Exploring My Textile Obsession with Eri Silk of Meghalaya, Guest Post by Anna-Louise Meynell



5 generations of women and girls from a weaving family

Working with textiles, as I have done for the past fifteen years, is often a passport to genuine experiences and interactions with rural artisans. Each time I visit an artisan village on ‘work’ I leave feeling truly blessed to be able to overcome language barriers, by communicating through the language of textiles – its warp and weft – a mutual understanding of the craft of weaving.

Working with the weavers

I was trained as a weaver in Scotland, where I also grew up. I moved to Bangalore in 2005, and my relationship with Indian textiles and traditional artisans grew with each year I spent there. With such a rich textile heritage, it is easy to develop many textile obsessions, but there is one fabric that captured my attention from the moment I came across it. Eri silk. The soft handle, the rustic and slubby texture of the yarn, the matt sheen of this unusual silk, the weight and drape of the cloth and the subtle shades of natural dyes drew me in and found a place in my mind. I was fascinated by the fabric and the place where it was produced - North East India.



Family collection of traditional Khasi pieces

When people talk of textiles of North East India, it is rarely textiles of Meghalaya that will be first brought into the conversation. Bold tribal textiles of Nagaland, Eri and Muga silk with figurative motifs of tribal Assam are well established on the textile map. Some may know of the fine and compact Phanek embroidery and the Wangkhei Phee textiles of Manipur (using the same technique of jamdani from West Bengal and Bangladesh), while textiles from Meghalaya are barely given a mention. What a treat for me then, to be invited into the villages on a textile consultancy with NESFAS, a Shillong-based NGO, to assess the potential and production constraints of the Eri silk weavers, spinners and dyers and work with them to expand their markets. I found that while Meghalaya is a state more or less off the well-trodden textile trails of India it has a rich, sincere and humble textile history.

From Mustoh to the plains of Bangladesh,

As a Scottish weaver I have received a very warm welcome in Meghalaya. Each person I meet reminds me that Meghalaya was affectionately named ‘Scotland of the East’ by the British. I (try to) respond with equal enthusiasm every time as I talk of the similarities with Scotland; the rolling hills, the deep gorges, pine forests and clean fresh rivers. To talk of Meghalaya or equally of Scotland and not to mention the rain is impossible. Rain shapes a land, gives life, fertility and endless shades of the colour green. I have always found an affinity with people who come from rainy places and Meghalaya is no exception - though the rain here is on a completely different scale to my homeland. Officially known as ‘the rainiest place on the planet’ the people have come to accept and understand how to live with the rain, enjoying the dynamic seasons, never leaving the house without an umbrella. One particularly poignant moment for me was in Mustoh, a village in the hills bordering Bangladesh. Looking down on the flooding Bangladeshi plains while being pummelled with torrential rain (over several days) gave me real experience of the forces of nature that impact the lives of so many people.

Eri silk fibre and thread

But back to the weavers, and the indigenous craft culture of Meghalaya. While Eri silk is best known for its production in Assam, it also has a long history with the people of Meghalaya. The main hub of Eri silk weaving in Meghalaya is the Ri Bhoi District, an area on the border of Assam, halfway between Guwahati and Shillong. It is a lush, fertile area where literally anything will take root and flourish. The self-sufficient and naturally sustainable communities of Ri Bhoj are primarily agriculture based, their main produce being innumerable varieties of rice, ginger, turmeric, and a range of delicious seasonal vegetables such as pumpkin, spinach, radish, squash, brinjal, tree tomato, beans and many more. In most villages farming responsibilities come first, with the whole village working on planting and harvesting of rice. Traditionally weaving activities are integrated into village life in the moments when agriculture is less demanding. When women get together in the community it is not rare to see them spinning eri silk with the takli or drop spindle, as they share anecdotes from their family life. Understanding the relationship between Eri silk production and the rhythm of the agricultural seasons is the first step towards understanding the weaving communities in the Ri Bhoi District.



Studying the Khad Ar Lyngdoh designs

Village life in the Ri Bhoi District

Eri silk in Meghalaya has always been cultivated domestically, and still is today.  The silk worms feed on the leaves of a number of plants, most commonly the castor plant, and grow fat and green in the shelter of the rearing house - generally a purpose built bamboo shed in the compound of the home. For those of you reading this blog post who do not know about Eri silk, it is also known as ‘ahimsa silk’, ‘peace silk’ or ‘non-violent silk’ due to the non-violent method of extracting the silk from the cocoon. The cocoon is spun of short fibres, making it impossible to reel the silk from the cocoon. The majority of the world’s silk is reeled, whereby the cocoon is boiled with the worm still inside to loosen the silk filament before reeling. The Eri silk worm however is either taken out by breaking open the cocoon, or the worm is allowed to eat its way out through the cocoon to emerge as a moth and continue the cycle. As Eri silk is hand-spun, it is of no matter that the cocoon has been broken open, thus saving the worm of being boiled alive. The amusing irony that I have observed with this reference for Eri silk (‘ahimsa silk’), is that once out of the cocoon the majority of the worms will be served up for dinner or turned into pickle! Ultimately the worm is not harmed in production of the silk, but being a great source of protein, it is not wasted. You can often see large bamboo trays of these worms being sold in the market, and in fact they can fetch as high a price as the silk cocoon itself.

