The Beautiful East

We were allotted a permanent accommodation after eight months in the 'basha', so could finally unpack all our worldly goods and set up house properly. We lived in Tezpur over three years, which was the longest tenure that we ever stayed in one place in all our time in the Air Force.

I loved everything about this wild and untamed land. I have never seen such strange looking vegetables and fruit or more alien creepy crawlies. I would regularly have to sweep out baby snakes that had wriggled in after a particularly heavy downpour, since I never had the heart to kill them. What did give me the creeps were frogs that almost seemed to fly through the air and stick to walls and plants and I dreaded the day one of them would mistake me for a tree!

The lush rampant beauty of the East always fascinated me and we would often drive into the picturesque state of Arunachal for picnics. Tipi was a favourite haunt, with its cosy guest house and furiously raging Bharali river. Asia's biggest orchidarium is located here as well but the more common varieties grew in natural unbridled bunches everywhere. I would carefully pry them off  huge trees and bring them home to attach to the ones in my garden where they happily flourished.
There were evenings when the air was thick with fireflies and we would sit in our veranda just enjoying this amazing spectacle. Sometimes one of these minute creatures would get into the house and I would rush around with cupped hands to try and gently catch and let it out, since the idea of this tiny marvel dying trapped indoors upset me.

I will never forget the storms in this part of the world. I have never seen lightening more jagged and beautiful or rain more torrential. Winds howled with such savage ferocity that I could not even open a door against the strength of it. Our garden chairs would fly away if we did not hurriedly drag them in, and we got to doodling identifying marks on them since some evil ladies would keep the ones in good condition and leave the 'rut-put' ones unclaimed.
We would regularly go on fishing excursions with our friends Arup Raha and Cawas Motishaw. Arup's wife Lily was going through a difficult pregnancy so preferred to stay home, while Cawas was a carefree bachelor ever ready for fun. The four of us would drive out on our motor bikes at the crack of dawn, with all our tackle ready for a day of serious fishing. We only caught one miserable little thing in all the times we went which I ended up having to gut and cook once we got home - a rather disturbing experience since I had no idea of how to go about this gruesome task.
I always tremendously enjoyed these outings and it never mattered that we were unlucky fisher folk, got bitten by leeches or chewed by  elusive 'dimdams', which were nasty little gnats invisible to the naked eye but whose bite left itchy spots which scratched for weeks after.

Serious work