A tryst with the foes!

The mornings in Andamans are rather deceptive with the sun rays touching the earth earlier than usual, owing to its eastward location and the 4 am sky appearing as bright and shiny as an 8 am Goa-sky or Cochin-sky... and I guess that would explain why I woke up early that day.. :P

But that was not the only reason.. We were on our way to see the limestone caves of Baratang islands and the journey from Port Blair to Baratang was through thick dense tropical forests that were home to the Jarawas..

Jarawas (which means 'enemy' in Aka-Bea) are the indigenous tribes of Andamans who are believed to have relocated themselves from Africa around 70,000 years ago.. Now that would explain why they are of the Negroid race but how they relocated themselves all the way from Africa 70,000 years ago still remains a mystery...

Anyways ...we took off at around 5 am and within no time i resorted to my favorite pastime... I dunno for how long i was asleep but a noisy argument between my dad and sis woke me up... ' Achcha.. Its inhuman' shouted, my sis... ' You have no right to collect money from people to see them.. For Gods sake..achcha.. they r human beings.. not animals in a zoo...' I put myself into a single piece and looked around... and then I asked my mom what was happening.. ( I had absolutely no interest in being a part of a verbal argument(right in the morning :P) where my dad and sis were literally FIRING words at each other) She said that we were at the check post and were waiting for the clock to tick 7 so that we could move into the Jarawa-inhabited area.. I shifted focus to the argument making sure I was totally unnoticed... Thats when it all made sense... Apparently the men at the check post collected money from any traveler who crossed this particular area and there were police forces which accompanied them through these forests to ensure that the interaction between them and the Jarawas remained minimal...

"But divya... look... They are tribes on the verge of extinction... and its the responsibility of our Govt to make sure they r protected and to provide them with the basic necessities of life like food, clothing and shelter... and this takes money.. So maybe you would wanna look at it that way rather than the zoo-point of view.. " I was expecting another outburst from my sis... But thank God.. She chose to SHUT UP !(ok sis.. if u r reading this no offence please... because I had just gotten out of sleep and its my responsibility to let my readers know what my exact state of mind was! :P)

I needed a bit of stretching .. So i got out of the car... Seeing the growing queue of vehicles behind us I thought.. " So if they collected money from each of us and if they were supposedly giving it as food/clothing/shelter to the Jarawas, the Govt would be actually minting quite a lot of profits because..afterall how much would the basic amenities cost... hmmm.. Bravo Govt! :)" ..

I was feeling drowsy and so I went ahead and decided to buy myself a coffee from the shop on the other side of the road.. I noticed that our chauffeur was standing a few feet away from the shop having his (usual) chit-chats with the other fellow-chauffeurs and he suddenly stopped the conversation, smiled at me and started walking towards me... and as he approached me i asked him " so what do they look like??" ("they r human being.. you dumbo! they look like any other human being" i screamed back at myself.. ha but i couldn't think of anything else to get the the driver talking about the tribes.. ") "They are dark in color.. remain bare chested throughout the day and cover only their frontal essentials" he replied.. "hmm so what about the clothes that govt gives them?? dont they wear them??".."well... the elder ones resist to wear them but the younger ones r more liberal.. you know..they are more fashionable"( i couldn't believe he had just used the word 'fashionable'..i jus hid the smirk to myself and let him continue..)"u know.. they actually carry around sharp harpoons and bows and arrows and mainly live on fruits and animals" "oh.. really??? how do YOU know all this??? have you ever talked to them or interacted with them?? " "oh no sir, they converse in their own signs and languages.. we never understand them" "hmm.. interesting!!" i replied, took the last sip and walked back to the car thinking ' there definitely IS a distance of 70000 years..if not more'!

The road sides were quite slushy, thanks to the night-rains of the forests.. So I decided to get back into the car though the coffee had given me enough vigor to stay behind and enjoy the scenic beauty.. Mom was half asleep by now and so was sis.. Dad was engrossed in his newspaper and so i knew that i had nothing better to do but wait...

As soon as the clock ticked 7 , the queue of vehicles began to ride in through the thick dense forests... I was trying to figure out my exact feeling for the Jarawas.. "hmm.. maybe its fear.. oh yeah... the idea of a half-naked man walking around with harpoons and bows n arrows are not my ideas of comfort" I slightly raised my window shield up with a straight, confident face hoping that no one would catch me do that.. "oh come on.. they are not gonna eat you up... you should actually be excited of seeing a whole new species or breed that you had never met before(dont blame me for using those words.. the hype was SOO much that anyone around will be forced to use them) because they could possibly be the earliest trace of human life on earth in its full glory n vigor..." as i was trying to relieve myself of the fear when dad started howling as if he had just hit upon a pot of treasure "Look look look.. there goes one Jarawa... " I leaned my neck as much as possible to get a glance of him..."oh yes..there he was!!!"i had just told myself when my mom said ... " right.. its just a worker mending the roads" we all had our share of laughs on that and i did pull my dad's leg for quite sometime and got back into where i had paused...

Well I couldn't really think further because my dad had started howling again in a similar fashion as before...with an extra decibel this time...:P.... I thought it was just another sample of the tiger story and paid little attention.. but then slowly a black figure started appearing out of thin air.. and as the car rode ahead i could see HIM.. A Jarawa man was walking down the street with his back pointing to us, hardly clothed, except for a hip-band wound around(which i suppose was to hold the little cloth that he used for covering his frontal essentials) ...He did have his weaponry on his right shoulder and a basket hung on the other(which i think contained water that would help him survive the hot sultry weather) i had barely finished analyzing his physical appearance when he took out his hand.. my first reaction was to hide under the front seat.. but then i saw his hands rising to his mouth and he closed his fingers into a unified bunch and pointed into his mouth.. it did not take me even a split second to understand that he was hungry and was asking for food... the driver waved at him and we drove away...

well we did see a lot more of them through the journey and of course we did get a glance of the 'fashionable' young ones too.. but nothing got me into thinking as much as this man i had seen and to explain what i was thinking.. i am sorry! u' ll have to wait a bit more... let the journey go on..

We were at the boat jetty on the other side of the forests waiting for the boat to Baratang... I casually looked around and i was right on time to catch the glimpse of 2 people moving out of the water(the shore-line rather) into the thick forests.. A young Jarawa man walked ahead and following him was a Jarawa lady with a 2-3 year old child on her hips with his head on her chest...

Well.. the distance of 70000 years had suddenly become oblivious... "If a man could point his fingers to his mouth and I could understand that he was hungry and he needed food.. what was the distance I was talking about???"i thought to myself.. " and if i knew that the scene i had jus witnessed was a family that had gone in search of food with the man leading the way and the woman making sure her man was safe from behind and her little one felt the warmth of her love for him, how different is it from my family where my dad n mom go for work to earn for their daily bread making sure that i always felt the warmth of their love???" the distances HAD died down!!! :)

i realised that it wasnt necessary to speak the same language or even wear the same clothes or for that matter belong to the same species/breed/race(or whatever the scientists call it) to feel close to someone.. One factor assured it all : The fact that we are all human being, the fact that we all harbour emotions which are 'human' in nature, the fact that we all speak the sign language of humanity... I boarded the boat with a heart full of remorse for all the ill thoughts i had an hour ago about the Jarawas... and I thanked God cus i knew i was lucky... not because i was not born into a tribe family which resorted to ancient living habits but for having realised certain subtle but glorious truths about life!!!