I dont know what special bond i share with that state, but i just love it. Being from Cochin Kerala going to Assam is a difficult proposition. But i love to travel and the brain thing in my head is always scheming and proposing new ways to get around India.
The Beggining
Opportunity first knocked in 2005. I had just finished my course in videography and was on the look out for a job. A very good friend of mine had suggested meeting a company in South Delhi who were planning to make wildlife documentaries on Assam. I jumped on the wagon without another thought. I remember it was raining that evening, when me and my two friends made our way to Delhi on borrowed bikes. We were desperately looking for the address. What came of that evening was an opportunity of a life time. The company had just got commissioned 4 doc's from Doordashan Guwahati. And now we were to help produce them, the three of us working in different capacities to help the producers. Excitement gripped us all. We were discussing crazy ideas and were up all night planning on how to shoot sequences - One of us would jump from an elephant and distract the rhino while I crept close enough to get a close up of the rhino sticking his horn somewhere it hurts. Or something like that. Nitish a good friend from Vikas Puri was interested in direction and he came up with very good concepts but nothing meterialised. Much of his imaginations were too tough to be made into realty for a start up team.
We proposed to make a recce trip to Assam where it would be better to understand the conditions and challenges of shooting in the area. Towards June end me, Nitish and Dheeraj (another great friend from Gorakhpur) boarded the Rajdhani towards Gauwahati. Now I should mention this that the producer of the programme was a real Uncle Scrooge and was unwilling to sponsor our trip. So we were on a real down the pits kind of budget. The only thing we splurged upon was the train tickets cause we were scarred to board an ordinary train through Bihar*.
Now things were going great till we reached Gauwahati. We had set foot in Assam finally and got our ride to our rooms when a bomb blasted at the IOC tankers next to the railway station. Thankfully we had made way by then. We were in Gauwahati for two nights during which we went around town...to the great zoo that the city has and also to the forest department offices. Once that round of meeting the beurocrats was done, it was time to change gears and head straight for the war zone.
The Conflict
Our first pitstop on our journey of assam was the town of Tezpur, where our first documentary was set. Tezpur is around 150 kms from the capital of Assam, Dispur, and has a sizable mixed population of Bengalis, Assamees, Bodos and Bangladeshi migrants. It lays on the north bank of Assam a huge chunk of land cut in half by the mighty Brahmaputra. We had the river in our backyard with forests just outside the town. Kaziranga, Nameri, Orang are all quiet close to Tezpur - hence our choice was set. Now Tezpur also happens to be surrounded by huge tea estates and paddy fields. These would be the battleground everynight. Year after year during the harvest season of Bihu (Nov-Jan) hunderds of migrating elephants from adjoining forests make their way into the paddy fields around Tezpur to reap the benifits of a good (or bad) harvest. Violent battles are fought between man and beast, each with sizable casualities and sorrowing families. Yet none gives in and looks forward to the next night for a game of one upmanship. On the second day of our trip in Tezpur we went to explore the area around the tea gardens and saw first hand the damage the two sides were causing on each other. During peak harvest season someone was dying each night. We heard horriffic stories (with many photos) of electrecuted elephant calves and mutilated human beings. It is very rare to see an elephant in this area without scratch marks, gun shot wounds, sceptic feet and all. Elephants rest in the tea estates during the day time and converge onto the paddy fields to feed at night. The tea estate workers who also work in the fields are mostly tribals from Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. Of poor economic background these people often consume home made rice beer which gives them a surge of courage in fighting the beasts. It so happens that the very same rice beer happens to be the favoirate beverage of elephants, who love its intoxicating sweet taste (Is Malaya reading this?). So the elephants come knocking at the houses of these people. Now an elephant knock is actually a knock down. The rest I leave to your imagination.
