Travel Log (14/4/08)

Dispatch 3 from Northeast India (14/4/08)

Identity and hegemony: Identity, with all of its philosophical and political complexities, is something that I have come face to face with numerous times in the short while I've been here. Whether it be the awe-inspiring struggles of oppressed identities in resisting both military and cultural hegemony or its degeneration into sectarianism and xenophobia, one is made to constantly think about where one is from, and its historical placing. Adivasi, Boro, Assamese, Naga, Khasi, Bangladeshi Muslim, Bengali, Bihari...often all other identities based on class, gender etc get subsumed under broad-based cultural-nationalist or sub-nationalist ones. In the Northeast, multiple identity-based struggles, positive or negative, and the acute nature of these struggles can more often than not be directly seen as a result of a very heavily armed occupationary presence.


Even sectarian battles, not obviously against the Indian state, have strong elements of Indian hegemony. In Gossaigaon, I found out that the Indian government supported, either covertly or openly, both the Bodo Liberation Tigers and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland at different times, which not only resulted in internecine battles between the two groups, but also the massacre of Adivasis and Muslims at different times by both Bodo groups. A friend who was doing field work in Manipur investigating clashes between different armed insurgencies such as Kuki and Naga groups found that the Indian government had funded and supported numerous of these groups at different times, playing them upon each other so as to dilute any resistance to the Indian state or even suppress any popular, democratic assertions. She also added that since the region she was examining bordered Burma, there was added cooperation between the Burmese and Indian militaries in planning operations together.


And this takes on other more sinister proportions. Another friend made an interesting point that while usually soldiers from the Indian heartland in the North and Central regions are used to suppress identity-based movements in the Northeast, soldiers from the Northeast are used to suppress the armed radical-left Naxalite movement in Central India, which has its base among the tribal communities of that region. Again further proving the designs of the Indian state that pits poor working class people with similar material conditions against each other.

Mongrel South Indian from Bangalore: I must say that, with all this talk on identity, I am of course finding previously dormant elements of my own. Now I have to strenuously say that it has been nothing but pleasant for me. The moment I say I'm from South India and live in Bangalore, I am greeted with the utmost affection. Multiple friends have told me about the great love that folks here in the Northeast have for South India and South Indians. Thus far, they have been proved absolutely right. Whether it's workers, intellectuals, peers, shopkeepers, or bus passengers, I have faced nothing but wide smiles and friendliness when I tell them about my roots in Kerala/Tamil Nadu and particularly when I tell them of the city I grew up in. Bangalore seems to have really built up it's brand value (for lack of a better phrase) across the region. Everyone tells me about a sister, cousin, uncle or grandchild working in Bangalore as a doctor, call-centre employee or a waiter in one of Bangalore's umpteen "Chinese" restaurants (come on, we all know Indian masalas are used there...which only makes the food that much more enjoyable). South India and South Indians seem to be viewed with a lot of affection, and I think this has to do also with the large number of people from the Northeast region who have gone their for work and many who have ended up settling down there.


One of the most interesting aspects of this treatment I have received is that, even among those opposing the Indian state, I have not been viewed as necessarily a denizen of the occupying state. I am not too sure why, because the upper-caste Hindu community I was born into is right at the top of the beneficiaries of any expansionist designs or resource-usurpation on the part of the Indian state. I think partly this might do with viewing the hegemony here as essentially one emanating out of the power-corridors in Delhi and thus North India rather than Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore or even Mumbai and Calcutta. It seems that the cultural character of the hegemony is obviously viewed as a Hindi one, which almost completely separates it from any South Indian connection, the numerous regions of which itself would have strong anti-Hindi streaks.

