Here amidst the jungle and their true savior you will be rendered speechless. Although isolated and one of the remotest part of our country but it still embraces you. People here despite of their difficult life shall never stop welcoming you to be part of their lives. Their tryst with struggle and hopes, which abandons them in testing times, does not dissuade them from belief that guests will bring joy and happiness to their lives. There is a very neglected depiction of their world which even for some intellectuals exists only on  maps. But you  quickly learn that they love our company. It was a wet season of the year 2012 when we came face to face with one of the least known tribe of Assam.

Trip to this distant place in the north east part of my country brought me close to what I always believed binds our countrymen but is missing from today’s “show how are you different?” life. That is their sense of togetherness. The moment you embark on your journey you start experiencing that all the strong and meaningless notion of caste and creed just vanishes because they work for survival of their people, not living in the ‘world of existential crisis’.

It was dark by the time we reached their village and accompanied by a senior member of  tribe who walked us towards a hut clearly marked for the guest, the mark was of a wild buffalo head on entrance. Jungle sneaks up on you swiftly and silently like a hungry snake going after its prey. We were so tired that even the bark of the toads, distant sound of unidentified animal and  howling of monkeys could not hold us from falling asleep.

Next day morning was full of life with rare birds replacing alarm and tea full of herbs from deep jungles taking over green tea. It was amazing to see the role reversal where men does not hesitate to stay at home and help raise their family while women do the hard work of cutting trees to selling their less known fruits and artifacts in market which are miles away in this road less land. It’s a cross country sans footwear. There are few festooned brave men in every group who accompany them to these far-flung areas. Surviving on just what fate and jungle has for them , it’s only there genes which never failed them in supporting their active and physically excruciating day to day life. They are strong and don’t believe in fallback.

When you compare this to our society today you find that there are no spectators in their societies. Days when men have to go out hunting,  women carrying their kids on back head for the market (and there are no one kid a family rule 🙂 ).In our so called civilized society we talk about women empowerment but here it comes naturally as women get equal respect as any other member of their community and is capable of doing anything as their male counterpart. It’s a community driven by rules for everyone from head of the tribe to a small kid .Some customs you may find weird (Only children in the family gets eyes of the hunted animal and the number of eyes one holds qualifies him as a challenger to become a next hunter from family ).I have never seen people in real life so enthusiastic in  pushing themselves to their limits for what could be their last trip away from home.

Talking about aesthetic sense , their homes are delightfully decorated with artifacts from jungle including roots of trees (belief  is it promotes fertility in family) ,teeth of a wild rodent , distinctly colored leaves used in roof also when knit together adorns their bed .As it gets darker and  jungle becomes alive , people gather in open surrounding their well .Whole place glitters with lit lamps. Big bushes are put on fire using tree sap .None of the evenings goes without praying for their ancestors and their jungle. Thereafter, the extent is filled with rich smoke of indigenous cigar prepared from tendu leaves .Beer, a locally brewed rice (lao pani) downpours . This beer has different names in different tribes like Deori peole call it Sujen and its called Hor for Karbi Tribes in North Eastern states. Women guzzlers outdoing men even in this arena was a wonderful sight.

Charisma of celebration makes you completely lose the grip on time or maybe you  don’t wanna give a damn .But just like everything  comes to end, so was our stay with one of the little-known tribe in the state of Assam. We kept talking about it for months but what hurts the most was ignorance and narcissism of so called educated and civilized in the outside world.