NAGALAND & ASSAM - A JOURNEY TO INDİA'S FORGOTTEN FRONTİER

Nagaland, a tiny province in Northeast India, beyond Bangladesh, right on the edge of the India-Myanmar border,  is a place of great natural beauty with dazzling hills and valleys  that you can only see while driving through not so dazzling roads with potholes as big as a craters. In November 2010, I and three friends went to Nagaland  to see  Naga tribes even though I never was  that hopeful we would be able to. Though some books put glossy pictures of naked local people in feathers and shells (the word ‘’Naga’’ itself is said to come from Greek, meaning ‘’naked’’ and Nagaland is thus the ‘’land of the naked ’’), and even though you read that for centuries some 20 headhunting Naga tribes valiantly fought off any intruders, in between keeping busy fighting each other and developing mutually unintelligible languages, other books warn you that this was the past and today you have the universal uniform: jeans and T-shirts and you can see the feathers and shells only in a stadium during the Hornbill Festival or on the pages of the National Geographic Magazine. That was exactly the case. All Naga people have become well-dressed Europeans, to the extent that here women do not even wear saris. So if you are looking for color, you could as well go to a place in Europe, with the advantage of having better lodgings. It made a long time I had not stayed in a hotel without running water and the toilet outside the room (but not shared thank God); I had that privilege in Nagaland. Everything cannot be bad though; our local guide proudly announced that we were the first Turks to come to Nagaland. 

A few words about head-hunting.  Though non-existent today (the Anghamis were the first to stop the practice in 1905), the custom of killing the enemy and bringing his head was considered a matter of courage and pride. Furthermore, the Konyaks believed the human skull had magical powers and if you had the skull, the powers passed on to you. The skulls were then hung in homes or on trees and the greater the number of skull one owned, the higher would be his status in society. So today you can still see  men wearing brass heads around their necks , signifying the heads they or their ancestors have taken in the past.

The capital city of Nagaland is Kohima, a little town that looks not much different than most of our Anatolian towns. But Kohima became famous during World War II as the place where the Japanese attack was halted after a three-month battle and the Japanese army was  for the first time forced to retreat by Allied forces.  

KOHİMA MAİN STREET

A STRANGE PEDESTRİAN CROSSİNG 

Nevertheless, it has a very interesting market place that we visited with great enthusiasm. 

THE USUAL FRUİT STANDS

AND THE USUAL LEGUME STANDS

NAGA PEOPLE TAKE EVERY OPPORTUNİTY TO SMİLE

A VERY EXOTİC FOOD ON SALE:
FAT AND LUSCİOUS SİLKWORMS AND WOODWORMS TO FRY.
BON APPETİT !

A HONEYCOMB

DRİED FİSH

GOOD RED HOT PEPPER

AND THE WARM  NAGA SMİLE

When you start travelling through Nagaland, you are struck by the bad condition of the continuously winding roads but thankfully this is alleviated by the magnificent scenery.It is green as far as the eye can see, beautiful under fog and sun, with little villages and rice fields dotting the scenery.  

THE ROAD KEEPS GOİNG UP AND DOWN THOSE MOUNTAİNS

RİCE FİELDS

What struck me in Nagaland is the number of huge churches that dot the cities and villages. It seems the British Baptists missionaries came here in 1884 and set to convert the local tribes. They were quite successful since today 95% of the population is Baptist. As can be imagined, the first thing the missionaries set to do was to dress up those naked people. And as locals were animists (not even Hindu or Buddhist), they dressed up in European ways from the beginning. That explains the lack of color as well as saris in this secluded part of India. Nevertheless, villagers still keep to their traditional garments, even if shorts, skirts and T-shirts have been added. 

THE SMALL VİLLAGE AND THE HUGE CHURCH

QUİTE OUT OF PLACE İN THİS SCENERY

A VİLLAGER COMİNG FROM THE FİELD

WİFE OF AN ANGHAMİ CHİEF
WHO İS AWAY RİGHT NOW.
THE BLUE BAND İN HER HAİR DENOTES HER POSİTİON.

