The Secret Crossroads

by Nicholas Pavlesky

I first became intrigued with Assam because of similarities with Thailand, my adopted home. When most people think of Assam, they think of tea plantations, the hill station of Shillong and possibly Kazinranga, Lady Curzon's Rhino Park. In fact, Assam, the “Seven Sisters” has been divided into seven separate states of India. It encompasses peoples of Tibeto-Burman, Tai, Mon-Khmer and, of course, Indo-Aryan origin, as well as incredible geographic diversity.

In the 15th century, an alliance of Tai clans marched down from the mountains of western Burma and after several centuries of Indianization became the Ahoms, who ruled Assam's central plain. One of the world's greatest rivers runs through the plain, the mighty Brahmaputra.

On a nearby plateau, overlooking the plains of Bangladesh, Meghalaya State – named by Indira Gandhi as the “abode of the clouds” – is in fact the abode of the Khasis, a matriarchal people of Mon-Khmer origin who, although largely Christianized, still practice their own worship of sacred groves and megaliths. Besides the cool climate, it was doubtless the gentle nature of these people and the beauty of the place that enticed the British into building the summer capital of Assam at Shillong.

In the hills to the east, smack up against the Burmese border, live tribes that, although also Christianized, still hold remnants of a wilder heritage. The former headhunters of Nagaland tend to think of themselves as Aos, Semas and Angamis, and so on, although when they meet each other they refer to themselves as Nagas and speak a Sanskritized pidgin called Nagami.

For the adventurous traveler – and the historically minded one – Assam offers contrasts between serenity and violence, the smooth and the bumpy. In one day I experienced all of these. For serenity: a night in a beautifully restored Raj-period tea bungalow, fireflies illuminating the orderly rows of bushes. Or perhaps afternoon in drowsy, amber-bathed Sibsagar comes to mind. As for the bumpy parts, well. . .

The quiet of Sipsagar's ruins belie their history: by the time the pagan Tais became fully Hinduized Ahoms, at the turn of the 16th century, they had to defend their turf from both the Buddhist Burmans to the east and the Muslim Mughals to the south and west. The Mughals tried to invade 23 times, but it was only in the 19th century, when the Ahom kingdom sought British aid to fight the Burmese that it was incorporated into the Raj. Sibsagar was named for its great Shiva temple, the Shivadol, and the huge water tanks, the sagar, or “seas”, around it. On the other side of one of the Shivadol's tanks is a “Tai Museum” featuring palm leaf manuscripts in the Tai-Ahom script and other early Tai artifacts. The Shivadol is the only “living” ancient temple in the area, and colorfully clad worshippers pour in and out of its precincts.

Beside the modern town, ruins abound. An architect is interred in a mausoleum next to the ruins of an ancient palace: he was killed upon its completion. The most exquisite—and best-preserved – ancient building is the Rang Ghar, a pavilion for the Ahom king to view royal entertainments. In recent times, it also served as a secret meeting place for the founders of ULFA, one of the many political groups hoping to gain autonomy or independence for Assam, either as a whole (what ULFA's wants), or state by state, group by group.

Nagaland has it own separatist movement, or rather several of them. The moderates demanded and got statehood in the ‘60s. The former Angami village of Kohima – sepia-tinted photos show neat rows of thatched houses on a hilltop – has passed from being a district capital of Assam to Nagaland's state capital, and in the meantime it has sprawled along several ridges and encompassed a few other hills.

It was on one of these hills, now in fact a cemetery, that our troubles began. I say “us” because unlike Assam and Meghalaya, Nagaland requires foreign visitors to travel in groups of four or as married couples. With Mick, the photographer, there were only two of us, so Partha, our mentor, guide and fixer – in the style of Boss Tweed or Nikolai Gogol – had affixed a couple of extra names to our tour manifest. The police keeping a watchful eye out for separatists on the road to Kohima were unaccustomed enough to tourists that when Partha blandly told them that the others were coming later, the men in uniform shrugged and let us continue our way upward.

