Many of the forests that I have roamed over the last two decades would have been much poorer places had it not been for some special people who knew the forest and shared their knowledge of the wild, showed and taught me things with utmost generosity. These people from indigenous communities in Arunachal Pradesh have…
One time in November 1997, on a break from the drudgery of lonely PhD fieldwork in Pakke, I travelled with Japang, who was my guide/assistant/friend to his village in eastern Arunachal. He is a Wancho from the far-away village of Konnu in erstwhile Tirap district (now Longding district) near the Myanmar border. I justified the…
It was very windy that afternoon, the leaves and branches were flying, the skies were dark grey and a storm was imminent. It was summer and unbearably hot, so it was a welcome relief and pleasant to feel the strong wind. I was sitting under a tall Terminalia arjuna (Arjun) tree near the stream watching a…
A tall and lone semal (Bombax ceiba) tree stood in the middle of a large swampy area filled with the Torani gach (Alpinia allughas), known as ginger-lilies. Elephants love eating these plants. The soil was wet, soft and your feet could sink into its squishiness. There were small pools with greenish algae and the water…
Way back in April 2004, on a walk to Motijheel and Gibbons’ Land in Namdapha, we came across a beautiful plant. It was a herb and had two tiers of leaves in whorls and the flowers seemed to have spidery tendrils. Quite a beauty and unusual. Photo: Saravana Kumar Sara, the ace photographer with an eye…
Just saying 