Shillong, a cursory look: Finally managed a very short trip to the very-famous city of Shillong in Meghalaya state. The trip itself was rather trying. 12 adults and 2 children were squeezed into a Sumo taxi, which is pretty much the only way to get to Shillong from Guwahati (the famous Indian rail-connectivity is missing in most of the Northeast barring Assam). There was probably a little irritation directed at slightly larger people like myself, and possibly quite understandably at that. After all we were all paying the same, yet I was occupying much more space then some of my smaller co-passengers. Offers to buy tea at the rest stop and small-talk of course cleared the air (and I always had Bangalore to fall back on as an ice-breaker!). But the cramped traveling was not the problem, I had traveled in much more tightly squeezed situations and through distinctly less beautiful scenery. The biggest problem was that the trucks along the road from Guwahati to Shillong and back are among the most polluting, black-smoke-spewing monstrosities this side of the continent. And we had to travel with the windows down lest we suffocate from lack of air. Also the windows had to be down because invariably somebody pukes during the drive through curving, hill roads (as did indeed happen with one of the tykes in our taxi). So the lowered windows and polluting trucks essentially resulted in the entire vehicle being filled with smoke each time we overtook a truck or one passed us, which happened approximately 50 times. It was 14 coughing souls who finally emerged out of the vehicle at our final port of call.

Shillong itself is beautiful. On first sight it reminded me of Bangalore many years back, before the city went mad with capitalism and started adding 200 vehicles a day onto its roads. Old Bangalore on sloping hills that is. Shillong is also, funnily enough, the first place I've gone to where I heard a lot of Hindi being spoken, probably because of the high influx of tourists. The leads I had to do a couple of articles on the exploitative mining industry didn't pan out, and I had to postpone it to another trip in May, so I decided to explore the place anyway.

Police Bazaar, which from what I hear is the heart of the city, is like any other mid-sized or big city commercial centre in India with large ad-hoardings, restaurants, bars, shops, crowds milling about and of course the street market. There is also an obviously wannabe-hip culture among the city's youth, with many sporting gelled-up hairdos, earrings, and t-shirts with old heavy metal bands on the front. The love for heavy-metal and hard-rock music is quite obvious here. Even garages and small shops on the way to as well as in Shillong had Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and PInk Floyd emanating from them. The interesting aspect is that for all its commercial activity, the place pretty much closes down by around 9/9.30pm, which is when things are just about starting to heat up in places like Mumbai!

It was quite sad that I had to cut my trip short, because Meghalaya itself has so much to be seen and examined, especially around mining. Uranium mining by the Public Sector Undertaking UCIL is being planned in the state on a fairly large scale, part of India's ambitious nuclear plans, and supposedly Meghalaya has the largest deposit of uranium in India. The effects on the local villagers can only be imagined. Limestone and coal are some other continuing mining initiatives, mostly by private companies protected by the Indian state as well as some public sector companies. The state and indeed the entire Northeast is being opened up to capital with quite a vengeance, and it remains to be seen how resistance is mounted against it.

Travel Log (23/3/08 to 3/4/08)

Northeast India Diary 2 (23/3/08 - 3/4/08)

Jhum and the markets of Tuenzang in Nagaland:

I'm going to continue to write a little bit about hardened working class women and so it would be a travesty to not mention the hard labour of women in Nagaland.

I had the opportunity to join a couple of friends on a project they were conducting on Art and Conflict, which gave me the chance to learn a little more about work and livelihood in Nagaland. Driving along the undulating hill roads of the region, my eyes were greeted with what can only be described as a riot of green starting with the tea gardens in Upper Assam that border Nagaland to a verdant explosion once we entered the tribal state. Now, my roots are in Kerala, which I chauvinistically believed to be the greenest region on the planet but I'm now forced to beat a timid retreat from that position, particularly as I was told that it was one of the driest times of the year! However the lush and dense foliage covering the steep hills pose a particular problem with respect to cultivation for the local population…a problem overcome only by dint of hard labour. And that is where once again, I came to witness the awesome strength of the local population, particularly women.

