Have you forgotten her at last?"
"Not yet," I would reply.

- Camus