We got an opportunity one day to visit the Sonai Rupai Sanctuary near Tezpur. The forest here is in a decline and under tremendous pressure from a local population hungry for forest produce. With the support of the timber mafia, the locals have decimated the forest, clearing large chunks of greenery and converting the same into agricultural land. We went deep into the forest in a department pick up truk. There were no roads, just a fireline through the forest. We were unable to locate the elephant herds believed to be in there. A big problem. Cause if they were not in the forest, then it meant they were on the edge waiting for nightfall to raid the paddy fields. We made way to a nearby village and rested. Around late evening we decided to patrol the forest boundary when all of a sudden the gaurd stopped the vehicle and stepped out. He pointed to a ford around 200 meters away from where they were expectng 80 - 150 to cross into neighbouring villages. Dude thats a lot of elephants. We decided to check it out. We were on foot for more than 20 minutes in a light drizzle walking along the ford. The rain, the slush and the fear of being stampeded by a herd of hungry elephants made my legs seize. I was breathing faster. The only thing i could hear was my heart beating. Any minute now the elephants were to come crashing through the trees aiming their tusks at us. I was shit scared, cause if there are 150 elephants coming from there, should'nt we be moving the other way. You know just for today maybe we can skip the action. The sun had set long back and now it was getting real dark. The gaurds took in huge puffs from their beedis after which they started retying their laces, tightening their belts and stretching as if they were getting ready to run. The head gaurd wanted to borrow my umbrella. His explanation : If the elephants charged we throw the umbrella at them and run. Ok great. I am game for the running part. I dont know if throwing an umbrella is a great idea. Maybe it will make us run faster cause now the elephants are gonna be real pissed. But the elephants had other plans. They had already crossed into a nearby reserve forest through a narrow patch of depleted woods. The depredation was going on all around us. Only we could not see it. We made short trips to Kaziranga and Orang just to rething our strategies. We eventually concluded that it was not the best time to shoot and should return in a month's time ready for a full shoot.
We were excited when we returned to Tezpur nearly two months later. This time we had all the gear for a basic shoot - a sturdy camera, tripod, lights, etc. Ok thats all good, but even god cant help a man who is really stupid. We had made our way into the Amribari tea estate and were shooting sequences of broken bridges and destroyed huts when word came that there was a huge makhna (tuskless male) in the adjoining tea estate. This is when we learnt our first lesson. Never irritate a wild animal to the point that it feels provoked enough to defend itself. To get a good sequence of shots we decided to follow the tusker on foot, through trenches, bridges, tea estates and all. He would at times stop turn around and pause for a second, looking dead at us. I am pretty sure he wanted to say 'dude you follow me again and i am gonna see that your dinner goes cold tonight'. We din't get the message. Keeping a distance of 100 - 200 meters we reached an elevated patch of the tea estate where there were a few trees growing. He was feeding on these trees which are planted in tea estates to provide shade for the tea leaves. We were filming this when it turned around and halved the distance between us in the flash of an eyelid. It was on full charge not a mock one. The gaurd shot in the air, bringing the pachyderm to an instant stop. He turned around and ran into a nearby sugarcane field with his tail raised. In the confusion we had missed the firing shot. We were dejected - I was heartbroken - for missing the shot, for disturbing the poor beast and for exposing ourselves to the locals as a gun toting group. Ever since I have always kept a sure safe distance between any animal and myself. The very next day would be our induction into the whole drama surrounding this town.