The cultivation practised in Nagaland and in many other parts of Northeast India is called jhum and is essentially cultivation along hill slopes. Anyone who has ever done some real hiking would confirm that trekking up a steep hill slope, even for fairly fit individuals, is hard work. Now imagine chopping firewood along a tract of hill-land, clearing that tract through controlled fires for cultivation, cultivating on the land as per a tight seasonal schedule, and then carrying large bundles of firewood (uphill) back to your village in the evening for cooking fire. Add to this, household chores, preparation of meals in the morning and evening, tending to livestock as well as rearing children and you've pretty much got a vague picture of the sheer volume of hard labour that rural women here (and all over the world for that matter) are immersed in. I'm not going to fall for the liberal middle-class trap of romanticising the idyllic village life while hardly being able to function without a computer, cell phone and a grocery store round the corner. What I saw with the women in Nagaland was hard work, the hardest there is, and it required not just strength of character but actual physical strength as well (both abominably lacking among upper-class city folk).

I was also told by locals and friends familiar with the area that jhum is usually a cooperative system of production with a village or many villages cultivating one tract of land and then sharing the produce at the end of the harvest. The practice of jhum is however sadly affected in certain parts of the region due to the presence of the Indian army and the resulting conflict, which causes disruption in the cultivation cycle resulting in harsh insecurities for people depending on the produce to feed themselves.

Cut to the main market in Tuenzang town, and one can see that out here almost every element of public commerce has women pretty much running the show. About 90% of the vendors were women, many clad in jeans and t-shirts, and wearing makeup. They were selling anything from vegetables and tubers to snails and frogs. To those of you whose quasi-brahminical sensibilities are a little pricked, I would like to add that in many European and Asian countries snails and frogs are delicacies in some high flung restaurants (they just have some hoity-toity name for it that make it sound all exotic when some upper-class twit eats them with a small silver fork).

Mothers, daughters, relatives, and friends ran small stands together, many with babies on their laps. Older children would sometimes take the young infants on their backs and care for them while the women worked at the stands. Unloading boxes, setting up the stands, arguing with shoppers on prices…all women, all the time, at the Tuenzang market.

I hope and pray that the strength and public presence of women in this region continues to grow and show others how, even poor societies functioning under tremendous pressures from outside forces can function with remarkably lesser patriarchy and macho male oppression.


Anti-immigrant sentiments against those who toil:

Thus far I have been quite struck by many aspects of the region...it's raw beauty outside the cities, extremely hardworking people in the face of numerous obstacles, strength of women and amazing diversity. However I feel compelled to write a little bit about some very stark anti-immigrant, xenophobic sentiments (especially in Assam) that I am continually coming to face to face with, which is starting to feel a little disturbing in a place I'm fast falling head over heels in love with.

Right at the beginning of my travels here, on the train to Guwahati from Bangalore, I chatted with an obviously middle-class woman (we spoke in English), who was returning to Assam after working for a couple of years in Bangalore. As the conversation started veering towards the issues that the people face, she seemed to feel that all the problems were singularly because of Bangladehsi Muslims, whom she felt were taking over the state with their continued migration as well as the Biharis, whom she felt were corrupting the purity of Assamese culture.

I dismissed it as a one-off incident incident, but again and again, speaking with workers at the Guwahati Oil Refinery, a very intelligent, proud Assamese intellectual as well as shop keepers and traders in Uzaan Bazaar, the anti-immigrant (read Bihari and Bangladeshi) sentiment, at times virulent, hit me hard. Of course none of the people mentioned had any problems at all with me, being an outsider myself, rather they were extremely friendly and helpful to me. My head rang out "CLASS"

Let me elaborate...two extremely brutal incidents (among many) came to my mind regarding this. One happened very recently, when about 60-70 Bihari migrant labourers were gunned down. The other occured in 1983, and is now known and as the infamous Nelli massacre when hundreds of Bangladeshis were killed in a riot. Now I'm not going to speculate who perpetrated these crimes, as I've been getting different accounts from different people. But what is clear is that this is a particularly bloody manifestation of the xenophobic sentiments in Assam, that I can now only assume to be a fairly mainstream one.

