Truck de India!

by Rajat Ubhaykar

  Not that one can blame the journalists for not being intrepid enough or for not bothering to do the legwork. Newspapers here are short-staffed, and it is understandable that fearless journalism will have difficulty finding fertile ground in a conflict zone, where power flows from the muzzle of the gun and not from the nib of the pen; where the only sound democracy makes is the tinkling of central government funds disappearing into the pockets of insurgents, politicians and contractors. The awful roads in Kohima were back-breaking proof of that.

  My visit to the office, however, is not completely futile. As I pick up the newspaper lying around, I finally come to know the official reason behind the bandh in Mao whose ominous shadow has marred my travels in Nagaland. It’s a small item tucked away in the inside pages, which begins with:

  Normal vehicular movement along the two main national highways was hit owing to United Naga Council’s (UNC) 48 hour vehicular bandh along the NHs in Naga dominated areas.

  What is the UNC? It’s a Manipur-based Naga group, which many consider a front organization of NSCNIM, the predominant insurgent group in the region. The reason for their protest is the non-fulfilment of the ‘Alternative Arrangement’, a long-standing demand for a share of power in Manipur that has remained unmet and is rekindled periodically to organize bandhs like these. I hope they don’t announce another bandh when I reach Imphal. That would leave me effectively stranded in Manipur.

  It’s only five o’clock when I emerge from the office, but it’s already getting dark. I realize there’s not much to do in Kohima after sunset. The city practically shuts down by 6:30 pm. Only restaurants bother to remain open till late, which here means 8:30 pm. So before the last one ends up slamming its shutters, I head out for an early dinner, to a place claiming to serve ‘authentic’ Naga cuisine.

  A map of Nagaland with ‘Hope 2 C U AGAIN’ written on it welcomes me as I climb the stairs to their first floor establishment. The decor is tastefully done in the traditional style—cane-wood pillars and wood-plank floors, with the aberration of plastic chairs. The proprietor recommends I try the pork anishi, a Naga delicacy consisting of rice served with a thick, meaty gravy of pork and fermented colocasia leaves.

  It seems like a good idea. The sight of the dish, when it arrives, lifts my spirits. Its presentation is alluring—the rice and pork gravy is served on a banana leaf within a cane container. But I discover that looks can be deceiving. Because as soon as I bring a spoonful of gravy to my mouth, its pungent smell makes me gag. It takes a while for my decidedly conservative sense of smell and taste to adjust to the flavour, which bears no trace of familiarity, not a single ounce of masala that my taste buds can soak in. In between bites, I fill my mouth with heaving sips of scalding hot lemon tea, using it as a palate cleanser. Eventually though, I do manage to finish the dish. My big learning from this experience? It’s that genuinely authentic food is more often than not, an acquired taste.

  The next afternoon I head to a petrol pump on the outskirts of Kohima, hoping to find a truck to Imphal. A crew of Sikh truckers is parked in the compound, cooking rice and dal. There’s Gurvinder Singh from Jalandhar, along with four of his companions. They tell me they were separated from their wheat convoy the previous day on account of a puncture. Presently, they’re waiting to rejoin the convoy when it returns, too scared to travel by themselves. ‘Darr ke rehna padta hai yahan (You can never be too careful here),’ says Gurvinder.

  Other truckers are also biding their time, waiting for the city limits of Kohima to be opened to heavy vehicles at five in the evening. When the gates of Kohima do open, the highway comes back to life. The convoy makes an appearance, a column of 230 trucks with indicative numbers plastered on the vehicles’ windshields, escorted in the front and back by armoured military vehicles, which accompany food and oil convoys on alternate days. Unfortunately for Gurvinder, this one’s an oil convoy. So in spite of his best efforts to join it, the officer in charge sticks to protocol and tells him to wait another day and join the food convoy. Gurvinder returns, punching his palm in exasperation.

  Once the convoy passes, I see that a couple of Naga youths have started collecting ‘entry tax’ from trucks, a little distance ahead from the pump. They are wiry, agile boys with cold eyes and unsmiling faces, their crew cuts projecting an air of ruthless efficiency that is best not tested. They remind me of the professional assassins you see in films, except they’re dressed casually in T-shirts and jeans.

