In Mishmi Wren-Babbler’s land
May 2nd, 2011How does the sun set? It goes down into the sea. It hides behind the mountain. And, what if you do not allow it the space of the sea or the privacy of the mountain? It just dissolves in the sky.
Trust me. I saw the crimson ball look like a half-eaten cookie in minutes and before you could make sense of the changing tones of the silver slivers criss-crossing the valley, the cookie was just a speck, and soon it was gone!
Sipping tea at the bamboo balcony of the dining hall at the Dibang Valley Jungle Camp, I watch the orange orchard surrounding the resort plunge into darkness. And, in the remoteness of far away across the criss-cross of rivers, where I had presumed nobody must have set foot ever, I see flickering lights. One. Two. Three! About seven or eight, in all. So, there are people living there, I wonder.
How did they reach there? Did their flight from Kolkata land at Dibrugarh after an inordinate delay? Were they forced to abandon their onward journey—much after crossing Tinsukia— to spend the night at the Dihing Jungle Camp in Dibrugarh? Did they also cross the Brahmaputra at Dolaghat with their cars on the boats — yes, you read it right; cars, buses and trucks, are all ferried across the river in boats. And, the only people to feel surprised or scared even when the river is on a spate, are tourists— like we did? Will they go back to the “mainstream” that I came from after the three-day Reh festival? Stupid questions clutter my mind for I am full of disbelief as to how can people be living there their daily lives — buying toothpastes and taking their children to school — in a place so remote; where development has turned its back on.
As I sip the sunset with my first evening tea at Help Tourism’s Dibang Valley Jungle Camp, I realise it is this zeal for life of people living in such difficult conditions that makes Arunachal special, awe-inspiring. And the festivals are just a way of celebrating this spirit.
It’s the first day of the 43rd Reh festival (celebrated between Feb 1 and 3) of the Idu Mishmi tribe here at Roing. Amounting to not more than 12,000 members, Idu Mishmi tribe is one of the smallest sub-tribes of Arunachal (and also India); their language and culture, for obvious reasons, in desperate attempt to survive the onslaught of modernism.
An otherwise family affair, the Reh festival is also celebrated as a community programme, participated by all the members of the tribal village. While yew, the signature brew of the Idu Mishmis, is in the air—that’s the welcome drink you are treated to everywhere— the whole town is a riot of colours with all the people out in their finest traditional attires. This is the time of the year when everybody comes home from wherever they could be studying or working. “This is one time when the tribe comes together,” Lokha Elapra, law student from Delhi, tells me in between nibbling at a roasted intestine, twirled rather crudely to a long bamboo stick and cooked in the community kitchen fire.
In the day, the programmes are mostly traditional with local songs and dances being performed by the youths. The days are followed by not-to-traditional evenings where the youths come together to have fun over yew and pork delicacies. Be prepared to tap your feet to the beats of Idu Mishmi rap number—one of the many ways by which the youths are trying to popularise the local language which has taken a serious beating to Hindi over the years. After a round of the festival, I decide to spend the evening by the fireside, where the community head priest, Igu Haita, is performing the Igu ritual, chanting mantras to drive away evil spirits from the village. I am taken over by the sheer antiquity of his appearance and the ambience of the room whose walls are decorated exploits at hunting—weapons and skulls of mithuns.
Celebrated after the harvest season, Reh is the time when families come together. Especially the relatives and kins of the women members of the family are invited. Gifts are exchanged and guests are treated to mithun and pork delicacies.
It was a sea of flesh—and I am not exaggerating one bit—at the Mayu village, where a community kitchen had been set up. At one end pig flesh was being chopped into cubes, all piled up to form a small hill. Busy hands skewered them in thin bamboo sticks from all sides, while the job of some people was simply to ferry the chopped meat to the fireplace. In two massive cauldrons, right at the middle of the square open area, the cooking was done by able-bodied men who could ladle the boiling concoction without much difficulty. Meme was being made by cooking rice with pork and blood, with dried bamboo shoot, dried ginger and chilly power as spices.
At the other corner was the fish section, populated by largely women, for those who do not eat pork. Dried pond fish, instead of pork, is cooked with rice to prepare the aaku. The yew, which is brewed from rice, is what you wash down your meal with. The meal is followed by more singing and dancing.
And it is not just the experience of a tribal lifestyle, but associated adventure that gives this festival tour a different dimension. And the adventure lies in not only manoeuvring long distances in back-breaking drives on narrow roads and crossing the bridge-less rivers with cars perched precariously in boats. Snug inside a sleeping bag, in a tent set up in the resort lawns, giving company to crickets all night long is no less thrilling. And though I don’t get to sight it– the bird that is unique to this region, a major attraction for bird-watchers across the globe– I quite feel like Mishmi Wren-Babbler!
Article by Anuradha Sharma
Help Tourism’s 
