These last ten days have been the story of stories; a string
of persons and peoples and stories, each vastly different from the other.
First there was the couple behind me in line at Chennai
airport, deep in the middle of a domestic argument, unperturbed by being
entertainment for all in earshot. Ask your brother to behave, she said. He is
my brother. Who are you to demand, he retorted, and they went on and on, back
and forth, voices rising and dipping as we all inched our way forward towards
the almost-elusive red-topped desks of SpiceJet. Everyone made eye contact with
everyone else, smiling sheepishly, almost apologizing for eavesdropping,
seeming to say ‘you know, I’m not usually this badly behaved, but well…'
Then came the story of the air hostess. I forget her name,
but in my head, she looks like a Reshma. Or a Snehaa. Not Sneha, mind you. The
extra A adds character. But coming back to the story of Reshma-Snehaa from
Chandigarh. Sitting as I was at the emergency exit seat, she was right next to
me for take-off and landing, overly worried about my jacket not being in the
overhead compartment. It might fall on me, she reasoned. A jacket. It seemed
odd, the insistence. She sat in front of me, uncomfortably crossing her legs at
the knees, her black panty-hose seeming like it had seen many, many thousands
of feet above the sea day and again. Her foundation was a little too thick and
something about her posture made me pose a question – not the usual small talk
about how beautiful the clouds looked but an actual question. Do you like your
job, I asked. She seemed startled. Had no one asked? Had it been so long since
her conversations had gone beyond ‘Welcome onboard’? I like partying with the
girls, she said. We have to fly six schedules at a stretch. I got home only at
7 AM this morning and here I am now. Somehow in that moment, the foundation got
explained. We have a layover at The Park tonight, she went on. Interesting, I
remember thinking, how our layovers are in airports and hers in hotels.
Perspective. Take care, she wished me as I left the flight, veering away from
the script of ‘Thank you for choosing SpiceJet.’ You have fun tonight, I
smiled, all the while aware of fellow passengers wondering where this
familiarity came from. I had an inside secret with Reshma-Snehaa.
The Guwahati flight story was one of a malfunctioning Compaq
ThinkPad. It played music, it played music, and it played music. The slightly
shaken man across the aisle from me tried everything in the amateur handbook
for misbehaving computers. Esc. Ctrl+Alt+Del. Force Suspend. Mute. Nothing.
Finally amidst many half-muffled sniggers, he exasperatedly force-shut-down the
whole thing and pretended to be deeply engrossed in the inflight food menu. I
wonder if he knew he couldn’t buy anything on the forty minute flight anyway.
Get out of Guwahati airport – defense airport, by the way.
You are greeted by ominous announcements that photography is prohibited. I had
been told that a certain Sujata had been waiting at the airport for the last
few hours, and figured I would wait with her. I noticed a girl sitting with her
rucksack for company and very confidently approached her. You must be Sujata, I
announced. Umm no, I am Supriya, she replied. Still worked though. It turned
out we were going to the same place, she with a friend and me alone. How did
your parents let you, she wanted to know. Not the first time I had faced that question.
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The state of the "good" roads. |
And then for the next few hours, it was an influx of
stories. The corporate lawyer who took two solo trips a year and incidentally
was a mother of a three-year-old. The uber-cool nurse who later revealed she
was in the army. The travel writer who wrote with more desks than I could keep
track of. The textile businessman from Punjab. The IT guys from Bangalore and
Bombay. The girl who topped all the rankings there were to land a fancy job
just to quit because what better time than now? In that bus at the parking lot
of Guwahati airport, there were so many stories lying just beneath the layer of
frustration (six hour delay in leaving) and anticipation (four day music fest
in Arunachal!) The best part? No one needed to scratch it. We just let it lie. No
history, no baggage, hell no last names even. We were just a motley set of solo
travelers heading out to arguably the country’s most far flung music fest. And
that, there, was a story in itself.