I earlier mentioned the class factor...because in both incidents, it was poor, working-class people who were killed. The softest targets. They weren't the occupationary forces, they weren't the armed police state...they were toiling workers. Many

An Assamese friend told me that if the Bangladeshis were to leave, then the entire vegetable supply and a good amount of the grain supply to Guwahati would come to a halt as they are the ones who cultivate on the chars (little island-like tracts of land along the Brahmputra river). In all the building and road construction sites that I have had a chance to speak to workers, a huge chunk of the contract/daily-wage labourers come from Bihar often working for private companies based in Guwahati.

These are the vegetables and grains eaten by the very people who feel that Bangladeshis are taking over the country, the roads and buildings used by the same people who say that these uncivilised Biharis should be thrown out.

The paradigm, lacking in any rationalism or political sensibilities, is astonishingly similar to the one in the USA with strong streams of xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments, particularly against migrant Mexicans and other Latin Americans who work in all the crappiest jobs for even crappier wages building the roads, manning the stores, repairing the cars and pruning the gardens used by well-off white folk.

It is sad that in a region like Assam, which boasts of such a proud and diverse histroy of peoples struggle, one finds a mainstream sentiment akin to what is found in an imperialist rogue state.

Of course this sentiment is not even minutely unique to Assam. As recently as a couple of months back, a few North Indians were attacked by goons of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena. Even a few days back, in my own neck of the woods, the longstanding conflict between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu over Cauvery Water threatened to flare up again. All over India, there is xenophobia and often the degeneration of positive identity-based movements into hatred for the other.

Northeast India which has been facing the brute end of the armed Indian state, has a host of rather wonderful identity-based sentiments, and it's sad to see a few of them go down the route of sectarianism and xenophobia, but one is hopeful that this is not a trend that will engulf the region.

Travel Log 10/3 - 20/3/08

After about 10 days of exploration and travel in Assam, mainly in and around Guwahati and Gossaigaon, my head swirls with all that I’ve learnt and observed. First of all I feel compelled to briefly touch upon the numerous, rather offensive stereotypes that folks from other parts of India have about this region. Stuff I’ve heard since I was a kid. While they sounded offensive even before I ever came to the region, now they feel particularly repulsive. And while hardly deserving attention, they still merit a couple of minutes of censure. Of the top of my head, some of the garbage I’ve heard either first-hand or second-hand include: “Do they have schools there?” “What about roads?” “And eating habits, don’t they eat just about anything?” “Don’t they all hate other Indians?” “I’ve heard that it’s filled with jungles” “Literacy and education levels must be so low”

Let me be really brief in retorts to each of the above respectively in the order that they’re shown…

Yes and very good ones;

Yes, as bad or good as you’d find elsewhere in India;

No, what is eaten is called food;

No, and please, it’s not like folks in other regions are oh so loving to their fellow-humans…need we be reminded of the violence against Muslims in 1992 Mumbai and 2002 Gujarat or the savagery towards Dalits and Tribals in most parts of India;

No, although the countryside is much prettier and greener than what you would find in most other parts of India;

No, actually literacy levels across most of the region are comparable to Kerala and Tamil Nadu, which have the highest literacy/education levels in India. In fact Mizoram is the second most literate state in India after Kerala. Furthermore the per-capita college-going rate is the highest or second-highest in all of India

Ok, now that this painful exercise is out of the way, I would like to share some general observations that I found interesting in the few days that I’ve been here