Eri silk worm

Cocoons are washed, hand-spun and the yarn is dyed with natural dyes. Traditionally the colours used in Meghalaya were stick lac red, turmeric yellow and black from iron ore. Today, with training and support from government and NGO’s, the artisans have greatly increased their repertoire of colours, experimenting with all kinds of leaves, flowers, roots and fruits in and around the forests. Amongst many other plants, they are now experimenting with hibiscus (china rose), ananto fruit, marigold flowers, guava leaves and teak leaves. The colours they create depend on the season, the availability of these wild natural resources and even how old the plant is.

Eri silk worms

Eri silk from Meghalaya is a tangible reflection of the rural communities it is produced in. The quality of the silk depends on the quality of the leaves the worm feeds on, the texture of the thread is dictated by the hand of the spinner, the natural dyes come from the wild produce of the land, and finally the weaver working with a floor loom made of local bamboo brings her own creativity to the design and construction of the cloth.

Preparing the warp for the traditional Khasi check shawl

My current work in Meghalaya is research for my doctoral studies, through the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, University of the Arts London. I have been undertaking an ethnographic documentation of the socio-cultural context of Eri silk production in the Ri Bhoi District, and a technical analysis of the weaving process, recording their skills as new technology is introduced to their current practices. I have spent much time staying with the weavers, observing their rhythm of working, delving into their tribal history, and studying the textiles in their family collections.

Eri silk woven on the floor loom. Turmeric dyed warp and twisted turmeric and lac red weft

I am happy to say that there is a deep and meaningful history of Eri silk textiles in Meghalaya, closely linked to the social history of the communities. I have found sophisticated supplementary weft designs that were woven on simple floor looms. These textiles were once used by traditional dancers as a waistband with long sashes. With the widespread conversion to Christianity many of the traditional celebrations died out, and with it the need for dancers, or indeed their stunning waistbands! These skills are not lost however, and I have found contemporary versions in acrylic or cotton being woven in some villages. On the trail of the supplementary weft technique I have come across interesting indications of tribal assimilation reflected in the textiles. The Assamese and the Karbi textiles are woven with highly figurative motifs of flowers or mythical animals, which are also found in the Ri Bhoi district.  The Khasi Bhoi people have very clear geometric patterns, yet use the same technique of supplementary weft. Khasis elsewhere in Meghalaya do not use this technique, nor do they have the intricate ‘dancers waistband’ in their traditional dress, indicating that the close interaction between the Karbi and the Khasi people of the Ri Bhoi District may have led to exchange of ideas and techniques in textiles. When one delves into the tribal history of the area it becomes clear that this is really a rich land of many layers.

Natural dyes

Mist and rain in Mustoh

In some villages there is a noticeable shift in the approach to weaving. In Umden, the ‘model village’ of eri silk production, weaving has become a thriving commercial business. Weavers work full time and some do not work in the field at all. Many are structuring their workshops to be able to accommodate larger orders. The frame loom, and fly shuttle loom is now widely used, millspun yarn is available which they use in the warp, and you can see far more experimentation in design moving away from the traditional textiles. 

Traditional dress of the Khad Ar Lyngdoh communities,
Khasi Bhoi ethnic group

None of this research is possible without building relationships with the weavers over several cups of tea, followed by endless chewing of kwai  (a large chunk of beetlenut, beetle leaf and lime) to give you that special village high! On occasions going into certain villages, my Khasi assistant and I have been warned not to drink any tea or eat food, if offered, due to the practice of black magic in the village. It is said the excrement of the silkworm, when crushed and sprinkled on food as black magic would bring bad luck, ill health and possibly lead to the death of the person who consumed it. Today they do not use the powder, though black magic powers are still respected or feared. One family we visited in Umkon, (the Ri Bhoi District) did not offer us any tea at all, which is very unusual in Meghalaya. Knowing that they have a reputation of practicing black magic, they do not offer guests tea to avoid an awkward situation. This was followed by a visit to another family in the same village, who told us tales of their grandfather transforming into a tiger, while we drank tea and ate pomelo fruit mixed with salt and black sesame and carambola from their garden. Our hosts’ grandfather was one of the few villagers who did not convert to Christianity in colonial times, a fierce defender of the indigenous Khasi religion. The tiger often appears in Khasi folklore and such stories are common even today. Though I cannot understand Khasi, watching her narrate the stories of her grandfather with such animation I could almost sense the tiger in her. Kong Kumari who had accompanied us to the village insisted we consume a tangy tasting powder as soon as we left, as a precautionary antidote to black magic. We took it on her insistence but as Vianney, my assistant, rightly said: “the food was given with such love, straight from the heart, it can only be received with warmth and gratitude.”



Floor loom weaving

My own interest in textiles has led me into deep discussions on tribal culture, the matrilineal system of the Khasis and role of women in Meghalaya, community systems of authority, the relationship with colonial settlers, the mass conversions to Christianity, the list goes on. What began as a search for indigenous textiles has opened-up doors to explore a rich cultural tapestry, building lasting friendships with people from such different backgrounds.

