Karbi Anglong--A Doggy Story

" A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself"(Josh Billings)

I must admit I’ve had a love-hate relationship with dogs. This does not mean that our home has been bereft of the canine species. They have come in all shapes and colours. Their names have varied from Toffee to Brandy, Jui (fire) to Candy. The other members of the household go overboard showering love and affection on their four-legged friends.

This doggy story began in 1983. Our car broke down near a nondescript village called Reckmaro Rong Pling Plang. An exotic name this. It is tucked away in a remote part of Karbi Anglong district. Our driver was literally a driver and new little about the mechanism of a vehicle. So while he fidgeted and fiddled with every part of the car save for the precise section, I whiled away one hour of my life collecting wild flowers and dried leaves. As my two and a half year old son wandered around, he chanced upon a litter of healthy pups belonging to the villagers. He insisted on taking one home. No amount of cajoling, cuddling and reprimanding could deter him. He would have nothing else but the pup.

We called him Junior, for he was subaltern to our Sultan of the German-snout in both size and pedigree. My son, who had difficulty in pronouncing the “J”, called him Dunior. So he was “Dunior” for one and all….. “Dunior co-mee hair”was the refrain.

With time I realised the value of having Dunior in the house. The hours of story-telling and demand for toys was cut short. My little boy spent the day training, teaching, scrubbing and feeding his pet much to the envy of Sultan of the German-snout. I took to teaching the Karbi children in the nearby convent. It was a neat arrangement.

The thrill and ecstasy of looking after the pooch was shared by another member of the household. He was our gardener S. Rengma. A proficient gardener and a perfect gentleman; his green fingers turned out vegetables and blooms that won me tributes and trophies. Devoted to his work and loyal to his master, we could not have asked for more. Moreover, he indulged my fancy of having a Chinese gardener, so what if he was not from China, he definitely looked like one. So it was a three-pronged team: Rengma, Dunior and my son.

Rengma’s eyes would glisten at the sight of Dunior. He joined in the fun of washing and feeding him with inexplicable glee. The pup grew up healthy and strong.

Life was hunky-dory in the small, beautiful town of Diphu, where our bungalow was perched on a hill, till it was time for us to leave for another district. We were sad and so was Rengma. With tearful eyes he asked for Dunior as a parting gift …a token of remembrance! 

Our son, though heart-broken, was told that it was impossible to take both the dogs from one end of the state to another. Dunior would definitely be in safe hands, we said.

We left Diphu taking Sultan of the German-snout. Our son was soon admitted to his first school and I took up another job to teach another set of children. The ebb and flow of life’s tides continued. Dunior settled into the recesses of our minds.

One fine day, an old friend from Diphu dropped in. In the course of his conversation he unfolded the fate of Dunior. A month after our departure, Rengma held a grand feast. Dunior was slaughtered for the occasion and “kukur pitha” was served to his kith and kin. We were aghast! We decided never to tell our son.

As for Rengma, we have given him a place in the gallery of Rogues.

"The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's."(Mark Twain)

Doggy sketch courtesy Sanghamitra Das 

The New Normal

“No permanence is ours: we are a wave that flows to fit whatever form it finds.”(Hermann Hesse)

During these desperate yet necessary lock-down (LD) days, Tim is seven-year old Polly’s best friend. Timmy Critch.

Now-now where did he come from! I wondered.
 I had heard about Glen, her next door neighbour, who called her “Princess Polly” if he won a game and “Potty Polly” if playtime ended in a brawl. There was Ravi who told her the story of “Uri" detailing the assault rifles and carbines.

 But Timmy Critch. He sounded like a dude, dead from the neck up. He liked to snack often and avoid major meals. One hour of her day was spent with him, unravelling her innocent secrets to a good listener.

“Where does he live?” I asked.  She looked aghast. “Aita,(grandma) where can a fish live except in his fish bowl?”

The jig-saw puzzle fell into place. Polly was adapting to the immediate changes in her life, replacing her friends with her pet-fish, waving at her pal on the 13^th floor of the opposite building from her 12^th floor living-room and following it up with a mobile-call.