Guwahati bus service – I know that this would seem quite amazing to believe, but the Guwahati bus service has been the best I’ve been on so far. Compared to some of the metros, it’s comparable to Mumbai, marginally better than Chennai, significantly better than Calcutta, and simply streets ahead of both Bangalore and Delhi. I have never had to wait more than 5 minutes at a bus stop thus far, and have almost always found a seat. There are times when I’ve had to wait nearly an hour in other cities and find my rather large self standing cramped in the midst of sweat and irritability. The conductors have also been helpful once I tell them that I’m new to the city and ensure that I get of at the right stop. The experience has also been far more tolerable than what one faces in other cities. One doesn’t have to deal with the annoying tardiness in Bangalore, the occasionally bizarre speeds in Chennai or the macho molesting madness in Delhi (where one can see, as clear as day, women being leered at and groped)

Strong presence of Women – The last sentence on bus services directly connects to a particularly heartening sight in Assam, and from what I’ve heard, all over the Northeast. While economic development levels in the region (due primarily to resource usurpation by the Indian state) are comparable to some of the poorer North and Central Indian regions, both visually and from data corroboration, what is astonishingly different about the Northeast when compared to North India is the significant public presence of women, cutting across age, class and community. On every bus ride that I’ve taken within Guwahati and when I travelled to Gossaigaon, almost always at least 40-60% of the commuters were women, even at night times (almost impossible to see in Delhi). It was similar to what I’ve seen in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. There was also a discipline shown by men on buses getting up from women’s reserved seating when women came in, again something missing in some other cities. Even on the streets, one sees many women, students, workers, vendors, housewives mulling around the crowd and travelling on public transportation without any hesitancy or fear.

Another noticeable feature, of course due to this large public presence of women, is the markedly lesser leering and harassment that women face here, again in comparison to what I’ve seen in Delhi and even Chennai. Now I’ve no doubt in my mind that cat-calls, groping and harassment of women very much exist in Assam and the rest of Northeast India, but so far, each and every woman I’ve spoken to, who has also been to Delhi, said they feel much safer here than they ever did in Delhi. Even many of the men I spoke to highlighted the huge amounts of sexual harassment that their female friends from the region face in Delhi, when studying or working there, facing the oppressive brunt of it as much because of their gender as their place of origin. There’s something in this place that a lot of the other cities and towns in India can learn from.

Spunk and paan-stained teeth – A particular incident stands out in my mind with respect to the public presence of women that again was uplifting to witness. On a cramped overnight train ride from Gossaigaon back to Guwahati, the compartment I was precariously standing in was overflowing with large gunny sacks filled with vegetables. They belonged to a group of about 6 middle-aged women, all with weathered feet, strong arms, red paan-stained teeth and wearing worn-out, tattered saris. They sat with the poise and strength of daily struggle. I asked one of them (who looked like the leader of the group), where they were heading and through a paan-filled gurgle, she said that they were going to sell vegetables at the weekly Sunday markets in Kokhrajar town and Guwahati. They bought veggies from across state lines in West Bengal (where there’s always a surplus and thus much lower prices) and sold them at the weekly markets for a small profit. Upon reaching the first station, Kokhrajar, they proceeded to unload these monstrous sacks, all the while barking at the men in the train to move aside. The word that comes to mind is spunk.

Of course my heart took a little dive when I saw the local Sub-Inspector of the Assam Police at the station receive his weekly bribe as they were unloading the sacks, but even here the women’s chutzpah was evident. She handed him a twenty-rupee note, and when he asked for more, she completely brushed him off. I’m not sure what she said, but she seemed to indicate the exact bodily orifice that he could shove his baton in or something along those lines. The khaki-clad lout slunk away, muttering something to himself, probably looking for the next handout. I believe this weekly exercise is because it’s illegal to transport produce on passenger trains, and that too across state lines…but then again this is India and indeed, South Asia…the people always find a way to survive. Three women got off with half the veggies as the train trundled on, and the same cycle of events repeated itself when we reached Guwahati in the wee hours of the morning. I don’t know what it was that lifted my spirits, whether it was their spunk, their attitude, their powerful forearms that heaved sacks I would find myself struggling with or their entrepreneurial spirit in the face of obvious hardship. Maybe it was a bit of each or just the picture of the hardened working-class woman, tougher than anyone else.