120 year old dancers waistband from the Khasi Bhoi communities,
Eri silk, exquisite supplementary weft designs

Anna-Louise Meynell is a designer of woven textiles from Scotland who has been living and working in Asia for 12 years. Her consultancy work in handwoven textiles takes her to inspiring communities in India, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. With so much travel and textiles in her life she describes herself as a ‘nomadic weaver’!

Anna-Louise has been working in Meghalaya since 2014, and is currently based in Shillong, doing research on the traditional Eri silk textiles of Meghalaya. The North East of India has captured Anna-Louise’s heart, mind and textile imagination and she may well be there some time longer!

www.annaloom.com

https://www.instagram.com/annaloom/

Aaro Aakash…….A Memologue of Leisure - Guest Post - Sunetra Lahiri

Dokka, the cottage for two where we stayed

I met Uday Hazra at a photography exhibition where he was one of the exhibitors. Till date I do not know exactly what he does for a living except that he is a writer, graphic artist, and photographer, has a philanthropic bent of mind and owns ‘Aaro Aakash’ which is neither a hotel nor a resort but rather a property having one big and one small cottage that he kindly allows his friends and relatives to stay in. Adjacent and older than ‘Aaro Aakash’ is ‘Anek Aakash’ but that property is for his personal use. He has been asking me to visit 'Aaro Aakash' before it becomes another concrete jungle and the sky becomes just a figment of imagination….. So this February before the summer heat became too much we, myself and my friend Lily, decided we would take up his offer.

We board an early morning train from Sealdah for Bolpur, Shantiniketan. It’s a grey day, cool; we refresh ourselves with paper cups of hot lemon tea from a passing vendor on the train.  It takes about three hours to reach our destination.

'Aaro Aakash'….10kilometre from Bolpur station is in a village – Kamarpara. The property is looked after by Basuda, the manager and Lalda, the cook and odd job man. They both live in the same village within shouting distance of the property. Basuda drives the brand new white Maruti 'Omni' and picks us up from Bolpur Station. When we reach 'Aaro Aakash' we find it picture perfect - rustic, organic, basic; the charm lies in its simplicity. Dokka, the cottage for two, lies at the end of the property separated from a bigger cottage beside a pond and amidst abundant greenery. Dokka has an open front porch. It has a swing, an old armchair and a charpoy. I stake claim to the charpoy much to my friend’s amusement. Lying on the charpoy watching a sun bleached February sky as sharp little neem leaves float down soundlessly to the ground is cathartic. The breeze, still cool with barely a hint of the coming summer, making gentle music as it passes through the trees. It is a moment of unmitigated bliss.

Ekka - the first cottage in Aaro Aakash

I look at my companion – who has quite recently finished her PhD in Philosophy. For four years while she was writing her thesis we did not travel much because of her commitments. We are kindred souls and need to dive deep into quiet to rejuvenate. This trip was her birthday gift to me. Sitting on the swing engrossed in a book she had carried all the way from home, content, peaceful and silent, she is the perfect travel companion – unobtrusive and non-invasive. It has always been like this…..the treasured company of someone in perfect tandem with your rhythm.

The door separating Ekka from Dokka

Lalda comes ambling down the narrow path…. Lunch is ready. Food is simple, fresh and hot, served with love on huge steel plates with matching glasses on reed mats laid on the raised table in a little thatched hut with mud walls. Rice is heaped on our plates. There are dishes of dal, vegetable curry, fried eggplant, and fresh water fish curry. We protest because we cannot eat so much. Lalda is disappointed to find how little we eat; he says the water is good, it will make us hungry and we should eat more. We smile, trustingly drink the water and soon are too full to think about evening tea.

There is nothing much to do and that suits us fine. We lie down on the porch furniture like languid overfed lizards of which there are too many and varied to notice. When I return and tell him about the burgeoning lizard population, Uday-da, who is rather passionate about the environment, ecology and all things that have life, says, “it’s their home too.” 

An abandoned abode on way to Lakhi Sayar

Towards evening, before the twilight slips into deep dusk we venture out to explore Lakkhi Sayar - a large water body. Much before coming here we have avidly followed Uday-da’s Facebook page which was full of photographs of the village, 'Aaro Aakash' and Lakkhi Sayar. It’s just round a bend in the road hidden by a little ridge about 500 yards from the gate. We climb easily, nimbly like the black goats grazing about. It’s a beautiful sight….a solitary boat at the edge of the bank, the sun reflected in broken ripples, birds wheeling and settling among dark trees on the far bank while darkness descended slowly. Like true amateurs, we try our best to capture the mood but must be content with the image etched on our mind. Along the winding path back to 'Aaro Aakash', we meet some village women returning from a day’s work in the field - colourfully attired, their sweat soaked vital faces glowing in the rays of the setting sun. 

The lone boatman  of Lakhi Sayar - the waterbody near Aaro Aakash

We return back and Lalda serves tea with biscuits. We refuse his offer of “telebhaja with muri” (deep fried pakoras with puffed rice). Lily sits on a weather beaten wooden bench in front of the other cottage sipping her piping hot beverage while I amble about busily taking pictures of the surrounding. The previous guests had left that morning so we were the only people on the property.

