Road to Avankhu

The first story I wrote, was about a twenty year old man entering Nagaland from Burma, through the Avankhu international border in phek district.

 I had heard stories about the road from neighbors and relative. Some said the dry season was the best time to travel, as there were less chances of the road getting blocked due to landslides.  My uncle suggested I visit after the first rainfall, he said the barren mountains would be covered in a blanket of greenery.

 And that was exactly what I imagined when I wrote the story of the twenty year old man entering Nagaland from Burma. I also imagined Alder trees covering the hills, along with rocky paths and misty mornings. What I didn’t take into account was the grassland, that all the trees had been cut down for lumber

NAGALAND- BURMA MAP

                                                             ALDER TREE

and all that was left was the grasslands. But uncle told me it was a sight to behold, and I imagined the grassland to be the same as the one in the story of origin; maybe if my character crossed a grassland instead of an Alder forest, he would encounter his elder brother the tekho (tiger). If he did he could ask for safe passage; but if the tekho was still miffed about the tricks the old men played on him, my character would be in a lot of trouble.

 Another person, Bertil Litner, a journalist travelled through Nagaland and entered Burma through phek district in the 1960’s.

                                                               PHEK DISTRICT

 he wrote a book recounting his experiences. Upon reading the synopsis I realized that he did exactly the opposite. While my character traveled from Burma to Nagaland, he undertook a real life journey from Nagaland to Burma or what is today known as Myanmar. In his book he mentioned many forest, and swamps that leeches lived in those swamps and that banana trees sprouted everywhere the closer you got to Burma. But he mostly talked about the people, their loyalty, their superstition and his meeting with rebel leaders.

I never considered the possibility of tying my character to rebels (underground); I imagined that he had friends and those friends had ties to the underground. Where else was he going to get fake ID’s and how would he have known which path to take, to avoid the Indian army. Even with his mongoloid face, he would be ousted because he could not speak the language the fifteen tribes spoke. The district he was infiltrating had five languages to being with and he was proficient in none. He would need friends, but to find friends you would need to look in the right place and who would be mad enough to take such risk.

But relatives told me the story of an uncle who got shot down while protecting two American journalists. They said that his body was brought back to phek hospital, the district hospital. And that very night his best friend and brother came to collect the body, least the army got hold of it.

travelling was hard those days, and no one told me how the body was brought to the hospital or what vehicle they used. They did not have proper telephone lines and it was hard to make calls without being monitored, but people were loyal and secrets were well guarded, so the brother and friend were able to collect the body on time. Or at least that what my mother told me, because she was on duty at the hospital the night the body arrived.

First-hand experience like my mother’s was what I turned to if i wanted information, or a historical account. Like our oral tradition, people did not keep records. The former was because we did not have scripts but the latter was so documents could be used as proof of the holders conspiring against the state. If found guilty whole villages were burnt down and many executed. So I found it unrealistic for people and villages to risk so much to help foreign journalist, or my character who was not a journalist; he was simply someone looking for his homeland. So why take the risk.

But Reading bertil linters account and the stories told my parents, made me think otherwise. Back then people united under one common enemy, of course there were tribal rivalries but the rivalry allowed tribes to form stronger bonds within their own tribes, and most tribes functioned as one unit. Like bertil litners case, where it was the chakhesang tribe who hid him and his wife for almost one year, till the responsibility for their protection was transferred to their kachin brothers in Burma.

Reading this I also realized there were many ways to enters Burma, Litner did it by infiltrating phek district and then Manipur; but there were shorter routes like the one at Avankhu. Infarct some old grandfathers went all the way to china on foot and returned safe; a friend even told me that her grandfather travelled to japan with the Japanese army, and that they got along well because of the cultural similarities.

                                                      KOHIMA WAR CEMETERY

                                                     

I would not have believed these stories, if the war cemetery at kohima did not have the inscription carved in Kanji. I simply could not picture people travelling so far; at a time period without proper transportation and communication. But the Japanese soldiers lying with the Naga, Nepali and Indian soldiers, is proof that people connected long back before the term globalization could take shape. And it was not just crossing borders, people traveled long distances crossing mountains and thick forest, just to get to the next village.