A KONYAK CHİEF OR ANGH İN MON REGİON.
THİS TİME THE BLUE BANDS ON THE LEGS
DENOTE HİS POSİTİON AND ACCORDİNG TO HİS
NECKLACE, HE HAS CUT 5 HEADS.
OF COURSE, TODAY NOBODY KİLLS ANYMORE BUT THE
NECKLACES ARE STİLL WORN.

A KONYAK MAN İN FULL GEAR

HOUSE OF AN ANGHAMİ CHİEF

BUFFALO SKULLS ARE A SİGN OF WEALTH.

THE KİTCHEN

THE BAG ON THE LEFT SERVED İN İTS TİME TO PUT
THE HEADS THAT HAD BEEN CUT.

MODERN ANGHAMİ HOUSE İN KOHİMA
WİTH AN ONDULATED TİN ROOF

AND THAT İS THE TOP OF MODERNİSM FOR RİCH NAGAS!!!

During this trip we also went to the adjoining province of Assam; remember Assam tea. That is where it comes from since this tiny province is full of tea plantations and the biggest producer of tea in India ( I had always thought that privilege was Dharjeeling's but that was not the case admittedly).  

TEA PLANTATİONS EVERYWHERE

AND THE TEA LEAVES ARE NOW BEİNG COLLECTED

  What was unbelievable is that even though Nagalang and Assam provinces are adjoining, the moment you enter Assam, you feel you are back in India. While Nagaland is full of green mountains with winding roads on which mercifully there is almost no traffic and very few people , in Assam you reach a plain and find the hassle of India with its motorcycles, unending flow of people and most of all colorful saris and street markets. 

A COLORFUL STREET MARKET 

WHAT A BEAUTY !

 After our lodgings in Nagaland, Burra Sahib's Lodge, the first hotel we stayed in, in Assam, seemed like paradise to us. It was the home of a tea-plantation owner that had been transformed into a Heritage Hotel. And we were the only guests in a building surrounded by a beautiful garden, huge rooms and dinner served at the table of the plantation owner by waiters in white jackets. What a bliss! 

A GREAT PLACE TO HAVE A DRİNK İN THE EVENİNG. 

I HAS MİSSED SUCH A ROOM. 

THE GARDEN İS BEAUTİFUL

I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH A HUGE TREE. BEAUTİFUL

 An interesting part of our Assamese journey was a two-hour trip on the Brahmaputra River to reach Majuli İsland. The great gray Brahmaputra River’s  ever-shifting puzzle of sandbanks includes Majuli Island, the world’s largest river island. And the only way to reach Majuli is on over-crowded ferry-boats which luckily enough carry more motorcycles than cars. 

IT İS GOOD İT DOES NOT CAPSİZE. 

PEOPLE WAİTİNG TO TAKE THE BOAT WE CAME İN. 

Majuli has been the center of Assamese neo-Vaishnavite culture, the cultural capital and the craddle of Assamese civilisation for the past 500 years. A total of 65 Vaishnavite monasteries or Satras were set up here but only 22 survive today. A satra is a monastery of neo-Vaishnaism, Assam’s distinctive form of everyday Hinduism. Formulated by 15th century Assamese philosopher Sankardeva and his disciple Madhavdeva, the faith rejects the caste system and idol worship, focusing on Vishnu as God, especially in his Krishna incarnation. Much worship is based around dance, music and melodramatic play acting of scenes from the holy Bhagavad Gita.  Each satva is run by a religious order only composed of men, that you join as a child. The children are adopted as of five or six years old, sometimes even younger. Their destiny is to remain celibate monks. The monk-child integrates the monastery’s family unit, comprised of 2 to 4 monks of different generations for life. When he reaches the age of twenty, he will in turn welcome a child, while watching over those who raised him and who have become elderly. Most of the groups of dancing monks of Majuli are thus taking care of a child. Each one of these monastic families occupies a house in the heart of the satra, similar to traditional families except that it is composed only of males. The monks (or bhakats) do not exchange vows, but remain free to leave the monastery if they wish. Departures however are rare. In the monasteries I visited, I came to the conclusion that living here all your life and interacting only with men to dance as a form of worship, quite a few of  the monks turn out to be very feminine-looking.  I have never seen so many such men together .