We spend the evening on the porch surrounded by Mortein coils. The place is mosquito heaven, surrounded by trees and water bodies. My friend reads articles and stories she has collected for just such an occasion. She is a good story teller, her voice smooth with the correct intonation. It’s a moment of … nirmal anand….. We are quite unaware of time till Lalda comes hurrying down the path carrying a hurricane lamp and announces that dinner is ready. The hurricane lamp brings back memories of a bygone time in Calcutta when whole portions of the city would be shrouded in darkness due to load shedding, lighted only by these glass lamps. They would get sooty every night and cleaning them out every day was a ritual. Somehow exams and homework and my childhood evenings will always be linked with these lamps – the smoky smell of kerosene and the acridity of singed hair when we leaned too close to the glass, our eyes full of sleep from the torpid heat and humidity.

After dinner we wander back to our porch and feel that it’s too early to turn in. But there’s not much else we can do. We call home and report that all’s well, finish our nightly rituals in silence, climb inside the mosquito net that Lalda has so thoughtfully hung for us over the bed, a low wooden chouki without headrest pushed against the wall near the window which looks out on the porch. We try to sleep but end up chatting instead, our body clock attuned to a more urban routine. We talk late into the night. What did we talk about? I cannot remember. Inconsequential nothings, I guess.

I wake up early, take out my camera and go out onto the porch. It’s eerily silent. The sun is a mystery – it’s there but I cannot see it. Fog lies thick and deep among the trees.  I sit down on the armchair and try to be one with the silence. After a while I take a walk, feeling the cool gritty soil underfoot. There is dew on the straggly grass that glistens like pearl. Faraway through the cotton-wool silence I hear the tinkling of cow bells. I do not know what hour it is, only becoming aware of time when   I see Lalda emerging through the fog, as if by magic, from some other dimension, carrying tea in a thick glass, asking when we would require hot water for our baths.

Subarnarekha - the bookstore everybody goes to

After breakfast Basuda drives us to Shantiniketan. We have been here before so we do not waste time doing the usual touristy things. We visit 'Subarnarekha', the bookstore near Viswa Bharati University, where one can find anything from the downright crowd pleasers to the esoteric to vintage to rare moth eaten books and out-of-print journals. It’s not very organised. Books weigh down overburdened shelves and are also stacked   on the floor standing in precarious piles and in every nook and corner. It is difficult to walk about in the narrow spaces. There are a few people in the shop and it is an intricate ballet negotiating the narrow spaces between books without knocking each other over. I let my friend spend a happy hour in the proximity of books without trying to venture in much myself for I’m clumsy and quite capable of causing an accidental book avalanche. The owners are laid back, “sukhi” people, who do not seem very interested in selling anything. In fact we waited a good while before the shop was opened, a little after 11 am. But the shop survives, I guess, because of the passion of a select clientele – those people who have such love for books that they are willing to rummage through dust and countless volumes stocked ad hoc, hoping to find one gem to add to their ever increasing library. 'Subarnarekha' is something of an institution. It’s been there for more than 30 years. Everyone’s been here from prominent Bengali writers, academicians and students – it’s a popular haunt of the intelligentsia.

We look at roadside shops selling myriad things from jewellery to clothes to saris to trinkets, leather bags, accessories and souvenirs but nothing catches our eye. We head to Alcha, the store in Ratan Pally whose owner Keya Sarkar is a friend. Alcha has a good collection of bags, saris and scarves, all locally sourced and manufactured. There is also a restaurant of the same name nearby, run by Keya’s husband Satish who makes lovely Spanish omelettes, slated to reopen soon with a revamped menu.

Fourteen years ago, I and Lily had been to Shantiniketan. We were young and broke. We had been to all the usual places in a cycle rickshaw which is now being slowly replaced by Totos, the Indian version of the Tuktuk. We head for Konkalitala because my friend Lily is a temple hound. I look around trying to find the familiar road that wound through the pristine countryside, stretched to the horizon on both sides. We had been there in monsoon and there had been an eerie calm before the storm, the sunlight falling through golden edged clouds making everything glitter. Now the road and the surrounding area around the temple have changed dramatically. Development has come to Shantiniketan. The horizon is no longer visible. All we see are ugly structures on either side. It’s no longer picturesque or pristine but we go nevertheless. After my friend offers puja to Goddess Kali, we get back to Shantiniketan, hungry.
We find a place to eat. We are sceptical about the food, being quite put off by the strange décor and not very clean washrooms. With much reluctance, we order Chinese. The place is understaffed and the few waiters are busy running about. Almost all tables are taken. We infer that it must be a popular joint. When our orders arrive, we find food is surprisingly good and non-greasy. We take our time over lunch and linger a while, finishing our fresh lime sodas. Then it is time to return.

Village road near Aaro Aakash

Basuda drives us back to 'Aaro Aakash'. It takes about half an hour. The silence embraces us like a cloak. It’s a little hot but not very. The late afternoon is spent lazing about on the porch. We fall asleep in the gentle heat. When I wake up it is nearing twilight. We must have napped for the better part of an hour. I wake up my friend and decide that we would like to explore the other side of Kamarpara. Cameras in hand, we walked down unpaved village roads clicking photos of whatever catches our fancy... The porous laterite soil sticks to our sandals. Though there is teeming life in every house for we can hear the low hum and chatter, babies crying, radios and we can smell the smokiness of coal fire in preparation for the evening meal. The roads are deserted except for stray dogs, an occasional cat, an old woman sitting at the entrance of her hut…..a young man returning home on his bicycle….. I’m delighted to find tortuous, gnarled trees which look as if they have been there since the beginning of time. We wander farther than desired, almost two kilometres from 'Aaro Aakash' and then decide that it would be prudent to return as it would get quite dark. Without streetlights -- we were not carrying a torch-- it would be difficult to negotiate these unknown roads.

