From the Arabian Sea to the Brahmaputra: Travel in the era of unreliable connectivity
Getting to the historic town of Tezpur in Assam was onerous and adventurous, to put it mildly
It’s 3 am in Andheri West and I am in a state of heightened mental alertness as I am about to embark on a long journey from my lovely home in suburban Bombay to a relatively remote corner of India that is close where this enormous country meets the Southeast Asian landmass. The cab arrives on time and the trip begins seamlessly. As I step out of the comfortable taxi that got me to the airport in 10 minutes, I know that the easiest part of this voyage is over.
Terminal 1, the older of the city’s two terminals is empty and relaxed and I am checked in two and a half hours before my flight. I use this opportunity, of course, to catch up on my reading, before the 2-hour trip to Delhi. We take off before the crack of dawn and I wave down to my Andheri home and my mother, as the plane rises towards the Arabian Sea and turns right to head to Gujarat and Rajasthan. My busy, bustling and chaotic city looks so nice at night from the air. I bid goodbye to Versova, Malad, Borivali and the World Peace Pagoda on Gorai. Sitting next to me is young director’s assistant who is as enthusiastic about photographing the skies as I am.
Within 15 minutes we see the first rays of dawn, a crimson and golden light that paints itself over the blackness of the Indian night. I put on the headphones and listen to soothing music as the plane flies over Rajasthan en route to Delhi. On this flight, there’s no turbulence and its completely smooth. My new friend talks about how nice it is to fly over a cloudy Delhi, only to get a shock when the plane lands as soon as he says that! It was so foggy that morning that only the captain knew of our falling altitude!
We’re in Delhi and it’s +8 Degrees Celsius! I feel grateful for wearing a hoodie over my t-shirt. The terminal, which is built for a country that has more warm weather than cold, has no heating, making it a bit uncomfortable inside. 7 long hours to go for my flight to Assam! Again, a good book and my notebooks come to my assistance. Every single person in the terminal is dressed for the cold.
What a contrast this is from Bombay, where people start shivering when the temperature is 20 degrees Celsius. The terminal is fairly crowded and it’s good to see India moving again. How long are we supposed to live in fear, anyway?
Saying Namaste to the Himalayas
For the second flight in a row, I have interesting company. This time, it’s a university sports coach who is frustrated about the increasing obesity cases in India. “We shouldn’t allow people to get school leaving certificates and university degrees unless they show a minimum degree of physical fitness,” he tells me, even as he observes some of the curves on my body. I smile and tell him that I am motivated enough to exercise daily.
Within ten minutes of taking off from Delhi, the greatest creation of Mother Nature is visible from my window. Oh, the mighty, majestic and snow-clad Himalayas. My eyes are fixed on the blue and cloudy skies and that distant mountain range! I ask a cabin crew member to request the captain to announce when Mount Everest will be visible. She comes back to me and tells me that exactly at 4:02 pm, we will cross the world’s highest peak but since it’s cloudy we may not get a proper glimpse. I wait with bated breath to see this perfect creation of the Universe and there it is…I can actually see parts of Everest rising above the clouds and just saying Namaste back to me.
The plane then turns left and heads north to avoid Bangladeshi air space and then right again over the so-called Chicken’s Neck- a narrow strip of land in Bengal that is a vital access corridor for the rest of India and the country’s northeast.
Then the thick white clouds of Northeast India are visible as we further head south, but massive rain and hail in Guwahati means we don’t head straight to our destination. On this day a few flights were diverted to Calcutta. Luckily for me, though, my flight wasn’t, and we land on a wet Guwahati tarmac. The rich and golden land of Assam looks surreally beautiful in fading light.
14 hours after leaving my Andheri home, I am in Assam, but Guwahati is not my final destination. I am supposed to travel a further 200 kilometres to get to Tezpur. All this would have been fine if I had landed at noon, which is what my ticket showed when I bought it, but my airline gave me no reason for being put on a later flight. My luck with Indian domestic carriers was continuing from last week!
