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Tuesday Nov 25, 2008
Ten Lost Tribes Challenge - India: Danger and beauty
Posted by Amir Mizroch
    
IMPHAL, Manipur - We leave Churachandupur and head towards the airport for our flight to Assam province, due west. We're not going to spend any real time in Assam or meet any of the Bnei Menashe there, but the road we were going to take to Mizoram for the next leg of our journey has been closed by the authorities, so we have to fly to Assam and then drive to Mizoram through a mountain range. The whole North East region is seeing sporadic violence between assorted militants and the security forces, who are on high alert everywhere. Leave it to Israelis to trek their way through a war zone. Last night two drivers from the Manipur irrigation and flood control department were found dead on the outskirts of Imphal. According to the local press, the two were shot execution style, and were discovered by police near Imphal East. Later that night the army gunned down five suspected militants in two separate incidents in Imphal. Guns and ammunition were found on their bodies. On Sunday, a reporter for the Assamese daily Amar Asom was shot dead at close range by an assailant on a motorbike [Israel-style] after he received a call to rush back to his office in Imphal. Just as he got off his motorbike another person on a motorbike pulled up beside him and shot the reporter six times from point blank range, killing him on the spot. The murder is the second time in a week that a journalist has been killed in Manipur. Last Monday a sub-editor at the Imphal Free Press was found dead with bullet wounds to the head. I hope nobody in Manipur is reading my blog... Driving towards the airport on the outskirts of Imphal, I notice a small Muslim neighborhood with several dozen people dressed in Muslim garb standing outside some shops. About 1km down the road from them there is a large sign for a Presbyterian congregation. There seems to be a lot of religious activity in India. Eyal, our guide, tells us about the Hindi religion, and how Hindus are both monotheists and also believe in many gods. He also talks about the caste system and how its divided into five: the Brahmans [the elite, priests], Akshatria [the warrior class], the farmers, and the workers. The fifth caste is what is called 'the untouchables' and they are the lowest of the low. Ghandi apparently fought for their rights. Imphal airport is guarded by what seems like a battalion of heavily armed Indian soldiers, and the main gate is barricaded. Once through security and check-in I have some time to watch the cricket between India and England, together with the commanding officer in the departure lounge who has nothing better to do. We fly east to Asam state over a vast mountain range with lush jungle and winding rivers. Landing at Kumbhigram airport Silchar, I catch my first glimpse of beggars who are standing outside. A young boy leads an older one by the hand to our taxis to ask for money. The older boy's eyes seem totally damaged and whitened over, but they are bloodshot. His tongue is sticking all the way out and is flopped over his lower lip. Is he one of the 'untouchables' that Eyal was talking about? Eyal said that many parents in this caste ruin their children early on, either by breaking some of their limbs or giving them diseases, so as to make sure they will beg for the family. Horrible. It is almost impossible to escape this caste.
Street scene in Silchar PHOTO: Israel Weiss Photography weisssi@bezeqint.net
Once you leave the airport the terrain is pure jungle. Here and there little villages appear, but they are close to the main road. We drive in a convoy of 4 very old white HM Ambassador Classic taxis that look almost like the vintage British 'Humbers' - very cumbersome, but elegant. They must be from the 40's or 50s. There are no seatbelts in these cars, and the driver has his side mirror folded in towards the door - which gives you just the first indication of what kind of drive this was. The dust on the road is suffocating. I've already been coughing for two days because of all the dust on the roads and smoke in the air that's been filling my lungs, and the coughing and pain is getting worse. Towards Sunday afternoon I lose my voice, and by Sunday night the pain and coughing are so bad that I start to take antibiotics. Edgar, our American doctor on the expedition, provides the drugs. He's carrying a whole stash that he brought with him from Santa Fe. I've got my own antibiotics but they're mostly for stomach problems, so he gives me some of his. Not only is the dust on the road stifling us inside the car [we have to keep the windows closed up otherwise we'd choke], we're also driving blind due to the amount of dust. People drive terribly here. I think I've worked out the system: first you overtake, then you honk, then you look to see if it's safe. The pecking order is as follows: trucks give way to buses, private cars give way to trucks, taxi cabs move aside for private cars, 3-wheel scooter taxis make way for taxi cabs, 3 wheel taxis rule over scooters, scooters rule over bicycles, and everyone gives way to a cow or bull in the middle of the road. How they don't die by the thousands on the roads here I don't understand. After a while we enter an area where the jungle has been cleared for tea plantations - huge numbers of them, covering acres. Everywhere you look on the hills around are thousands upon thousands of little trees producing tea leaves, all lined up neatly in rows. We're heading towards the Doyapore Tea Estate - a huge tea farm and factory complex where the famous Indian green tea is made. It's the height of winter and outside it's a balmy 27 degrees. During the monsoon season it rains here 24/7 for about 3 months, the estate manager tells us. We're given a tour of the tea production facility, from when the leaves are brought in, dried, processed in various machines, gathered, sorted and stored. Each one of these processes requires several machines, and there are dozens of workers in the factory. What hits you straight away is the sweet tea smell that permeates the entire factory, an otherwise grim complex of low ceilings and grinding machines. Despite the great smell I wouldn't want to work here. The workers here are divided into work crews: those feeding the leaves into the drying turbines under huge noise; crews carrying leaves to the grinders and then to other machines - lots of carrying and lifting; women crews sweep and sort the tea when it comes out of the heating machines; everyone is picking up and moving buckets across factory floors; and piling sacks of tea on top of each other. The smell of tea hides the smell of sweat. Each worker gets 56 Rupees a day, the equivalent of US $1. In addition to this they get food subsidies and other benefits.
PHOTO: Israel Weiss Photography weisssi@bezeqint.net
The estate manager takes us to his villa on top of the hill overlooking the plantation. He's a wiry, and very short, old gentleman in the British style [he wears white tennis socks which are pulled up over his shins]. He says that right now he's living in this large villa alone because his wife and son are away in Calcutta, where his son is studying. Using his bathroom I notice two toothbrushes. Maybe he likes having two toothbrushes. Just hours after we visit a tea factory I read in the afternoon edition of a local paper that another tea estate in the area was raided by robbers. The gang of five apparently snuck into the factory grounds, overpowered some of the workers there and locked them in a store room. The thieves then took the better part of two hours to select the finest quality tea stored in the estate, and made a clean getaway.
Finally, a picture of Israel the photographer PHOTO: Amir Mizroch
Amir Mizroch is the News Editor at The Jerusalem Post, a writer and an award-winning blogger. For all of Amir's blogs and articles, visit his personal blog Forecast Highs. PREVIOUS ENTRIES:
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