We returned soaked in sweat to hot tea and village gossip. Lalda is voluble, talking about Uday-da’s generosity and philanthropic work and all that he has done for the village people. The evening rolls into night…. It’s been just two days that we have been here but we feel that we have been here longer than that. This place is timeless…in the sense that every day is much like the previous day so if one were not very careful it would be easy to forget mundane things like time, one’s spatial existence, the virtual reality of things….We do much the same thing as the previous evening. We speak of this and that….n’importe quoi….yet it makes us happy. Both of us, in our city avatars, are busy people - she with her academics and I with designing collections.

When I met Lily she was working in a school in another state and we only got to meet during vacations. I was once an avid letter writer and our friendship began through letters. We are bound by our love of travel, books and music… She is partial to Hindustani Classical Music particularly Ustad Rashid Khan and Pt. Ajoy Chakraborty while I have a more wide ranging interest but am drawn towards instrumentals and jazz. I have a modest library of books and I have shared the best ones with her. Her own stock of books is different – related to her studies though she does read Bengali journals and magazines voraciously. Both of us have enormous respect for the written word.

When she moved back to the city, we met more often. Lily is a good listener and, in the beginning, I had much to tell her but familiarity of all these years of being together has made words superfluous. Much like the art of writing letters, the art of conversation was dying. Sitting in that quiet place we were trying to resurrect it. We were surrounded by darkness, the sound of crickets, an occasional firefly flitting about. We consciously avoided using our mobile phones and realised that it was not very difficult. I was going through a very personal upheaval and Lily’s presence was calming.

Life like a many armed octopus, each arm leading outward to a whole universe of new worlds and returning back to a single source.....thoughts begin and move into an eternal, unfinished journey winding and weaving through a myriad of other worlds…...

In a world full of little moments –
Tucked in a fragrance, a feeling, a phrase......
Weaving a rich tapestry –
Of everything;
And sometimes nothing at all,
You bring me closer to my Earth.


We had forgotten what pleasure it was to have these kinds of rambling conversations amid unending silences without having the guilt that time was running out and things had to be done.

But time did run out in the virtual real world and the next day Basuda drives us back to Bolpur station where the waiting iron monster inexorably take us to the city and to our separate routine lives.

Sunetra describer herself as is eccentric; a philogalist, librocubicultarist, amateur author and artist who is brilliant in unimportant things. She trained at NIFT to become a designer while life had other plans. She is happy to be pottering about her workshop finding fault and complicating the lives of people who work for her.

मैंने तो इसे use ही नहीं किया

Laxmi is pint sized, not even four feet tall and is thin as a stick. She barely speaks. She's very shy and nervous and yet, paradoxically, she works in a quietly self-assured sort of way.  She came to work for me about two years ago and I wasn't sure she was old enough to be working but was told that she was 18 years old and that everyone in her family was extra petite. The man who brought her to me was her cousin brother-in-law and he said she'd done a stint at the Ansal's club, here, in Palam Vihar. I figured they must have got their paper work in order to put her on their rolls, so it was all right to take her on. Not having been to school there was no way to verify and I don’t think that in the villages they bother with things like a birth certificate, so I had no choice but to just take his word for it. .She was raw from the point of experience of working in a home. Training her was Mahipal's job because she was really green and I couldn't have done it. She basically cleans the apartment and other chores like washing clothes and dishes that don't really require her to be educated.

For the better part of two years, I have really had very little to say to her and vice versa. Gradually, I noted, every time Mahipal was on leave, she had really picked up quite a lot of other chores and was doing them quite adequately. She's learned to make the beds, dust and even lay the table for lunch. She doesn't speak much, not even in response to questions. She has this terrified posture all the time that I've often wanted to (but I don't) take hold of her tiny frame and shake her up - everything is so tightly held within that she just can't speak.

She's a decent enough worker. Although sometimes a bit of a shirker, quite unpredictable and she does things is a maddening way without using her brain. A shelf was wobbling in my meditation room so the music player had been left on the bed. A carpenter willing to undo and re-install the shelf took a while to find as Ansal's, the builders, have built very kaccha walls. So it sat on the bed for over a year. Last month the shelf was repaired and I put the music player back on it. For a week, I found that when she went to clean the room each morning, she'd remove it from the shelf to put it back on the bed. I'd put it on the shelf in the evening and she'd do it again the next day. It went on for a full week because each day I'd forget until I saw it removed from the shelf in the eveing, and by then she had left for the day. I had to make special note tell her that its rightful place was on the shelf and not on the bed! It's something I took for granted that she'd have understood, since the shelf was repaired in her presence; common sense? But she didn't figure that out.  That's how limited is her capacity to think. And adding to this, her lack of communication skills also really irks. She's totally illiterate. She cannot read numbers or even count change accurately.