  Their tax collection routine is tried and tested, and their roles, clearly demarcated. One of them is the collector and the other, the enforcer. As trucks slow down to a crawl in front of them, the resident khalassi holds up a Rs 500 note out of the window. The collector nimbly snatches the note from the khalassi’s hand mid-momentum, while passing on a receipt simultaneously, and moves on the next truck. Traffic slows down in the process, but doesn’t come to a standstill. The enforcer, who is evidently the collector’s superior, stands a little distance apart, leaning against a stout lathi, aloof but alert.

  I stare at this strangely hypnotic routine for some time. The spell is broken when one of the drivers makes the mistake of trying to evade tax by accelerating his truck, only to have his windshield promptly smashed by the enforcer, who lunges towards the truck with his lathi with remarkable swiftness. Impenetrable cracks appear on the glass. The trucker drives on, not daring to stop. The enforcer smirks with satisfaction.

  As the truck disappears around the bend, I wonder: how will the driver see through his windshield? And who exactly are these people wielding lathis on the highway with impunity? The answer is complex, like much of the power dynamics in the North East.

  I later turn to Sudeep Chakravarti, the author of an eponymous book on NH39, for some answers. He tells me that tax collection is carried out by different tribal insurgent groups along the highway depending on their ‘area of influence’.

  ‘From Dimapur to Senapati in Manipur, tax collection is largely by Naga groups, primarily NSCN(IM). From Senapati to Kangpokpi, it is by Kuki groups. From Kangpokpi to Imphal, Valley Based Insurgency Groups, a term used to signify Meitei rebel groups, do the collection. When the highway moves south-east to Imphal and travels towards Moreh, it begins to pass into Naga and then Kuki-controlled areas. In Chandel district, there is conflict between Naga, Kuki and Meitei rebels. It’s a battleground for revenue, as much as for ideologies and territory.

  ‘The reason why such an arrangement is allowed to continue is because everybody makes a cut. The Nagas have been allowed to continue with the parallel administration of Naga areas in Nagaland and Manipur, for reasons best known to the government, even after the ceasefire with NSCN(IM) in 1997. The rebel groups routinely raise taxes from Naga citizens. They do run a parallel administration.’

  I wonder which group the boys with the cruel mouths claim allegiance to, but I’m afraid my nosy questions might just result in a broken nose. So I instead try my luck at hailing down trucks. But success eludes me here too. It is almost dark now and the drivers understandably don’t want to run the risk of picking up a stranger. Conflict zones are not exactly conducive to the spirit of hitchhiking. I head back to the city, dejected.

  The next afternoon I go to a check-post on the other side of the city. But I’m met by the same fate. No trucks are allowed to pass through until after 5 pm. The check-post, manned by several policemen, is surrounded by paan shops run by Biharis, most of them from the Champaran district. I loiter around.

  At five, the trucks start moving, but none of them stop for me. Moreover, there are no restaurants nearby so I persist in my quest on an empty stomach. After three hours, around eight o’clock, the Naga policemen at the barricades, who had ignored me thus far, finally take note of my pitiful attempts at hailing down trucks. One of them walks up to me and asks if I’ve had anything to eat. When I say I haven’t, he invites me over for dinner at their barracks next to the check-post. I gratefully accept.

  We step into the building, which consists of a coupl
e of rooms dimly lit by bulbs hanging from wires. The policeman hands me a plate and points me towards a table with a few vessels arranged in a row, as in a buffet. There’s rice, pork gravy and a subji consisting mainly of potatoes and leafy vegetables. I load my plate with food, and considering there are no chairs or tables in the room, wolf it all down in the semi-darkness, leaning against one of the walls.

  When I come out, the policemen ask me what exactly I am trying to achieve here. I tell them about my trip. To my surprise, they hail down the next truck that arrives, and ask its occupants to make some space. I try to tell them that they don’t need to do this, but they persist.

  This is not something I had accounted for. Hitchhiking is no fun if the driver’s been coerced into taking me in. It might even turn out to be dangerous. What if the driver unloads me in the middle of nowhere? So when the police instruct me to get into the truck, I hesitate. They continue to insist, more firmly this time, perhaps just to get me out of their hair. I’m left with no choice but to comply.