We were in the Chardwar range, on the road which leads to Arunachal. There is a small reserve forest neighbouring the Nameri National Park. Now the elephants numbering over 150 have to make way through this degraded reserve forest - cross the road and onto another small reserve forest - to reach the tea estates and paddy fields. We had succesfully filmed the first crossing between the two reserve forest. We had seen them coming and were ready on the road when this huge herd led by the head female crossed us. The sight of these elephants would make anyone sick. They have been starving inside the forest with nothing much to eat and now thier bones and saggy skin tells the tale. They are now on the brink of death and the paddy fields are their only option. All that stops them is the road - a handfull of irate villagers and the forest department. I filmed an entire sequence before we made our way for lunch. We were back in a jiffy. We stayed on in the location for over eight hours filming the odd elephant crossings well into the night. Chardwar was surrounded on three sides by forests and on the fourth side were paddy fields and villages. This is the middle of nowhere yet the amount of people congregating here is so immense that of late prostitutes have descended to make business with the survivors. A few of them approached us too. What were they thinking ? We want to do it with 200 elephants watching. At night, the villagers came in their hundereds to protect their paddy fields. This was an important sequence we wanted to film. There was confusion and pandamonium when in the horizon we could see the elephants coming out of the reserve forest. We jumped onto the roof of our 4wheeler and started filming. We reversed and made our way to a nearby railway line where we could get a better shot. The villagers were also waiting on this line with their mashaals burning. The elephants were nowhere to be found...Did we miss them? Had they crossed already ? It was pitch dark and the mashaals threw little light into the nearby area. I tried lowering the levels of the camera to see what i could. And what i saw shocked me. The elephants were here .... right next to us (50-80 meters) ... silently waiting for us to make room for their crossing. They knew it would be wiser to be patient than get into a confrontation. We pushed back a little. Just then the villagers saw the elephants and ran towards them bursting crackers, shouting and waving their fierce mashaals. Thats when i got my fav shot of all time. The scene: the railway line, the shouting villagers 50 meters away from us shining all their torches and lights at us and between us began the crossing with the elephants getting back lit. It was a moment of zen. All this believe me happened within a minute. The crossing itself lasted only 30 seconds. We were thrilled and the grins on our faces told the world. Once that was done we ran towards the safety of the car because the bull elephants who often cross last could be anywhere. And with a bull elephant around its like being in a boxing ring with young Mohammed Ali - You just dont stand a chance.
(Elephants have set migration routes which they follow every year from one forest to another. These forests are fast depleting. Every year they come looking for a forest but find a tea estate or a paddy field. Now what can they do ?)
We went on to shoot for over 20 days, in and around the tea estates, paddy fields and forests. Me, Nitish and Dheeraj had a great time. We came ever closer and yet so far off with many fights breaking out. But thats a part of life we all need to experience. The Sucess and the Failure. Looking back now the documentary, The Conflict, turns out to be an average one, we all did our best no doubt. It was a great chance to learn on the field. Those days can never be outdone by any other experience i have ever had in my life. (Ok maybe some)
I did visit Assam later on twice, once for filming the rest of the three doc's - Amazing Assam, Kaziranga A World Heritage Site; Zoos and Rescue Centers of Assam. This was when the rhino's were being translocated to Manas from Kaziranga. Swati Thyagarajan from NDTV was there with her cameraman. Manas, I feel, has the most awe inspiring mornings. I saw a leopord there once, sitting majestically on a tree. I was not shooting then, but the NDTV cameraman and my producer got a shot.
The other time i revisited Assam was in December 2007 to do shoot/record sound for a small story about the man elephant conflict for the CBS - KPIX SanFransisco hosted by Satinder Bindra. We were three - Me, Sat and Rohit Gandhi. We had a great time visiting Kaziranga. But since the tribals were revolting during that time and the whole state was burning, we could not make much of a story and had to be happy with what we had.
I look forward to study the situation over there in present days. I often tell myself i am a realist because I pray the man elephant conflict in Assam gets resolved but I know its getting worse.
I wish all the forest gaurds and officers of the Assam Forest department their very best in this endeavour. A special shout out to WWF who are doing great ground work to resolve the issues between man and elephant. Peace.
PLEASE DO YOUR BIT TO SAVE THE ASIAN ELEPHANT. THEY ARE OUR PRIDE AND THE TRUE IDENTITY OF OUR NATION.
+ All animals in the wild should be treated with caution. All thoughts above are my feelings and is not to be taken by anyone as a guide. I am relatively an amateur in this proffession compared to the experts and forest department workers.