These past two months Mahipal has been away so I have been very short staffed and had to do a lot of housekeeping chores I would not otherwise deal with. The persistent doorbells with delivery of stores and supplies are very disturbing, not to mention the numerous phone calls that I have to make to order them. So, each day I make an effort to teach her to a to tell the vendors who do the deliveries at home that she cannot read and ask them to show her what they have brought - “क्या लाये हो”  and where is the item mentioned in the bill and how much do they have to be paid – “बिल में कहाँ लिखा है और  कितने पैसे देने है” and somehow we've come to a point that she has understood the merit of doing this and tells them she's अन्पड़ [illiterate] so please do the needful. They don't really have a choice, so when she does ask, they take her through each item in the bag and thankfully we've figured it out such that I don't have to open the front door with every doorbell and she's now learning to take on this responsibility - more relevant is that in talking to the vendors, she's more confident about dealing with them. It's quite sweet how they oblige and show her. I actually watched the sabziwala [vegetable vendor] do it the other day, taking out one thing at a time and pointing it out to her on the bill. Today, she actually came with a vitamin I normally take, to check if it was the right one, because the packaging was different and she didn’t recognise it.  So, it works. I am not certain that she does follow this process of checking all the time, but at least some of the time I have proof of her conscientiousness in this regard.

But, despite all the strides we've taken, the lack of language skills and her innate reservation about speaking is intimidating. I'm scared to leave her alone in the apartment because if there's a mishap she cannot even call the guard on the intercom as she doesn't know how to use the phone and can't read numbers. And I don't like her leaving the front door open when no-one else's around because however safe the condominium may be, she's still a young girl who just can't stand up for herself well enough.

However, there are times when this near-mute, unlettered, intense, well-intentioned girl surprises me. She'll remember to make my tea on time every afternoon and bring it on the dot at 4 pm sharp, on a tray that's perfectly laid.  She'll show the new staff the ropes even when I'm not reassured that she knows them herself. And yesterday was the icing on the cake.

I like my morning tea light and it needs precisely four minutes to brew. When she looks at the clock in the kitchen, each day, it ends up an approximation of the necessary 4 minutes, so it's a different shade of brew with too much flavour or too little. So, I got her, what I thought would be, a foolproof kitchen timer. You had to turn it anti-clockwise to wind it up and then clockwise to 4, and it would ring an alarm in 4 minutes. On Sunday, I'd taken to using it myself. A pale blue, plastic teddy bear shape with a nice round tummy it was a cute toy in the kitchen and I always smiled when I set it up. This Sunday, the one just gone by, I found something was not quite right with the timer. The alarm didn't go off.  The next day I asked Laxmi what had happened why the timer wasn't working. Had she broken it? She said something in her usual muffled incomprehensible nothingness. I got a bit stern and repeated myself. Sometimes that's the only way to get her to open her mouth and get the words out coherently. What I heard stopped me in my tracks.

This unlettered, village girl, who frustrated me with her unfathomable ways, confounded me with her irrational fear and more said to me: “मैंने तो इसे use ही नहीं कियाI” I was stunned. I wasn't sure I'd heard right, so I asked her to repeat what she had said. And she said it again: “मैंने तो इसे use ही नहीं कियाI” [I haven’t even used it] Uneducated as she was she’d somehow picked up and used an English word, constructing a sentence using two languages, perfectly. How was that possible?  I was flabbergasted. It really made me think about the idea of intelligence versus education.

How does it work that someone so unlettered, who didn’t know the meaning of words could use them with such accuracy?  And then, what causes her to feel so much fear despite this innate intelligence that enables language skills in the absence of any formal education? It says a lot for our capacity to be present and channel the flow of our natural intelligence. Of how, when we want to learn things we pick them up with ease and when the same things become a chore, then we plod and make the stupidest of mistakes. I’ve observed this even with myself that when something comes from the heart, where there is passion, it not only flows but comes forth in the most brilliant ways, which I know that I could not have managed had I used my mind and its limited knowing.

I do realise the value of education in whatever field one pursues for this engenders confidence to enable the higher intelligence to come into play, especially in challenging scenarios. I find it particularly true with spiritual principles which most of us do not study and where most of it is innate. But when you hear people talk about it, because you may not have analysed it for yourself in quite the same way, confusion reigns and the urge to study and figure it out through observation of oneself and correlation with what the masters say becomes a must, just to enable a conscious understanding of what actually comes very naturally to all us. There are other benefits, but this facility to correlate is crucial to one’s confidence levels, even though the actual process is innate. And illiterate Laxmi with her competent usage of language in saying “मैंने तो इसे use ही नहीं किया”, provides a perfect example of how the absence of formal learning does not preclude intelligent comprehension and use of complex dual language skills through observation and application.