And then there were the others. The Coast Guard guy. The Swiggy
guy. The girls in the tent next door with a dreamcatcher down the middle. The
guy with the awesome pants. Names became immaterial, a redundant detail. In the
temporariness of Ziro, there lay the magic of freedom.
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The view from the campsite
Courtesy: Mehr Paintal |
Music apart (and that everyone will write about), Ziro is a
wondrous place. We’ll get a Sumo from Naharlagun, they told us, and somehow
that translated to ‘cannot be too far away’ in my head. Six hours on
non-existent roads proved me wrong. The closest “city” was Hapoli, our go-to
for everything from Lays chips to ATMs. We made two round trips to Hapoli and
each was a story to tell. The first time round, we were an eight-person bunch
in need of localizing. Used to flip-flops and the luxury of swiping a card at
our convenience, this was a trip in an effort to adapt. Gumboots and hard cash
had us set out to “find our way” to Hapoli. After walking resolutely in the
opposite direction for fifteen minutes (we were told there was a taxi stand
there), we stopped a local in a smallish car. He had four seats free. We were
eight of us. Could he drop us to the taxi stand, we ventured. Sure, he agreed,
and we tumbled in, a rather tangled mess of limbs. It was he, Chada, who told
us the story of Ziro. Ziro was a tribe, and a bad one at that – one who practiced
head-hunting. They spread violence and hatred amongst the people and so, they
were soon chased out by the tribe that remain the local population – the
Apatanis. The Ziro people were gone, but somehow the name stayed, and the
Apatani women began practicing a form of facial tattoos to scare outsider men
away. Chada then asked us where we were from, and we joked that he had the
country crammed into his car – Delhi, Bombay, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, all of
it. He drove us to Hapoli, overheard us cribbing about the state of the ATMs
(not working/too crowded) and made phone calls on our behalf. Jugaad tho ho hi
jayega, he announced. A few minutes later, he apologised, saying if it was an
Arunachal Pradesh account, he would’ve helped. Instead, he offered to wait
until we finished our errands to drop us back to the campsite. We convinced him
we would be okay and set out in search of our candy-coloured gumboots. On the
way back, we found our way to the taxi stand where we met two business partners
from Jaipur and rode back up to the camp. How did you figure we were headed to
the same place, we asked. Shiny new gumboots.
The next Hapoli trip was just as much of a story, if not
more. Living in a campsite has its definite wins but personal hygiene is not
one of them and running water fast becomes things of lore. We decided we needed
atleast one shower to ride us through four days and invited ourselves to a
friend’s room. On the hierarchy of Ziro festival-ers, he was the divine incarnate,
with hot water on tap, plug points 24x7, and a mattress to boot. So us three
girls set out to find our way in search of cleanliness. When we saw an army van
pass us by, we stopped it out of habit, just to try our luck. Havaldar Saab not
only stopped and dropped by 200m away from our destination but also called us
in fifteen minutes to make sure we had reached. Showered and clean, many hours
later, the three of us and our host set back out for the fest only to be greeted
by abandoned roads and no transport options in sight. Hartal. So we waited.
And ate street food while we were at it. But primarily waited. And then we saw
a car. A five seater with four people in it. We were four more people standing
on the street. Yet something possessed us to ask. One of the people sitting in
the back plus one of our own proceeded to open up the boot and sit on luggage
while the other six squeezed into the car. From Hapoli to Ziro. We definitely made
heads turn. And that is how we got back to Ziro.
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The festival at the day stage.
Courtesy: Mehr Paintal |
The trip back to Guwahati was essentially the same in
reverse, adjusted for the wear and tear of four days of tent existence. At 6 AM
one fine morning (no idea what day it was) we found ourselves in front of
Guwahati airport, our official pick up/drop point. I was the first one left in
the group slated to leave and my train was at 12:30 PM. We sat around like
homeless people, scattered on luggage trolleys and pavements, too sleepy to
figure out what to do, invited raised eyebrows and even the one-off question of
‘where did you guys come from?’ Eventually some heads swung into action. Oyo
and Uber saw ten of us rent one room. Express purpose? Bathroom, bed and a
place to throw luggage. No sooner had we all trooped into the room much to the
amazement/amusement of the management did seven of us find a way to squeeze ourselves
onto a double bed. I do not know how or for how long. It was 11 AM when I woke
up. I bade my goodbyes and made my way to Guwahati junction, with the
Brahmaputra to my left for company most of the way.
