Randomrandom: Assam

Showing posts with label Assam. Show all posts

Sunday, January 6, 2013

A mad green soul

Photograph@Arijit Sen -All Rights Reserved

In December 2012 we also travelled to Jorhat in Assam to meet Jadab Mulai Payeng, a green hero. For the last thirty three years of his life he has been crossing this river and planting trees near an isolated sandbar of the Bramhaputra river and has single-handedly given rise to a forest.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Assam Violence

Photograph@Arijit Sen--All Rights Reserved

Last month violence in the Bodoland Territorial Areas District in Assam has left 400,000 people homeless and at least 57 dead. We travelled to some of the villages that have been burnt by mobs. It presents a picture of horror and helplessness. Despite promises and assurances no one knows how long it will take to rebuild homes and rebuild lives.

Transcript and Link of a CNN-IBN video report: http://ibnlive.in.com/news/amidst-ruins-hope-survives-in-kokrajhar/275792-3-251.html

This is a link to the news documentary on the violence: Assam: Split Wide Open

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Train Again

The Hill Queen zigzagging to Halflong, North Cachar

Sunday, August 29, 2010

On a train to North Cachar

After Nagaland was in Delhi for a while. And then travelled to North Cachar in the hill district of Assam. What a fascinating train journey in the metre gauge line! More on the journey and North Cachar in the next posts.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Bitter Tea

Trade Unions, Tea bodies and the government in Assam have decided to give an increment to labourers in tea gardens. All this has been done probably keeping in mind the state elections in 2011. Sadly, post-raise it appears that the trade unions have stayed on in negotiations as a yes-body. The wage increment is just one small example of labour exploitation. Not just Assam and tea, it is a trend across India.

These labourers, asked us for money half-jokingly when they were being photographed. The tea industry not just in Assam but across India has come out of a slump after almost 10 years. When we met the top policy guys in tea, they said that it is a labour intensive industry and wages should not judged on the basis of money alone. We were told that there are also a lot of other benefits ( like subsidised ration/medical care) given to the workers. And now a raise.What is the raise amount? Rs 18 over a period of 45 months. How will the raise play out. In the first 15 months, the raise will be Rs 8. In the next 15 months, the raise will be Rs 5. And as a third and final installment Rs 5 will be increased in the next 15 months.

Sombaru works in a tea estate in Assam. A gentle, welcoming and helpful soul, he looks after labourers involved in plantation. A supervisory position that gives him the title of sardar. We met him near Kaziranga. When informed that the wages of daily labourers have been increased from Rs 58 per day to Rs 66 per day, he was clueless. We found out that wages are often paid in these gardens not on a daily basis and only per week. Subsidised ration that the labourers are entitled to is also not up to the mark.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

Picture Yourself On A Boat In A River

Majuli is the world's largest fresh water mid-river deltaic island. That's what everyone says. But some are not too sure about the claim. Majuli was once, 1,200 square kilometre. A web search and recent satellite images reveal that the island is now anything between 577 and 875 square kilometre. As Amar Grover writes in 2006, December issue of Geographical, " each year several square kilometres of the island, simply disappear"

This 100 feet long monstrous boat does three trips from Nimatighat to Majuli every day. We took the 10.30 am ride.

Everyone is up and ready to be in Majuli after a one and half hour ride on the Bramhaputra

Sunayana and her son Rahul with the happy group of women from Majuli. It appeared that they are regulars on the boat, old friends---travelling on the Bramhaputra, in and out of Majuli.

Krishna--the icon of the island? Some say that Majuli is the epicentre of culture in Assam. Probably, all began when in 16th Century, social reformer Srimanta Sankardeva came here and began spreading a more accessible form of Vaishnavite culture.

The boat moves. And those who are on it everyday, go about their routine. For them it might be just a boat and just a journey.

When do I cross the river? My journey, it continues and continues.

Overwhelmed at/on being photographed. (Sunayana and Priyodorshi noticed this). Most of them appeared to be followers of Krishna( or at least a deep faith in Krishna's divine powers), some of them were widows. On a 90 minute boat ride, we hardly got their stories. Stories probably hidden behind their smiles and helpful nature.

Between a journey and a book

Beautiful woman on the boat(II).

On the river, from our boat

A journey we have talked about and finally we are on the Bramhaputra.

We start for Majuli

The river we loved crossing

And what all will cross the river? Motorcycles

Bicycles

Happiness is a river and a boat

Nimatighat, Jorhat

Inside the boat. Masks, Mising huts and the island. Crossing the Bramhaputra is just a matter of time.

Beautiful woman on boat (I)

Friends

And friends

And river and boat

get set go! for Majuli.

http://www.silchartoday.com/tour_travels/assam/majuli/threatenedisland.htm

(Link to a 1998 report on the island)

http://www.indianexpress.com/ie/daily/19980705/18650344.html

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Assam October

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Hill Districts

The Hill districts of Assam, where I was travelling before the polls was deceptively quiet during the day of polling. At night this area presents a perfect picture of darkness and despair. Miles and miles of sugarcane fields, dark villages with houses open to the highways, bad roads, bad bridges and the constant fear of being ambushed by militants -- Karbi Anglong and North Cachar injects depression into every soul. It is difficult to realise the idea of election in these parts of India. Some political flags, some wall posters. Before elections, every night the Dimasa militants were targeting trains, killing people. The Karbi militants were abducting people, killing them. Strangely, on the day of the vote, the turnout was a near 60 per cent in these areas, the violence magically vanished. "They've been bought off," said our stringer. Maybe, he was right. After the polls, the violence and attacks on trains have begun yet again. These are some photographs taken in both Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hill Districts of Assam

Monday, April 27, 2009

Bramhaputra

Elections 2009

In one of the worst communal riots in India nearly 3,000 Muslim men, women and children were killed in Nellie, Assam on February 18, 1983. All the victims died for defying a call to boycott elections. Twenty five years since the riots it was time for the residents of this area in Assam to face elections again. Today in Assam, illegal migration remains a key election issue. Unfortunately, often, the people of Nellie who are bonafide citizens have been equated with foreigners. For victims of the Nellie massacre, the compensation has been Rs 5,000 for the next of kin of the dead, Rs 3,000 or Rs 1,000 for the injured. The people who survived the attacks plead to take a look at their wounds. But even 25 years on, the healing process hasn't started. At a time when people attack people labelling them outsiders, foreigners and what-nots, I found most of these men and women unaware of the larger politics behind it. Their voting decisions are also, often taken en masse. This April when suddenly the informed blackberry carrying citizenry want people to vote and independent candiddates are mushrooming to take care of Mumbai's potholes and Bangalore's highways, spare a thought for people at the margins.

Time-Off

Earlier this year. Meghalaya, Assam and Bhutan with Shamya, Ajitha, Rajarshi