How she learned to use this word in this way, where and when, is something that I will probably never know because asking her would be expecting the impossible – because even if, even if she understood my question, which was highly unlikely, but even if she did understand, she would, more than likely, silently walk away because articulating was always such an effort.Soon after she'd joined, I found she that was an अँगूठा छाप। So I asked her if she'd like to learn to sign/write her name. In her predictably unpredictable way, she'd hesitated and then agreed and so I requested Mahipal to teach her. The next month, when it came to pay day, instead of the stamp pad to put her thumbprint on the receipt, Laxmi came with a ballpoint pen in her hand. I was impressed. I waited patiently - she took aeons to sign. I finally left her alone to do it as she was shaking with nervousness. When I got back to my desk, I found that she'd signed LAXMI in bold capitals, in English, across the page. Trembling letters that didn't stand up straight in a line. And, some two years later, they shake and wobble as much, even though she's more confident about signing and does it as quick or slow as anyone else.

But “मैंने तो इसे use ही नहीं किया” is something else, isn't it? I still cannot fathom how she manages to get some things right and sometimes does the craziest things that defy the possibility that she can use her mind intelligently. Not unlike the rest of us who may be highly educated and lettered, this seems a perfect reminder that education does not necessarily facilitate intelligence and neither is a degree in any subject a prerequisite for intelligent enquiry into it. It’s innate; if only we have the confidence to channel it.

 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/Gopikanath801art/

 

 

Tea and Tales from Tawang

Sela Pass

The cup of tea on the table in front of me is quite repulsive, to say the least. The container is squat, made of greyish, flimsy (possibly toxic) plastic that wobbles when held in the hand, threatening to spill out its contents. The tea, thick, dark brown and glutinous, is forming a crinkly skin on the top. It’s 7 am and I’ve just bought this brew at the Guwahati airport.

I’m seated on a large brown faux leather sofa in the VIP lounge. On another sofa, across me, Mr Nitin Gadkari, BJP ideologue and current minister for roads, is reading aloud a joke about the Congress on his cell phone and giggling happily along with his retinue. He is waiting for a helicopter to take him to district Zero in Arunachal Pradesh. I too am waiting for a chopper to get me to Tawang. 

 

A Stream by the Road

I drink the tea. It is hot, sweet and thick, as is all tea you might get at an airport – and nothing like the milk-less light Lipton Green Label I’m used to. I feel it travelling down my food pipe in a mass and hit the stomach. Instead of jerking me awake, as I had hoped (I’ve been up since 2 am to travel), it has a strangely soporific affect – and I fall immediately and deeply asleep. The next thing I know, I am being shaken awake: “Madam, the helicopter is ready, it’s 10 o’clock.” This is a commercial flight run by the state government and I go through the security check again and soon find myself on the tarmac, near the helicopter. Mr Gadkari and his group fly by overhead in a couple of Army copters. 

 

The Road to Twang, from the helicopter

The only other passenger in our chopper is a Washington Post journalist who is worried about altitude sickness in Tawang – the town is located 10,000 feet above sea level. Since I had not thought about this, I too begin to worry but not for long. Our helicopter takes off and soon we are engrossed in the visual delights outside our windows. We are travelling over hills clad in thick virgin forest, the green broken only by the pale thin ribbon of a road winding up and down endlessly. The road trip from Guwahati to Tawang takes about sixteen hours and the chopper ride a little over an hour. However, the latter is dependent on weather conditions and quite erratic.

 

White Tara at Lumla

We soon arrive at Lumla, and hover almost eye level with a huge, beautiful statue of White Tara, seated atop a hill. At the helipad, my host, the district commissioner of Tawang, has sent a Jeep and driver to meet me and soon we are on our way to Tawang Township. The air is crisp and cold, the temperature hovering around 12 degrees centigrade. The journey is an hour-and-a-half long over very bad road. Small waterfalls and streams trickling down the hillside, fields of brilliant yellow flowers, an occasional flowering rhododendron tree, a yak grazing in a meadow, prayer flags fluttering gaily from poles and rooftops, and people busy with their daily lives in the small village we pass are some sights that keep me visually engrossed and cushioned from bumps. 

 

Monpa women dancing

Tawang district is also known as the Land of the Monpa. The Monpa are an ancient tribe that migrated to Tawang and adjacent West Kameng district from Tibet and Bhutan over time. They are followers of Buddhism; in fact, the only Dalai Lama – the sixth – to be born in India took birth in Tawang in 1683. There are many myths and stories about his life as a child, his journey to Tibet and his eventual mysterious disappearance. In the mists of time, Tibet held sovereignty over Tawang and later China became involved. The McMohan line demarcated Tawang as Indian Territory in 1914, but China still lays claim to the area. In fact, Chinese troops over-ran the place in the 1962 Indo-Chinese war and later retreated when peace was signed. The bravery of the Indian soldiers in this war is commemorated through the War Memorial in Tawang and the Jaswantgarh War Memorial close by.

 

White Rhododendron

Tawang’s other claims to fame are the Tawang Monastery, said to be the largest in Asia, and the fact that when the current (14th) Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1953, he entered India through Tawang. I can see the sprawling Tawang Monastery’s buildings with their whiter than white walls and vibrant yellow roofs from the Circuit House where I am staying. The structure dominates the town which is built on the spines of a couple of green hills – and the entire vista is really as pretty as a picture.

Having arrived at the Circuit House, I proceed to ask Yadavji, the 

Monpa men with Yak dance costume

general factotum, for ‘separate’ tea which means that the hot water and tea leaves arrive in a tea pot accompanied by milk and sugar in separate containers as opposed to the thick curry-like masala chai which is a near universal favourite. The tea arrives on a tin tray with the three containers on it. But…. the teapot contains the hated masala chai, with additional sugar and milk in case I felt like making it sweeter or milkier! I swallow my disappointment and the tea, and head out to see the sights of Tawang.