The train brought with it more stories. A 74-year-old man
who wanted to know the exact itinerary of my travel – where was I going, which
was my next train, what route did it take, how long would it take me? A couple
of matronly looking women who only said they were travelling to Kolkata for “work”.
An older woman who proceeded to give us her family history – a sister in
Guwahati, a brother somewhere in Maharastra, and she was a Jain who was on her
way back from visiting her guru. A 30-something-year-old man on the side lower
berth below me who called me ‘madam’ once and then went to sleep for the next
sixteen hours.
The story of Kolkata was equal part familiarity and
strangeness. The familiarity smelt of soap, shampoo, and a lived-in house. It
was the yellow of a borrowed t-shirt, the warmth of a friend who knew you in a
previous avatar. In Kolkata, familiarity was Salt Lake. And then came the
strangeness – of taxi guys who spoke in things only deceptively sounding like
Hindi to the Madrasi ear, of the mad traffic intense in quality not quantity,
the ample availability of literature and music and HS in the air. In Kolkata,
strangeness was College Street, and sitting on a disintegrating stool while
someone ran helter-skelter trying to source Darlymple at your say so. It is
being approached by a wide-eyed girl who says the words ‘Presidency’ and ‘play’
before disappearing into the crowd again. Actually, the real strangeness is
running into Presidency Girl again just as you finish your street shopping
loot, and in one second, deciding to follow her to this event, Bengali flyer in
hand. The joy of travelling alone is the joy of split second decisions that end
with invitations to camp at Presidency on the next visit to Kolkata. Street
plays in Kolkata as the evening sun faded out to give way to spot lights and
phone flash lights. Just because. Like I said in conversation with Ms-UG2
Sociology, serendipity works in magical ways. Much too soon, it was time to get
on the next train. Howrah-Chennai Central, or so I thought.
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The posters at Presidency College. |
Perched as I am atop B1 24 Coromandel Express, my company
has grown on me. There is the trilingual uncle (Bangla-Hindi-English) and his
supremely well put together wife who hasn’t spoken a word in the last
thirty-five hours. I have never seen someone so well coordinated for a
long-distance train journey – pale gold crepe sari with gold embroidery,
attached blouse, chappal with gold work on them…She fell sick a few hours ago
and is now lying down with the help of Avomin. And then the family of three –
uncle who took my help to get the sim out of his phone and very determinedly
offered me dates, aunty who insists on talking to me only in Bangla and looks
like she brought the kitchen with her for company (they are carrying a
cardboard carton of water bottles amongst other pots and pans), and the girl
who looks a couple of years older than me and deeply disapproving of everything
I do and incredulous that I don’t understand Bangla. Oh, Madrasi, she later
explained away. Trilingual uncle greeted me this morning with “brush nahin kar
rahi ho, beta?” and guilt-tripped me into it before it was 9:30 AM. The other
lone traveler in our midst is a man speaking muffled Tamil and clearer Hindi,
wearing khaki shorts and a blue t-shirt stamped with the words ‘US AIR FORCE,’
and sporting a crepe bandage over what looks like accident injuries on his leg.
We make a rather amusing group. In the next bay are a bunch of kids for whom
every station since Odisha has been Chennai, and whose lifetime amusement lies
in imitating the vendors who walk by. Paani, mango, cool drinks! Anda biryani,
extra meals!
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That is where I stopped writing this piece. A couple of hours later, we pulled into Egmore instead of Central (since Central only takes arrivals till 11 PM apparently) and long story short, I managed to get home in one piece.
There is a much, much longer travelogue for anyone who is interested. Please feel free to comment/email/text/reach out, and I would be happy to email it to you.