Besides our own two “dead souls,” with us in spirit – or as spirits – were hundreds of British imperial soldiers who had given their lives protecting the Deputy Commissioner's tennis court at the top the hill. The Japanese had come from Burma, then marched up from Imphal in Manipur. The outnumbered British decided to make their last stand during the “Battle of the Tennis Court,” because the very road we had taken up to Kohima was, at the time, the only road down into the plains. Had the Japanese passed down it, they would have become masters of the upper Brahmaputra valley, like the Ahoms centuries before them. Garrison Hill has been terraced to accommodate the tombs, separated by religion: Christians on the lower terraces, Muslim soldiers higher up and the ashes of the Hindus on top, behind the monument, It commemorates, at the site of the much-contested tennis court, all of those who died pulling victory from the jaws of defeat. Much of the fighting, when not hand-to-hand, was on the order of lobbing grenades across the court, neither side giving an inch for weeks.

On the previous day we had visited nearby Kagwemi village. The traditional boy's hut of Angami villages was long gone, the modern age has come to the Kohima area, but there was still a fine old wooden village gate, from before World War II, decorated with buffalo drawings and other signs of wealth and fertility. The simple bungalow from which General Sato commanded his invading force is at the bottom of the village, but still way above the fields. Not far from the general's quarters were the oldest men of the village, some of whom could rattle off a few Japanese numbers and sing a bit of ‘Sakura.'

The upper part of Kagwemi belonged to the richer clan, or ‘khel' and there were some fine old Angami houses, the facades decorated with cattle skulls to show the owner's wealth. An old lady offered us some rice wine as we admired huge baskets used for grain on display at the front of the house, another sign of a “rich person's house.” When asked where she had been during the war, she replied that she had gone to stay with relatives in Khonoma, itself the last holdout against the British in the previous century. The Angamis are proud of Khonoma and think of themselves as the fiercest warriors except perhaps for their archrivals, the uncouth Semas up North.

A boy was sprawled out on top of a Muslim grave, chatting and sharing a picnic breakfast with his two girlfriends. Our hostess in Nagaland, Nino Kharza, stared at them and muttered to me, “What can you do? They're Semas!” She had suggested we stay another day in her state and visit Khonoma. Partha disagreed, pointing out that he had booked an entire tea bungalow for us that night, after we visited the Ahom capital of Sibsagar. Mick and I sided with Nino, after our wonderful experience in Tuophema the night before. We heard them whispering something about “a ban.”

A tidy row of cottages perches on a small hill between the churches of the new Tuophema and the sacred stones of the old. This experimental resort built by Nagaland's chief minister – a local boy who made good. In the resort's common building, designed along the lines of a traditional Angami house, a long strip of pork smoked over the hearth, still dripping fat. We sat drinking rice wine from gourds while the men danced a war dance and showed off their exquisitely decorated Naga spears (Angami ones are red-trimmed). Then a harvest dance displayed the charms of several pretty girls, and a flirting dance – doubtless for successful wars and harvests – had each sex trading double-entendres, or so Nino told us.

The performance had been delayed while we were trapped by rain in the headman's house. One of the last old men who could relate some of the village's oral tradition rather than biblical chapter and verse, told us how Tuopema was formed by the joining of two khels. As Nino translated, he continued with a confusing Romeo and Juliet story – could the lovers have come from different khels? – and then the rain stopped and he said he couldn't remember the ending.