ENTRANCE TO A SATRA

MAİN WORSHİPPİNG AREA

DORMİTORİES OF THE MONKS

YOU CAN SLEEP İNSİDE OR OUTSİDE

 

YOU WASH YOUR OWN CLOTHES

AND HERE İS A FUTURE MONK. 

SO CUTE.....

WİLL HE BECOME LİKE THAT ?

OR LİKE THAT ? SORRY TO SAY BUT QUİTE A FEW
OF THOSE MONKS SEEMED PRETTY FEMİNİNE TO ME.

On the return trip on the Brahmaputra in an over-crowded boat, something funny happened. While my two girl friends were busy avoiding the advances of eager young Indian men, the sun started setting on the river and another friend and I took out our cameras to take pictures. All the boat looked at us wondering what we were shooting and then realized it was the sunset. Within five minutes, you had a whole boatload of people taking pictures of the sunset with their phones and I tend to believe this must be the only such picture they have ever taken.  

 We finally reached the Assamese city of Dibrugarh, the only one around here having an airport, to fly back to Delhi via Kolkota and then continue to Istanbul. But now we are in deep trouble. We have no money. In fact we have money but in the form of US Dollars. We had exchanged each USD 100 at Delhi airport when we arrived thinking we would exchange more when the need arises as we always do in India. But since the beginning of our trip we could not exchange anything . In Nagaland, there were almost no tourists, let alone money changers. The banks would not do it and the hotels were not allowed to. In fact, in Nagaland, we were also totally cut from the outside world  since there is no cell phone connection at all and you cannot call home from your hotel room either since even hotels do not have international connection. Only the Indian phone company SDR has a few phones that are internationally connected. First we had to find such a SDR stand, and only then could we call home to inform that we are alive and well. We were more optimistic about Assam but all our hopes were dashed in Dibrugarh, which is the capital city of the province by the way. Locals told us only the Bank of India Branch ‘’might’’ and I repeat ‘’might’’ exchange our dollars. We gave up. Luckily enough, our hotel had already been paid to the local travel agency so we did not have to worry about that. And with the rupees left in our pockets we could afford four coffees and a few samosas (delightful,very hot Indian pastry filled with potatoes and fried in deep oil) which constituted our meal. But no way to shop – not that there was much. We found a shop with nice scarfs very near our hotel. The owner did not look local to me and when I asked I learned he was in fact Rajasthani but had lived in Dibrugarh almost all his life. We liked his scarfs but how to pay? The owner solved the problem by saying we could give him US dollars which he would exchange in Rajasthan since he buys goods from there. Excellent; we can shop now. At one moment I saw the owner looking at a 10 dollar bill very attentively and jokingly told him not to worry, that the bill was real and not fake. His answer was almost going to make me fall out of my chair ; he said it was the first time he was seeing US dollars and that is why he was analyzing the bill. When I say ‘’almost no tourist’’ here, I mean it. A friend asked for a cashmere shawl and the owner said we could pass by his shop the next morning when he would bring some. When we came to the shop the next morning, a little girl of about twelve, speaking perfect  English learned at the local school, was there waiting for us. The owner explained that his daughter insisted on coming to the shop with him because she had never seen a foreigner in her life. Unbelievable! I am sure I will never again in my life meet people who have never seen a dollar bill or a foreigner.

That was an interesting trip, maybe not as colorful as I had hoped but allowing me for the first time to visit an area where the modern-day invader, the Tourist,  had not yet set foot. That in itself is an experience that I will not forget. But to see a more authentic way of life, with people still in tribal gear, dressed in loin-clothes and  carrying spears  I should have come here quite a few years ago, before I was even born. You can't have everything, can you ?