(*Having travelled through Bihar later on in ordinary trains, I don't think the situation is so bad. The country side is really pleasent and reminds one of Colonial India*)
The Beggining
Opportunity first knocked in 2005. I had just finished my course in videography and was on the look out for a job. A very good friend of mine had suggested meeting a company in South Delhi who were planning to make wildlife documentaries on Assam. I jumped on the wagon without another thought. I remember it was raining that evening, when me and my two friends made our way to Delhi on borrowed bikes. We were desperately looking for the address. What came of that evening was an opportunity of a life time. The company had just got commissioned 4 doc's from Doordashan Guwahati. And now we were to help produce them, the three of us working in different capacities to help the producers. Excitement gripped us all. We were discussing crazy ideas and were up all night planning on how to shoot sequences - One of us would jump from an elephant and distract the rhino while I crept close enough to get a close up of the rhino sticking his horn somewhere it hurts. Or something like that. Nitish a good friend from Vikas Puri was interested in direction and he came up with very good concepts but nothing meterialised. Much of his imaginations were too tough to be made into realty for a start up team.
We proposed to make a recce trip to Assam where it would be better to understand the conditions and challenges of shooting in the area. Towards June end me, Nitish and Dheeraj (another great friend from Gorakhpur) boarded the Rajdhani towards Gauwahati. Now I should mention this that the producer of the programme was a real Uncle Scrooge and was unwilling to sponsor our trip. So we were on a real down the pits kind of budget. The only thing we splurged upon was the train tickets cause we were scarred to board an ordinary train through Bihar*.
Now things were going great till we reached Gauwahati. We had set foot in Assam finally and got our ride to our rooms when a bomb blasted at the IOC tankers next to the railway station. Thankfully we had made way by then. We were in Gauwahati for two nights during which we went around town...to the great zoo that the city has and also to the forest department offices. Once that round of meeting the beurocrats was done, it was time to change gears and head straight for the war zone.
The Conflict
Our first pitstop on our journey of assam was the town of Tezpur, where our first documentary was set. Tezpur is around 150 kms from the capital of Assam, Dispur, and has a sizable mixed population of Bengalis, Assamees, Bodos and Bangladeshi migrants. It lays on the north bank of Assam a huge chunk of land cut in half by the mighty Brahmaputra. We had the river in our backyard with forests just outside the town. Kaziranga, Nameri, Orang are all quiet close to Tezpur - hence our choice was set. Now Tezpur also happens to be surrounded by huge tea estates and paddy fields. These would be the battleground everynight. Year after year during the harvest season of Bihu (Nov-Jan) hunderds of migrating elephants from adjoining forests make their way into the paddy fields around Tezpur to reap the benifits of a good (or bad) harvest. Violent battles are fought between man and beast, each with sizable casualities and sorrowing families. Yet none gives in and looks forward to the next night for a game of one upmanship. On the second day of our trip in Tezpur we went to explore the area around the tea gardens and saw first hand the damage the two sides were causing on each other. During peak harvest season someone was dying each night. We heard horriffic stories (with many photos) of electrecuted elephant calves and mutilated human beings. It is very rare to see an elephant in this area without scratch marks, gun shot wounds, sceptic feet and all. Elephants rest in the tea estates during the day time and converge onto the paddy fields to feed at night. The tea estate workers who also work in the fields are mostly tribals from Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. Of poor economic background these people often consume home made rice beer which gives them a surge of courage in fighting the beasts. It so happens that the very same rice beer happens to be the favoirate beverage of elephants, who love its intoxicating sweet taste (Is Malaya reading this?). So the elephants come knocking at the houses of these people. Now an elephant knock is actually a knock down. The rest I leave to your imagination.