 From 8am to 12.30 pm her school teacher was on-line streaming enlightenment into the little head, leaving grandma out-of-sync and feeling ancient. In the afternoon, Polly pushed the mop-stick cleaning the house, helping her mother not because she wanted to but because “the country is going through difficult times and P.M Modi is doing his best,"she stated. Pearls of wisdom! Is an accelerated maturity a fallout of the LD?

The father has turned out to be the best dish-washer in town in addition to his work and her mother multi-tasks between office-schedules, baking Cinnamon rolls and doing the laundry. The day ends with the trio doing the zumba workout, leaving Polly elated, smiling and ready for bed.

Will this be the New Normal post-lockdown?

 A new quietude has come into our lives. The need to blow-dry our hair, thread eyebrows, contemplate what to wear are non-issues. The realisation that we can subsist with little, that, maybe, we were becoming greedy and living unnecessary king-size lives has somewhat settled in. Many will disagree on this but most will agree that the world is weathering a fierce tornado in the wake of which things will not be the same.   

To break the boring sameness of living during this period of lock-up and lockdown, (where it’s possible to lose your marbles,) the virtual world is playing an amazing role. A poetry session on Skype with my three friends was refreshing and revitalising. While she read out lines from “Jejuri” by the bilingual poet (Marathi-English) Arun Kolatkar I was happy reciting Neruda’s love poems.

Organising a weekend Google-meet party with the family scattered across the globe was easy as a pie.  The effort was Lilliputian!! The need to cook elaborate dishes, starch the linen , spruce up the living-room and over-see that the right towels were on the right rack  became superfluous. Yet the joy of laughter and good cheer left my adrenaline pumping and energy level soaring.

The unique experience of attending a funeral Pray Meeting on Zoom Apps was poignant to say the least. Friends and relatives from California to Cambodia were there, lighting a candle and sharing the grief, leaving me misty-eyed. We were with the family and yet not there.

These were new episodes and vicarious pleasures got through the digital world which was beyond comprehension a few months ago.”Staying Alive”, without going bananas, was possible.

 This historic experience of 2020,(a date easy to remember) has brought out the best in some….. Lessons learnt, skills acquired, discipline et el and also the worst in others…gorging on food, sending fake news, black-marketing …endless. Social norms will change. We’ll think twice before visiting the “Puchka Walla” or even a posh mall. Washing hands with soap for 20 seconds and sanitizing our mobiles ….will they become our second nature?

 Is a New Order in the offing? Am I happy?

I am seething with anger with whatever, whoever!! I am sad and worried that the C-Virus may go round the globe twice-over in 24 months. I am worried that millions will fill the ranks of the unemployed and go hungry. I am worried that the tentacles of Death will snatch away my near and dear ones. I am worried…….

"What will be left of all the fearing.........? A dash ,one or two inches long , between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone. "(Eckhart Tolle)             

Chinese Food Habits

“The way you cut your meat reflects the way you live.”(Confucius)

 Travelling to China exposed us to the local populace, culture and the flavours …. Yes, flavours which brings me to Chinese food habits.

   We covered Yunnan, Shaanxi, Tianjin provinces, Shanghai and Beijing by train, uncovering the basics of Chinese food and the Yin and Yang of it all,

Every province has its own flavours and ingredients,  rice / noodles and the chopsticks being constant!  China produces 45 billion pairs of chopsticks a year!! Their food is dominated by 5 key flavours…sweet, salty, sour, bitter and spicy. For e.g. Sichuan province opt for spicy whereas the south prefer sour and soupy.

Being adventurous on unknown cuisine and our insatiable curiosity took us to the wet market in Beijing followed by dinner at Wangfujing Food Street at a restaurant, its name when translated read “Wicked Wok”leaving us gleefully guessing why it was so called.

Google translator helped to make sense of the Mandarin menu card, the monikers having nothing to do with the actual dish. For e.g. “Ants climb trees “is vermicelli with spicy minced pork. A “field chicken” is a frog. They were like clues to a crossword puzzle. Our foodie experience made us accept the fact that the “Chinese eat everything”. But why do they?

