True stories from the Northeast

Suparna-Saraswati Puri

Once in a while comes a gritty specimen of non-fiction that commands your undivided attention. Anil Yadav’s Is That Even A Country, Sir! Journeys in Northeast India by Train, Bus and Tractor is such a book. Packaged with hard-to-find information and remarkable experiences garnered by two out-of job journalists about a region constituted by eight states collectively called Northeast, it is the most mysterious and neglected part of the country.

The narrative revolves around the violence and mayhem that the Hindi-speaking North Indians were subjected to on the eve of Assam Elections in 2000. Clueless about their destination and braving unforeseen adventires, Yadav and Anhes Shashwat manage to collect, extract and comprehend a great many harsh truths about Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Manipur, and weave a story that is quite un-exotic yet interesting. Random conversations, dangerous meetings and an objective to report ground-zero events all amalgamate into a phenomenally engaging account of both, the land as well as the ethnic people of Northeast.

With a racy pace and translation as good as the original language by Anurag Basnet, the book undulates through politics, history, myths, ethnic plurality and ecological wonders through a multitude of voices. “The act of measuring time is a joke which man plays, to keep himself in a state of delusion,” is a small sample of the nuanced translation of a hard-hitting script about a people living amid apathy and a dismal state of affairs.

Interactions with army personnel, truck drivers, journalists, leaders, boatmen, beggars, artists, sculptors, painters, rickshaw-pullers, street urchins and drunkards are accurately extrapolated by the author’s curiosity about the region’s intriguing political discourse. Unexpected halts at rundown hotels and dubious guesthouses as well as the homes of friends and strangers provide the travelling journalists with enriching insights into Northeast’s expansive tribal culture. “Each prominent tribal community has its own militant organization fighting for a separate land and a literary organization working to develop its own script,” writes Yadav.

Whether it is the militancy-embroiled lifestyle of Meghalaya or the Khasis folklore of U Thlen or blatant corruption thriving across the tea gardens or the enchanting trek through Namdapha Tiger Reserve or the Cherrapunjee that was the head quarters of East India Company towards the end of nineteenth century, the author’s bold, stark and unapologetic writing strikes a chord with the reader. Confessions such as, “I am here to gather self confidence to face my uncertainties,” reflects of the author’s inward journey that he inadvertently experiences almost simultaneously during the course of his travel; rendering the work as a memoir.

For those who have always been fascinated with the idea of visiting Northeast, Yadav succeeds in stimulating the reader’s curiosity with numerous experiential stories, including those about Nechi Phu and Sela Pass, Chakma refugees from Bangladesh who hunt elephants, the museum of Moirang housing Second World War relics, smuggling of Ukhrul grass (‘the famed Manipuri ganja’), infamous dogs of Bomdila ‘that roam about on sub-zero nights and can take down a man’.

Is That Even A Country … highlights the undisputable reasons of corruption, militancy and backwardness that have rendered Northeast ‘bare, burnt and betrayed’. In fact, given the range of concerns addressed, the book candidly confirms that ‘Northeast is Asia in miniature’.