We got an opportunity one day to visit the Sonai Rupai Sanctuary near Tezpur. The forest here is in a decline and under tremendous pressure from a local population hungry for forest produce. With the support of the timber mafia, the locals have decimated the forest, clearing large chunks of greenery and converting the same into agricultural land. We went deep into the forest in a department pick up truk. There were no roads, just a fireline through the forest. We were unable to locate the elephant herds believed to be in there. A big problem. Cause if they were not in the forest, then it meant they were on the edge waiting for nightfall to raid the paddy fields. We made way to a nearby village and rested. Around late evening we decided to patrol the forest boundary when all of a sudden the gaurd stopped the vehicle and stepped out. He pointed to a ford around 200 meters away from where they were expectng 80 - 150 to cross into neighbouring villages. Dude thats a lot of elephants. We decided to check it out. We were on foot for more than 20 minutes in a light drizzle walking along the ford. The rain, the slush and the fear of being stampeded by a herd of hungry elephants made my legs seize. I was breathing faster. The only thing i could hear was my heart beating. Any minute now the elephants were to come crashing through the trees aiming their tusks at us. I was shit scared, cause if there are 150 elephants coming from there, should'nt we be moving the other way. You know just for today maybe we can skip the action. The sun had set long back and now it was getting real dark. The gaurds took in huge puffs from their beedis after which they started retying their laces, tightening their belts and stretching as if they were getting ready to run. The head gaurd wanted to borrow my umbrella. His explanation : If the elephants charged we throw the umbrella at them and run. Ok great. I am game for the running part. I dont know if throwing an umbrella is a great idea. Maybe it will make us run faster cause now the elephants are gonna be real pissed. But the elephants had other plans. They had already crossed into a nearby reserve forest through a narrow patch of depleted woods. The depredation was going on all around us. Only we could not see it. We made short trips to Kaziranga and Orang just to rething our strategies. We eventually concluded that it was not the best time to shoot and should return in a month's time ready for a full shoot.
We were excited when we returned to Tezpur nearly two months later. This time we had all the gear for a basic shoot - a sturdy camera, tripod, lights, etc. Ok thats all good, but even god cant help a man who is really stupid. We had made our way into the Amribari tea estate and were shooting sequences of broken bridges and destroyed huts when word came that there was a huge makhna (tuskless male) in the adjoining tea estate. This is when we learnt our first lesson. Never irritate a wild animal to the point that it feels provoked enough to defend itself. To get a good sequence of shots we decided to follow the tusker on foot, through trenches, bridges, tea estates and all. He would at times stop turn around and pause for a second, looking dead at us. I am pretty sure he wanted to say 'dude you follow me again and i am gonna see that your dinner goes cold tonight'. We din't get the message. Keeping a distance of 100 - 200 meters we reached an elevated patch of the tea estate where there were a few trees growing. He was feeding on these trees which are planted in tea estates to provide shade for the tea leaves. We were filming this when it turned around and halved the distance between us in the flash of an eyelid. It was on full charge not a mock one. The gaurd shot in the air, bringing the pachyderm to an instant stop. He turned around and ran into a nearby sugarcane field with his tail raised. In the confusion we had missed the firing shot. We were dejected - I was heartbroken - for missing the shot, for disturbing the poor beast and for exposing ourselves to the locals as a gun toting group. Ever since I have always kept a sure safe distance between any animal and myself. The very next day would be our induction into the whole drama surrounding this town.