  The driver and his two friends are young boys in their early twenties, all of them in shorts and T-shirts. They don’t speak much Hindi or English so I find myself constrained for conversation. All I am able to discern is that they’re Rongmein Nagas from Tamenglong district in Manipur, part of an eight-member crew split into three trucks.

  We drive through the pitch dark hills in silence. It’s a bumpy ride, and the truck’s headlights periodically light up milestones that mark the limits of the Japanese advance into India after various battles. The only times we stop are when the driver pays seven hundred rupees at the Khozama gate and five hundred rupees at the Phesama gate, after which we reach the border town of Mao, the site of the disturbance. To my relief, it is utterly deserted.

  With that, we cross into Manipur. My fear of andarwalas has subsided significantly by now. Normalcy has a way of making itself felt in the most troubled of places. It may be of a different, more unpleasant variety but people do have to go on about their daily lives, regardless of the violence that surrounds them. Perhaps, they learn to treat it as background noise, an insistently raucous soundtrack to their lives.

  My reverie is interrupted by a loud, sharp noise. A bullet shot? I peer out of the truck, my eyes scanning for approaching men, convinced that my complacency about andarwalas has cost me. The driver stops the vehicle. The khalassi quickly jumps out. A few moments of tense silence ensues.

  It’s a puncture, the khalassi reports back. I heave a sigh of relief.

  I get more used to this, however, during the course of the next few hours, as the tyres of the other trucks in our crew also burst one after the other. This delays our journey by more than an hour, as we halt in the darkness by the side of the road to change tyres, enveloped by the mysterious silence of the windswept forest.

  Finally, around dawn, we stop for rest near a dhaba in the Naga-dominated area of Senapati. We are positioned on a hill overlooking a valley spotted with perfectly square rice paddies, boxed by a circular ring of hills carpeted with tall trees that sway with the breeze. I’m not sleepy, and the scenery is to die for, so I go for a walk, as the truckers proceed to sleep in the cabin. I amble along the highway, keeping an eye out for a place that serves tea. I notice a path flanked by maize fields on the hill slopes, leading into a village. A furry, black dog stands in the middle and looks at me with inquiring eyes.

  The path is tempting but I walk on, passing houses made of wood plank with clothes hanging out to dry. Just as I’m beginning to savour the invigorating silence of dawn, an overnight bus full of sleeping passengers honks repeatedly for no obvious reason, disrupting its tranquility quite effectively.

  Finally, I spot it. A dhaba, and the promise of tea. Upon entering, I notice the walls of the dhaba are plastered with movie posters—one featuring Shahrukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra, and the other Ajay Devgan and Kajol. Clearly, the insurgents’ ban on Bollywood movies is not taken seriously everywhere. I peer into the kitchen at its back and, to my surprise, find it occupied by a man who’s already kindling a pile of wood to heat up water for the tea. Ten minutes later, I am sipping on lal chai. In any corner of India, if you wish for tea early in the morning with every fibre of your being, you’ll always find it.

  At six o’clock, the roars of passing trucks resume. The village too comes to life—women energetically sweep the verandah of their houses, men in torn vests fetch water using a pair of metallic containers that dangle from either end of a stick balanced on their shoulders.

  When I head back to the truck an hour later, I’m surprised to find that the truckers already getting ready to leave. I’ve arrived just in time. We set off again. After driving for some time in the hills, we pass a bridge guarded by paramilitary soldiers. The Barak River, which originates in the hills of Manipur, makes an appearance. The road gets progressively worse until we stop at a tax checkpoint at Hengbung village in Sadar Hills.

  Once we’re done paying our dues, we pass the Kuki stronghold of Kangpokpi, the entire road leading up to it lined with Baptist churches. Soon after this, the winding hill road soon gives way to a narrow, straight path parallel to level ground, surrounded by houses with sloping tin roofs, paddy fields and lush, cloud-capped hills.