Adivasis in Lower Assam: Struggle and strife – While in Gossaigoan I had the opportunity to interact quite intimately with an Adivasi student organisation (All Adivasi Students Association of Assam or AASAA) that campaigned on behalf of the Adivasi community across the state. Here, as in the rest of India, the term “student organization” is quite a stretch, with many of the members and leaders married with children. Student organizations for the most part are political fronts, not especially concerned with students per say, but more as power-garnering machines before they go on to contest elections as part of some political party or the other.

I did learn a lot about the Adivasis in Assam though, who mainly came in the mid-1840s till the 1920s as indentured labour to work for the British in Assam’s numerous tea gardens. Many continue to work in the gardens till date, while others left and started cultivating their own land. The connection of the Adivasis with the tea gardens is very strong, and there is another organization called the Assam Tea Tribes Students Association (ATTSA) active specifically with those working in the tea gardens, however I haven’t able to meet any members or leaders as yet. The Adivasis do face it from various angles here, whether it’s political disenfranchisement, socioeconomic hardships or sectarian violence. And even the little franchise they are able to access through reservation in educational, job-related and political seats in other parts of India as a result of their Scheduled Tribe (ST) status is missing in Assam, as it’s the only state in India to deny them ST status. In fact ST status remains the central (and often only) campaign demand for all the Adivasi groups in the state.

The situation of the Adivasis in Assam, as well as the sectarianism and violence existing between them and the other communities like Bodos and Muslims, is of course an issue that cannot fit into a paragraph in a field notes dispatch, however I’d still like to touch upon a couple of issues that really stood out for me.

Strong local knowledge and Sectarianism – AASAA did request me to work on a memorandum with regards to their campaign to get ST status, and two things stood out as I was discussing the same with them.

One was their acute knowledge of local happenings and goings-on, and this is true with activists in other communities I met as well. They knew almost every Member of Parliament (MP) and Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Assam, and particularly about those who directly represented their district or sub-district. I have no clue as to who my MP or MLA back home in Bangalore is. And with Karnataka politics going down the present path, I would be hard-pressed to name the Chief Minister at any point in time. However they not only knew names, but their political orientation with respect to the Adivasi cause, honesty-levels, inside secrets and so on, mainly I guess because their campaign demanded such intimate knowledge. It was of course in complete disproportion to their knowledge of national or international affairs, even with respect to their own cause. For instance they didn’t know that an All-India Federation of ST organisations existed whom they could potentially ally with.

The second aspect of that discussion that stood out was their intense sectarianism. They didn’t feel like even traditionally sympathetic movements such as the Left or Civil Liberties ones could be trusted as allies or supporters. Partly, I suppose this sectarianism is forced upon, not just them, but other communities as well, by the divide and conquer tactics of the Indian state. However another reason I feel it exists is because, the leaders within the communities want to maintain a hold over their personal sense of power and not have it diluted in any way through coalescing with other groups. The sectarianism can also be internecine. While I was their meeting with various people, 3 Bodos were killed in fighting between rival Bodo militant groups in a clash for power in the Bodoland Territorial Council.

Hegemonic presence of the Armed Indian State – Thus far I have seen gun-toting Central security forces in every place I have visited or stayed at. Whether they’re military, paramilitary or state police forces, their presence is visible and one of absolute power. Even the lowliest police constable is armed with an Indian-made INSAS Assault Rifle (apparently as deadly as an AK-47 or M-16) or at the very least a rapid-fire sten gun. This, when in many other parts of India, cops barely have a baton when they’re on patrol. One doesn’t normally get the feeling that the Indian state is a particularly hegemonic one in many parts of India (mainly because of its bumbling incompetence), but one can really sense its power here.

