Mautam

The bamboo fruit

Mizoram Famine

On our way to Saikhawthlir village (meaning Sai = Elephant, Khaw = town/village, thlir = seeing/looking/sighting. A town/village where an Elephant is sighted or spotted). Following Phodoti, who walks 6-8 hours to collect a sack of rice. This was our shoot. We were dead by the time we reached her village on the top of a hill. In the photograph, also at the background is Rauta, our friend, without whose help it would have been impossible to carry our equipment. Phodoti's story is pretty much the story of most villagers in Mizoram. More so for the marginalised poor. This includes the Bru s and the Chakma s. Within the poor Mizos, they are treated differently. Almost a million people in Mizoram are surviving on one meal a day. That's because of bamboo flowering that happens every 48 years. It attracts rats, that wipe away acres of crops. This report was on Phodoti's village near the Myanmar border

Happy Mizoram

On our way back from the Mamit district in Mizoram. Mizoram has a very high literacy rate . Second highest in India.

Roll Down The Mountain

Mukut and I on a trawlailir. It's the most popular form of transport used in Mizoram by villagers. Just a wooden cart with a lever for controls. Roll down the mountain or push your way up. Most villagers often keep it in a corner and go inside the forest to fetch wood, get water and then with all their supplies they roll down and get back home.

Mizoram Sunday

This is Aizwal on a Sunday. Everything is shut as the entire town goes to church.

Mountains of Mizoram

Mizoram has a hilly terrain. Hills are steep (avg. height 1000 metres) and separated by rivers which flow either to the north or south creating deep gorges between the hill ranges. The highest peak in Mizoram is the Blue Mountain ( Phawngpui) with a height of 2210 metres.

Mizoram

Just back from Mizoram. We were the first TV crew to travel to the interiors of Mizoram and report on the largely unreported famine in the state. A famine that takes place every 48 years after bamboo bloom attracts rats, whose population explodes and thousands of acres of crops are wiped out.