There’s a fair amount to see within the small radius in and around town. 

 

Tawang Monastery

Tawang Monastery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first stop, of course, is Tawang Monastery. We enter the ancient building into a courtyard that plays host to the annual Torgya monastic festival every winter. Up front is the assembly hall that is home to the 25-foot beautiful gilded statue of the Buddha. The room is festooned with banners, the floor has prayer mats on it and the walls are richly decorated with intricate murals and thangkas. Other buildings around the courtyard include a museum, an impressive library, storage for provisions and a cook house. Beyond are buildings that are home to the male monks and novices; every Monpa households sends one son here at a young age to learn the scriptures. 

Tawang Monastery

We then wind our way downhill to the modest Urgelling Monastery. It has some antique thangkas of the sixth Dalai Lama, prayer wheels, lamps for lighting, and other accoutrements of faith. On the first floor, in the hall, we find a priest and his family. I light the lamp at the altar and am invited to share tea with them. The Monpa butter tea or sueja is salty and made from jari or crude tea leaves that are churned together with a little milk, butter and salt in a long cylindrical churn made of bamboo or jan dhong. The sueja is served warm. The taste, though unlike the tea we’re used to, is pleasant and soothing; a certain sense of contentment falls upon me, brought on by the place and the tea.

Mentally shaking myself, I take my leave and we make our way further down to yet another monastery, Khinmey. This is a beautiful structure that has been renovated recently at the behest of the current dynamic Rinpoche. Inside, apart from the statues of deities and saints, the walls are covered with tantric (fairly erotic) paintings showing life in all its stages, especially the fate that awaits the wicked and the sinful.



Khinmey Monastery

By now it’s late in the evening and the temperature has dipped further. I decide to head back and turn in for the evening. Along the streets, especially in the market, the local people are busy transacting daily business. The Monpa are a good looking people. The young men and women sport the latest haircuts and clothing:  jeans, boots, jackets and scarves. I think that if you were to transfer them to, say, Bangkok or KL, they’d be quite at home. Not many wear the traditional gear - which uses a stunning combination of brick red and cobalt blue – everyday; it is usually reserved for festive occasions. 

 

Pond by the roadside

The driver informs me that yaks can sense the weather change and know it’s going to snow higher up so they rush downhill.

Yaks running downhill
 

The yaks are right. Weather rapidly deteriorates and it is raining in earnest by the time we hit Tawang. There’s a cultural festival on – the reason for my visit to Tawang -- and I leave my driver at the parking lot and walk down to the grounds where the festivities are organised. Luckily, it’s stopped raining but the ground is full of slush.
 

PT Tso Lake

Regardless, the place is bursting with activity. People from different tribes across Arunachal in their traditional, colourful costumes and beads, wearing exotic headgear and masks; men roaming around in the yak dance costumes or dance masks; musicians tuning their instruments; young and old monks; and the town people excitedly talking – it’s a scene that fills the senses. I cannot but help marvel at India and her diversity.  The governor of the state arrives and we witness local dances performed by five or six different tribes. My cup quite spills over with excitement and happiness.The yaks are right. Weather rapidly deteriorates and it is raining in.

PT Tso Lake

 

The only fly in the cup is the telecommunication in Tawang; it belongs to the dark ages. The Airtel service comes on for a few seconds then vanishes for hours. I can’t make contact with the driver, so I eventually hitch a ride with two young monks in a bright red Maruti 800 back to the Circuit House. 

 

Twang Monastery from the Circuit House

Much as I don’t want to, I have to think about getting to Delhi. Since there is no chance of the helicopter taking off in this weather, I prepare to embark on the sixteen-hour journey to Guwahati. Next morning, my host sees me off in a taxi at around 11 am. Leaving town, we descend and then ascent up to the snow covered Sela Lake and Pass at 13,500 feet altitude. Again I get that sense of the majesty of nature and our smallness in its face.

 

Yak Dancers

We drive steadily through virgin jungle along the road that I had seen from the helicopter. There is hardly any traffic and the road is seriously bad in several patches. I get the opportunity to feast my eyes of lush green, unspoilt forests that we are passing interspersed by valleys of incredible beauty. We reach Bhalukpong in Assam by 7.30 in the evening and start again at 6 am next morning, reaching Guwahati airport by about 11, well in time for my 1.40 pm flight back to Delhi.

 

A young Lama

Ever the optimist about tea, this time I go to the slightly upmarket restaurant at the airport so that I can try some excellent Assam tea. The ‘separate’ tea arrives. But a bag of Taj Mahal masala tea dangles in hot water in the pot. The waiter assures me that this is the only Assam tea he knows of. I give up! And console myself that home just a few hours away. The first thing I’ll do on reaching will be to make myself a cup of tea the way I like it.

Urgelling Monastery

 

 

 

Ananda Swaroop is a itinerant traveller. An editor by profession, she edits corporate publications and is also the editor of garam masala chai. A watercolour enthusiast and practitioner, she works with the realist genre. Ananda lives and works in New Delhi, India.