I’m tempted to draw comparisons with what I saw of the Israeli occupation in Palestine. It’s a lot more cut-and-dry over there, while over here there are multiple layers of occupation as well as complexities arising out of nationalist movements fighting both with the Indian state and sometimes with each other as well as a shaky engagement with the federalist experiment. However one commonality is the hegemonic strength of the military in both operations, and the horrendous atrocities inflicted upon the occupied peoples in both Palestine and Northeast India.

And one really doesn’t have to dig deep to find evidence of these atrocities. As in Palestine, nearly everyone has some connection or the other to the bloody treatment meted out by occupying security forces...a friend tortured to death, an uncle maimed, a cousin jailed on false charges, an aunt shot in the legs…and I’ve been here all of 10 days. There are also those caught between the armed insurgencies and the military, facing the brunt of both groups, and risking the wrath of one or the other.

Workers killing workers – During an Adivasi bandh or shutdown in Gossaigaon, I had the opportunity to interact with a Central Reserve Police Force squad who were breaking for their lunch. Usually during bandhs put forward by any community, the entire town shuts down, but this tea shop was made to open temporarily to accommodate the CRPF soldiers. Famished after trekking through nearby villages, I took the opportunity to have my regular tea and bun meal and proceeded to chat with the soldiers.

Among the ones I spoke with, I found out that one of them was the son of a Public Works Department labourer in Hyderabad, another belonged to a tribal community from Central India, while the subedar (sergeant) came from a small farming family in Rajasthan. All mentioned the bad pay and work conditions, stating that they had barely enough to make ends meet. Once they found out that I was examining labour conditions in the region, the chap from Hyderabad immediately said that a union in the CRPF would be useful but was not permitted

It is a particularly Machiavellian work of art by the Indian state that puts the working class in a uniform, arms him with a deadly weapon and makes him kill and maim other poor working class people. In terms of their material conditions, these soldiers have more in common with the people they’re killing than the political fat cats and money bags whose murderous bidding they follow.

Cricket on uneven ground – After meeting the CRPF squad I roamed around some more and soon spotted a cricket match ensuing on the banks of a stream on the outskirts of Gossaigaon. The “ground”, if that is what it can be called, was basically a patch of bumpy grass mounds with scattered rocks and a few cows grazing on the side. Nevertheless the game was being played with gusto. Due to the shutdown, all the kids and youth had no school or work to go to, so it looked like cricket was going to be the day’s entertainment.

What struck me was the fielding skill of the players. On such a horrendous surface, they were judging irregular bounce and speeds with amazing alacrity. It further baffles me to think of the rather appalling fielding standards of the Indian national cricket team. Now the team is probably the second-best in the world after Australia, but is seriously hampered when it comes to the fielding department. I wondered how it was that in a country where the foundation of young cricketers was built on such uneven, rocky surfaces (even on full fledged cricket fields in the big cities) could there be such an appalling paucity of high-quality fielders in the national team.

On a lighter side – I think I will end this dispatch with a couple of interesting hoardings and posters I saw. I have always felt that my own place of origin in India and the entire South Asian region is a land and people of delicious insanity, and this just further proves my point.

At 3 establishments near the Paltan Bazaar bus stop in Guwahati I saw the following next to each other:

“Only Lodging”

“Only Fooding”

“Lodging and Fooding available”

At the tea shop in Gossaigaon, I saw this poster advertising for spoken English classes. I’m reproducing verbatim:

“Good News! Are you week in English? Want to develope your speaking power? Are you 10+? No Problem! Join SPOKEN ENGLISH. Learn to speak English in the easiest way and develope your personality. Admission stars from: 25th Jan 2008”

And finally, trust our national icon, Bollywood to come up with a lovely truism of a caption for one of it’s films starring huge stars like Saif Ali Khan and Bipasha Basu. The films name is Race:

RACE
Two Brothers…One will Play to Win…One will Play to Defeat