  We’ve arrived in the Imphal valley, the homeland of the Meiteis. Eons ago, this entire valley is said to have been flooded with water. What remains of all that water now is the Loktak Lake nearby, famous for its floating vegetation and the endangered sangai deer that tread on its grass.

  Imphal is barely forty kilometres away, and I’m hoping we’ll be there within the hour, when another gunshot rings out, the fourth tyre to give up on the terrible roads, leading to another hour of delay. My companions are down to their last spare tyre now.

  My spirits are however aroused when I begin seeing signs of urbanity, and definitely peak when we pass an IT park on the outskirts of Imphal, after which the city proper begins. Unlike Kohima, which was lively and, one could even say, urbane, Imphal is dusty and morose. The city also induces a considerable amount of anxiety in me, considering its rundown streets are patrolled by armoured military jeeps with gunners manning light machine guns at the top. Stone-faced commandos clutching assault rifles stand guard at traffic junctions, surveying the people milling around them, constantly turning their heads to take in the scene, like heavily armed mechanical dolls. One can’t really blame them for being on high alert though. With the Naga and Kuki rebels holding fort in the hills, the Meitei rebel groups in the valley, and the security forces everywhere, the city is a tinderbox that could explode any time. Also, because the Imphal region is the only part of Manipur not subject to the provisions of AFSPA, they all tend to congregate here.

  A sort of trust deficit is palpable in the air here. Men size each other up warily, seeking answers to the one question preying on their minds: who are you? Are you Indian, or tribal, if tribal, which tribal, if Naga, which Naga, or Meitei, or are you a miya, a Bengali Muslim. The answer to that question is what determines the nature of further engagement. This breakdown of interpersonal trust means people tend to stick with their own, ensuring this vicious cycle of identity politics and ethnic strife continues indefinitely. Is there a way out of this?

  At around three in the afternoon, the drivers unload me at the godown along with their goods. I slip some money into their pockets for their trouble, and bid them goodbye. I may not have managed to get a word out of them, but they were nonetheless amiable, passing me a reassuring smile every now and then. I check into a hotel. I really need the sleep, but before that, some food. I call for some fried rice and turn on the television.

  The TV in my room has no Hindi channels. Unlike the dhaba in the morning, all cable operators in Imphal seem to have bowed before the anti-Bollywood diktat of the separatists. So my choice is between Hollywood rom-coms, a Korean soap opera, and a Manipuri documentary on Irom Sharmila’s struggle against AFSPA that’s playing on a local channel called ISTV with English subtitles. I choose the latter.<
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  Interestingly, I find the Korean influence in Manipur to be prominent—visible not just on TV, but everywhere. When I buy a local newspaper, I see the entertainment pages are splashed with photos of K-pop stars, right next to updates on the relationship status of American celebrities like Nick Jonas. Korean fashion and hairdos also seem to be the rage in Imphal, widely flaunted by stylish youngsters in the city. The reason for this affinity for Korean culture? A study notes that ‘the key factor… is the cultural proximity of Korean and Manipuri societies in terms of both being of Mongoloid stock; both societies being based on clan communities.’

  Korean movies are extremely popular too. While there are some theatres, the consumption of movies is predominantly through DVDs, as in Kohima, often smuggled from across the Myanmar border via Moreh. There is a huge market for DVDs of Korean films and soap operas along with Hollywood and Bollywood films, not to mention the vibrant Manipuri film industry. Clearly, while public demonstration of love for Bollywood is frowned upon, the insurgents tolerate private consumption. Not that they have much to worry about. Most people here anyway seem to look for inspiration and direction in the consumer culture of South Korea and the West, not to Bollywood or India, which going by the angry tone of the Irom Sharmila documentary playing on the TV, is perceived as little more than an occupying force.

  After a brief nap, I step out for a walk. I have no money left on me, so I stroll around, looking for an ATM. I notice many of the buildings have signage in the Meitei script, the only indigenous script of the North East apart from Assamese. Meanwhile, right next to a defunct petrol pump are middle-aged women selling petrol and diesel in plastic water bottles by the roadside. It’s my first glimpse of the black economy that thrives here because of the frequent blockading of NH39 which tends to interrupt the supply of food and fuel.