                                                       JHUM CULTIVATION

My grandparents were one of those people, or so I’ve heard. The stories say they had a jhum field near Shilloi Lake; and grandfather possessing a strong spiritual presence caught the eye of a thero (a being from the other world). They said the thero attached a long rope from Shilloi Lake to my grandfather’s hut, they also said he would ride a stranger vehicle on the rope ,and many a time the naughty thero would empty their wine pots, or scare my grandmother but levitating her in the air.

                                                AERIAL VIEW OF SHILLOI LAKE

                                               SHILLOI LAKE AFTER THE RAINS END

 Realistically speaking it was hard to imagine a spirit, but it was harder to imagine my grandparents cultivating a field near Shilloi Lake; it was just too far. If we took a car we had to drive for eight hours, and that was if the roads were OK, if not it took much longer. Today we don’t have to fear tigers or any other wild animals, but back then they had look out for their lives even as they traveled to cultivate food. Then again they spoke of the experience as something normal, and they would not have thought of it as anything special had the thero not interfered. It would have just been another way of surviving.

                           

                  

Today if we wanted to visit a place like Shilloi Lake it would take at least two days, a lot of packing and a very bumpy journey; today we don’t need to fear tigers just tumbling rocks and bad roads. But if we managed to get to Shilloi Lake we would be closer to the village where two countries meet.

With a population of just one hundred and eighty six, Avankhu and its eight four male and 102 female population Avankhu sits at the end of the tunnel. Bertil Litner did not travel to Avankhu; he took another path because it was too heavily guarded. He might have, had it not been so well guarded, we will never know.

 In the 1960’s Avankhu might have had a larger population due to its proximity with Burma, and the trade that took place between the two countries.

With borders and territories marked out, it is no longer possible to travel to china on foot. Now we need passports, visas and many, many approvals. Avankhu’s situation is not as dire yet, but its larger sub division Pongkhungri and its people now seek medical treatment in phek as place so far away from their own, the don’t enter Burma like they did in the past, at least not as freely. And rightly so; because now roads are filled with Assam rifle Army patrol men. Check post are set up every few meters to regulate underground illegal activities.

                                    SATELLITE IMAGE OF JESSAMI AND  PHEK

Even visits to close places like jessami, which sits on the border of Manipur are regulated. But that doesn’t stop trade because everyone in my town still travel to jessami to buy morie (Burmese) products. And so does my family, because we know that is the place we find cheap blankets, jumbo boxes ( big plastic boxes) and more importantly fermented sweets and sunflower seeds. The shops in jessami are filled with all sorts of electronics, emergency lamps, snacks, footwear, all stacked till they touch the ceiling, all you need to do is ask.

And ask I did, but I learned that on my second trip. I regretted it because the shops were always up to date with the latest trends and more often than not they only introduced experimental products once. If I had asked the first time, the shopkeepers might have magically conjured the mini water boiler I wanted so much.

Getting to this shoppers haven is much more relaxing journey, if you ignore the check post along the way; because every once in a while the river banks along the road, provide much needed calm for a tea stop. And the roads are not so terrible just a little narrow and bumpy.

As my cousin would put it,

 “You won’t die from that height; there are trees below and the river’s pretty shallow.

If you want a taste of death try driving to thewati”

What brought on this comment was his trip to thewati a small area under Pongkhungri, a few hundred kilometers from Avankhu. He was on election duty as were ten other people, and thanks to digitization of voting system, two huge EVM machines added to their already heavy luggage.  As expected the vehicle carrying the election party could only go as far as the man made road went, halfway through they had to get off and wait for the villagers to arrive.

 Even though the villagers carried most of their luggage, the town bred men on election duty found it hard to keep up with the nimble villagers who were so used to climbing the rocky hills; the army personnel from the plains were worst off as they found it hard to carry even their guns, or at least that was what it seemed like from the video my cousin sent me.