The next morning, I heard Mick leaving his bungalow to catch Tuophema in the early morning light. I walked out of my door, flanked by two Angami spears, and followed him up a rise and towards a huge grave. This ‘rich persons grave', round and built of stone, is built along the lines of a miniature Pueblo kiva. Further on, by the school, was a small museum. The caretaker had gotten up early to receive us and was waiting by a ‘demon stone' where supposedly a malevolent spirit was trapped, to unlock the door for us. By the time we were ready to leave again, students were moseying into primary school next door. The old masks, weapons and straw raincoats – outmoded cast-offs of a past way of life – contrasted with the boy's and girl's crisp red and white uniforms. We passed out of Tuophema villages gate – a modern replica this time – hoping that there would be more places to stay like this, so we could travel comfortably around the whole of Nagaland, enjoying the villagers' natural hospitality.

“Is it ULFA?” Nino, asked Partha. “No, it's the Karbis.” From the monument we looked out over the center of Kohima town, which boasted more crosses than the cemetery. Nino nodded to us and purposefully walked back down into town. As we walked down Garrison Hill towards Nino's restaurant in the center of town, Partha told us that we were leaving Nagaland after all, and right away in case trouble got worse. There would be safety in numbers, he said, if we drove in a caravan. Inside the restaurant were a mixed group of Nagas and Americans, who turned out to be Baptist missionaries from Indiana. They knew more about the ‘ban': the Karbis, who lived in the district of Assam adjoining Naga state, were protesting for greater autonomy. They wanted some of the privileges the Nagas had; after all, like the Nagas, they were tribal and Christian. After the missionaries shopped for supplies we agreed to meet up at the state border in Dimapur at the police checkpoint.

On the way, to kill time, we stopped at the “megaliths” of the ancient Kacari kingdom. These are actually columns of palaces or temples, built by cousins of the Karbis before their kingdom fell under pressure from mountain invaders like the Nagas.

At the Dimapur checkpoint, the missionaries' Naga hosts put black flags on our cars.

That means we're carrying a dead body,” Partha explained. “Three cars, each with a dead body?” I asked? “Well, it means we're giving the Karbis face. It means we approve of the bandh, even through we're driving through their roads.” I realized that what we were violating was not a ‘ban' but something called a ‘bandh'. “It's something like a strike,” Partha said. “Everybody should stay off the road.”

As we entered Karbi district, the roads were empty. Sateesh, our driver, floored the jeep over the bumpy road. “The corpse is really starting to smell,” joked Partha. After a very quiet hour, we reached the trunk road, and the black flags were removed from the cars. The missionaries headed to Gauhati while we headed North to Sibsagar, and then to our private bungalow, but we were to exhausted to enjoy the sumptuous dinner the staff had prepared for us.

Except for dinner with a prince, the rest of the journey was a series of anticlimaxes, each more comfortable than the next. The road the next day was deserted: the bandh was over, but India was watching the world cricket finals. Now we followed in the missionaries route past Kaziranga National Park – a dead tiger had been found, presumably poisoned by villagers or maybe poachers – but instead of going to Gauhati, we veered south at the last minute and drove up to Shillong.

The next morning we set out for Cherrapunji with its pretty hillside Khasi villages and vast views of Bangladesh. Although we were supposed to hurry back for our dinner at Tripura Palace, we tarried to watch Khasi bullfighting. Like cockfighting, two males challenge each other, egged on by their trainers. There is a human element, however, as the spectators run to stay out of harm's way long enough to collect on their bets.

Tripura is a tiny isolated monarchy locked between Nagaland, Meghalaya, Manipur and Bangladesh. Besides the usual languages, the principality's heir apparent, Pradyot Debburman Yuvraj, speaks Tripuri and Khasi –“I absorbed them with my nursemaids' milk”—and the family has palaces in Calcutta and Shillong in addition to two in Tripura.

The Shillong palace is Art Deco – with an indigenous accent – of about the same vintage as the antique cars in the front courtyard. As he showed us portraits of his ancestors, he said, “I'm researching it, but we think were the longest continuous line of royalty next to the Mikados.”

What must have once been servant's quarters is now an adjoining hotel, and as I headed to my quarters I finally felt the adrenaline tapering off and days of accumulated fatigue setting in.