Despite being a great civilization of the ancient world, China has had its share of famines, diseases and hardships like no other nation. The vastness of the country, its huge population, historical factors (Great Leap, Long March, etc) have compounded the problem. This has made them reach out and eat whatever is available to supplement their protein, vitamin and other dietary in-take. Flexibility and adaptability has seen them through hard times.

 Even today, the present generation has ample knowledge of wild edible plants.

”Famine plants”, as they are called, has been handed down through generations as a part of their survival culture.

 If you think their choice of wild-life is strange, their insane display of vegetables is often off-beat and weird. A yard long yam, bitter melon, untranslatable weeds, and tree fungi looking suspiciously poisonous,  are bought with zest and devoured with gusto.
 Preservation of food for a rainy day has led to smoking, salting, sugaring, pickling, drying etc of goodies which often turn out to be delectable and irresistible.

Myths and superstitions have determined food habits. The belief that the body part of the animal that you eat enhances that same part of the human body explains devouring of the brain and the genitals. Deer antlers, caterpillar fungus, maidenhair tree (Ginkgo Bilbao) are aphrodisiacs. Another popular vegetable is the geoduck which resembles the phallus.

 Meat near the bones is supposed to be the best. Therefore bones are chopped and crushed to release the marrow when cooked. The rhino horn supposedly has medicinal value and drive .It’s considered an esteemed gift. 

Virility is an important issue with many men. A middle-aged individual explained that impotency is a genuine problem and there were many reasons for this some of which were unique to China. Trauma from famine, political violence, seedy business culture etc  explained the consumption of unusual plants and animals. (Read E.Y.Zhang’s “The Impotence Epidemic: Men’s medicine and Sexual desire in Contemporary China.”)Today, sex is no longer a negative word and lust is everywhere; so has the demand for stimulating foods and love-potions.

 Wastage of food was a taboo in Buddhism and Shintoism. Scarcity and poverty often validated this. Thus every part of the animal is eaten .The claws of the chicken are chewed with relish and the soft nose of the pig is eaten with glee often downed with a pint of “Baijui”or Chinese beer. Shark’s fin soup is a delicacy and is served at lavish dinners. Along with the Pangolin they are expensive items and only the rich can afford. The rural poor make do with dormouse and frogs.

Food and health are governed by the Yin and Yang principles. Eating more of one kind may harm the body: a balance is essential. Yin charts include soya, duck etc and yang covers fat, eggs. Desserts are absent in a typical Chinese meal. If at all, it’s served at the beginning. After an exotic meal, stomach ache and diahorrea are common often jokingly referred to as” Mao’s curse.” Hot water or tea is the rule during meal

Contrary to our belief, there is a large segment of Buddhists who are vegetarians serving dishes which are equally delicious.  Earlier, most Chinese were petite with narrow waists. The reason being food was always shared, small plates were used where you tend to eat less, there were no refillable drinks and no desserts. Things have changed in modern China. While incomes have grown so have the waistline and stature.

While we would smack our lips after a meal of chicken curry and rice, many Chinese mix their meats. It is believed the Zero patient of SARS in Guangdong province in 2003 had a hotpot of chicken, frog and bat. How authentic this is we are not sure. And there’s nothing wrong in it per se.  Everybody has a right to their taste-buds except that this incident broke loose an epidemic which obliterated a part of the world’s population.

In the markets, wild animals are not segregated. You will find bats lying along with baby crocodiles or even on top of one another. Therein lay the problem. As we have seen the Novel C-virus was transmitted from a bat to a pangolin to the human body. Stricter rules and better hygiene should help.

All said and done, no other civilization has shown greater inventiveness in food than China. The popularity of Chinese cuisine is unquestionable as is evident by the “Golden Dragons”, “China Towns,””Ming “restaurants dotting the length and breadth of Mother Earth.

There’s no one way to live life…. life must be lived on your own terms. Eat what you want to eat without harming others!

 Let me end with the following quote….

 “Anything that walks, swims, crawls or flies with its back to heaven is edible.”(A Cantonese saying)