Tired men were not all he captured as from the top of the hill; he got the view of old thewati and the endless mountain range. He told me about the plants that grew on the mountain, how pine forest mixed with alder trees and how wild orchids bloomed on those trees. His stories did not end there; he talked extensively about the people and how language travelled. It was shocking revelation that the older population still spoke Angami, because the primary language used in that area was pochuri. So finding a local speaking fluent Angami and even recognizing his accent to be from Khonoma was the highlight of his stories.

My own journey to Avankhu started with the story of the old woman, my cousin told me she cried when she spoke to him; that she thought she would never meet someone from Khonoma before her death. The old lady probably visited the Mao hills as a girl or perhaps she encountered some Angami underground, but her story reminded me of AZ phizo’s last day in Khonoma.

My mother said she heard the story from her mother; that on his last day he asked my great grandmother, his cousin to cook him a meal “uramia ga”.it is said that the meal consisted of vegetables from great grandmother’s garden. Another part of the story goes that for the last time he washed at the village well, and that he saved the last bit of soap for the next person. Because That night a few associates snuck him out of Nagaland to Pakistan and then London; he secretly visited Nagaland many times but at the end he breathed his last in London.

The story goes that he died in regret because he could never see his homeland. My character was also supposed to be someone looking for his homeland, so I imagined over and over again what his reaction would be when he entered Avankhu. But there was only so much I could write from the stories I had heard and each person gave his/ her own version of the story.

So the second part of my journey began, it would not be the stories my cousin told me, or the stories passed from my grandfather. It would be the Avankhu I saw with my own eyes.

Uncertainties aside I was afraid I would be disappointed, that the place was not as I imagined. Over the years I had constructed and image of Avankhu. It was the meeting point of two countries so I imagined I could see Myanmar on the other side when I looked from Nagaland.

Or the Avankhu after the first rain, after all dust had been washed away, the mountains would be covered with green grass, like in the stories.

Then there was barren Avankhu, when all the grass would dry up and the mountains would be colored the shade of the setting sun.

                                       ELECTION PARTY EN ROUTE OLD THEWATI

The Avankhu I saw was neither, it poured the whole night before the appointed day. By morning the roads were muddy and there was fear of landslides. Extra ration of biscuits, water and blankets were prepared in case we got stranded. While my cousins prepared for the worst, I prayed that our trip not be cancelled. Luckily it wasn’t, but we moved out very late because mist had risen from the river, covering out vision in a blanket of white. If we weren’t careful the boleros engine would stall from the cold.

Once there was enough visibility we went full throttle, the first part of the journey was nothing special, just the usual pine forest mixed with the smell of the misty mountains. But once we descended into thewati the scenery changed, though we couldn’t see too much because it was so late. We spent the night at a guest house run by the village and unlike other trips we did not stop at Shilloi Lake but went straight to Waziho.

Because we knew we had a trek coming, we gave ourselves time to unwind at new thewati, that evening I tried looking for the old lady my cousin mentioned; I never found her. But I later learned that she was from old thewati and I had just missed her because we in such a hurry. Ironic because once we got close to old thewati we had slowed down, because that was where we got off the vehicle, to continue on foot.

The villagers were kind enough to help us with our things, but in the midst of panting and trying not to fall off the steep rocky path, I forgot to ask about the old lady.  If I look back, most of the time I was trying not to fall into the ravine or roll down the mountain.

In the end I never saw Avankhu; it started pouring before we could enter old thewati. To comfort me our guide pointed to one of the mountain range on the right, he said

“It’s there, just beyond those mountains, it’s not very far so you can visit next time”

i remember how cheated I felt, when he said it was just a few mountains away. All I could see thought the pouring rain, was bits of green and curly mountains.

By the time the rain stopped the whole mountain range got enveloped in a thick blanket of fog. Like the legend of that place, It was the mountain god telling me to go back. Perhaps I was not ready to face Avankhu, maybe I will this year as I have another trip planned. And if the mountain god permits, i will take the path to Avankhu, the village which sits between two countries.