Journey to Tezpur
On the internet and on paper, the Guwahati airport has a dedicated tourism counter, an area where you can buy a bus ticket to the city centre and a railway booking counter. This evening, however, all three are closed. The university sports coach, who lives in Guwahati, leaves the airport faster than Usain Bolt, and so I am left with few options as to know how to get to Tezpur.
I go to a uniformed policeman who tells me that it’s too late to get a direct bus to Tezpur from Guwahati and the buses running would take a very long route! He suggests I take a shared taxi, which was my initial plan when I thought I’d land at noon. Something feels off though on this cold, dark and rainy evening. The policeman guides me to a man who was waiting for one passenger to fill his car up for the ride to Tezpur.
I get in and ask a co-passenger if the rate that the driver asked me was fine. Either his Hindi did not seem up to the mark or he was disinterested/distrustful. The driver seems to be a bit on the aggressive side, but I had guessed that a policeman would not have taken me to him if he wasn’t a ‘legitimate’ taxi driver. But as the taxi starts heading to National Highway 15, and the driver speaks to a man in the front seat in Assamese, a language I don’t know, all sorts of strange thoughts enter my head. What if these men are bandits, who rob unsuspecting passengers and dump them in the forest- dead or alive? The policeman may be in on the racket as well! What if they are part of a banned militant group who specialise in kidnapping tourists for ransom? I had been in tense situations and environments before, but this particular ride feels uncomfortable since I am sleepy, exhausted and in a totally new place in the dark!
Then my neighbour’s phone rings, and I hear the familiar language of Malayalam! Oh the relief that I feel at that moment that the man sitting next to me is a fellow Malayali cannot be expressed in words. As soon as he ends his conversation with his wife, I begin talking to Raju, in Malayalam. The middle-aged man is on his final deputation before retirement and works for the Border Roads Organisation (BRO). Hailing from Kochi, he is happy to talk to an ‘Ajayan’ with roots in Palakkad.
Raju has worked three decades in Northeast India and goes on to tell me a lot about the people of these states. He has developed a real fondness for Northeast Indians, particularly the Assamese and the tribal people of Arunachal. After I begin conversing with him, I feel a lot safer and can appreciate the beauty of the small Assamese towns we cross at night. There are a few places where the police stop the car for identity checks, but we are treated well thanks to have a defence person in our car.
It takes four long hours to get to Tezpur, and this includes a stop at an Assamese dhaba, where the food is delicious, or maybe I am just incredibly hungry?
My journey is close to culminating peacefully when there is a sudden twist. When we drop Raju at the gate of the BRO camp, the guard asks the driver to take the car inside. Although Raju tells the guard that he doesn’t need to take the car in as he has a light bag, the man with a strong Tamil accent yells at the taxi driver and almost threatens him. Our driver is in no mood to yield or back down and this has the makings of a serious and violent fight. Thankfully though, Raju calms the guard down while I tell the driver that it is not wise to get into a fight with a serviceman. When we drive off, the man behind the wheel says that an Assamese person places his dignity and pride over everything else and that he would have beaten up the guard or come back with a group of his friends if he could not win the fight solo!
Within ten minutes of this near fracas, we are in the heart of Tezpur and Google Maps takes us for a ride! It’s 10:15 pm, there isn’t even a stray dog on the street and the town is fast asleep. Four phone calls to my host remain unanswered and I, once again, start to feel a bit edgy. The driver then tells me that he will not leave me until we find the home. He says this is also a part of “Assamese pride and dignity!” Here you see the spectrum of human emotions from anger and hatred at 10:00 pm and concern and compassion at 10:15! Then my host calls me back, and we realise we were just 20 metres away from my accommodation in Tezpur. The 19-hour journey is over and after a warm shower I fall asleep.
Hello Tezpur! Hello Brahmaputra! Hello Assam! Hello Northeast India!
One word of advice for travellers: When flying into Assam, spend a night in Guwahati. If you want to travel to northern Assam do it in the comfort and safety of daylight and with the benefit of a good night’s sleep. My plans were of course messed up by two airlines, but in the future, even if I am sure of landing in Guwahati at noon, I will only travel further the next morning.