We were in the Chardwar range, on the road which leads to Arunachal. There is a small reserve forest neighbouring the Nameri National Park. Now the elephants numbering over 150 have to make way through this degraded reserve forest - cross the road and onto another small reserve forest - to reach the tea estates and paddy fields. We had succesfully filmed the first crossing between the two reserve forest. We had seen them coming and were ready on the road when this huge herd led by the head female crossed us. The sight of these elephants would make anyone sick. They have been starving inside the forest with nothing much to eat and now thier bones and saggy skin tells the tale. They are now on the brink of death and the paddy fields are their only option. All that stops them is the road - a handfull of irate villagers and the forest department. I filmed an entire sequence before we made our way for lunch. We were back in a jiffy. We stayed on in the location for over eight hours filming the odd elephant crossings well into the night. Chardwar was surrounded on three sides by forests and on the fourth side were paddy fields and villages. This is the middle of nowhere yet the amount of people congregating here is so immense that of late prostitutes have descended to make business with the survivors. A few of them approached us too. What were they thinking ? We want to do it with 200 elephants watching. At night, the villagers came in their hundereds to protect their paddy fields. This was an important sequence we wanted to film. There was confusion and pandamonium when in the horizon we could see the elephants coming out of the reserve forest. We jumped onto the roof of our 4wheeler and started filming. We reversed and made our way to a nearby railway line where we could get a better shot. The villagers were also waiting on this line with their mashaals burning. The elephants were nowhere to be found...Did we miss them? Had they crossed already ? It was pitch dark and the mashaals threw little light into the nearby area. I tried lowering the levels of the camera to see what i could. And what i saw shocked me. The elephants were here .... right next to us (50-80 meters) ... silently waiting for us to make room for their crossing. They knew it would be wiser to be patient than get into a confrontation. We pushed back a little. Just then the villagers saw the elephants and ran towards them bursting crackers, shouting and waving their fierce mashaals. Thats when i got my fav shot of all time. The scene: the railway line, the shouting villagers 50 meters away from us shining all their torches and lights at us and between us began the crossing with the elephants getting back lit. It was a moment of zen. All this believe me happened within a minute. The crossing itself lasted only 30 seconds. We were thrilled and the grins on our faces told the world. Once that was done we ran towards the safety of the car because the bull elephants who often cross last could be anywhere. And with a bull elephant around its like being in a boxing ring with young Mohammed Ali - You just dont stand a chance.
(Elephants have set migration routes which they follow every year from one forest to another. These forests are fast depleting. Every year they come looking for a forest but find a tea estate or a paddy field. Now what can they do ?)
We went on to shoot for over 20 days, in and around the tea estates, paddy fields and forests. Me, Nitish and Dheeraj had a great time. We came ever closer and yet so far off with many fights breaking out. But thats a part of life we all need to experience. The Sucess and the Failure. Looking back now the documentary, The Conflict, turns out to be an average one, we all did our best no doubt. It was a great chance to learn on the field. Those days can never be outdone by any other experience i have ever had in my life. (Ok maybe some)
I did visit Assam later on twice, once for filming the rest of the three doc's - Amazing Assam, Kaziranga A World Heritage Site; Zoos and Rescue Centers of Assam. This was when the rhino's were being translocated to Manas from Kaziranga. Swati Thyagarajan from NDTV was there with her cameraman. Manas, I feel, has the most awe inspiring mornings. I saw a leopord there once, sitting majestically on a tree. I was not shooting then, but the NDTV cameraman and my producer got a shot.
The other time i revisited Assam was in December 2007 to do shoot/record sound for a small story about the man elephant conflict for the CBS - KPIX SanFransisco hosted by Satinder Bindra. We were three - Me, Sat and Rohit Gandhi. We had a great time visiting Kaziranga. But since the tribals were revolting during that time and the whole state was burning, we could not make much of a story and had to be happy with what we had.
I look forward to study the situation over there in present days. I often tell myself i am a realist because I pray the man elephant conflict in Assam gets resolved but I know its getting worse.
I wish all the forest gaurds and officers of the Assam Forest department their very best in this endeavour. A special shout out to WWF who are doing great ground work to resolve the issues between man and elephant. Peace.
PLEASE DO YOUR BIT TO SAVE THE ASIAN ELEPHANT. THEY ARE OUR PRIDE AND THE TRUE IDENTITY OF OUR NATION.
+ All animals in the wild should be treated with caution. All thoughts above are my feelings and is not to be taken by anyone as a guide. I am relatively an amateur in this proffession compared to the experts and forest department workers.
(*Having travelled through Bihar later on in ordinary trains, I don't think the situation is so bad. The country side is really pleasent and reminds one of Colonial India*)
