1
The Green Valley –
It is 2 pm and finally we are in Vivekanand
Kendra Vidyalay (VKV) at Amliang,
Arunachal Pradesh (AP). Amliang is a valley
at a height of about 5000 ft. surrounded
closely on all four sides by the sub-
himalayan ranges rising to 10000 ft. that
are snow bound during the winter. The
view all around is breathtaking; the
densely wooded hills are dominated by
teak, oak and the abundant bamboo. At
our foot is the river Lohit that flows so fast
that it roars. We have come to the far
eastern edge of India with the Chinese
border a mere 50 km to the east and the
Myanmar border 60 km to south.
Amliang village has a total of three houses
which is typical of AP. The population of
the state is just 1.5 million spread over a
very large area; so large that the road
distance from Amliang to the capital
Itanagar is almost 1000 km.
Amliang village
Woh Kagaz-Ki Kashti, Woh Barish-ka Pani
China to right
River Lohit
2
The Fortunate Meeting - 1st Sept
March this year I accidentally met Pravin
Dabholkar after almost 30 years and learnt
that he was running over 50 schools in
Arunachal Pradesh (AP) as a trustee of the
Vivekanand Kendra Vidyalay (VKV). He had
come to Vadodara to create awareness
about their work in the north-east. He also
spoke about the shortage of science
teachers there for class IX to XII and asked
for volunteers. That is how Madhu Joshi
and I decided to try our hand at teaching
and we were given the time slot of 1st to
15th September at VKV Amliang.
Google search for Amliang yielded nothing;
the nearest I got was Anjaw District which
turned out be right on the border with
China to the east and Myanmar towards
south.
Vadodara to Dibrugarh is a long flight via
Ahmedabad, Delhi and Kolkata. We left
Vadodara at 3.30 a.m. for the 6.50 a.m.
flight from Ahmedabad. The Indigo flight
arrived at Mohanbari airport, Dibrugarh dot
on time at 2 PM the same day. Before
landing I saw miles and miles of lush green
rice fields (most turned out to be the tea
gardens) and hundreds of water streams.
From the aircraft, Assam looked like a
huge flat land, full of water and farms.
We came to VKV Kendra in the town and
met Krishna Kumar who is in charge of a
large number of schools in AP. Mighty
Bramhaputra river is right behind the
Kendra and directly facing my dormitory
room. It doesn’t look like a river though,
more like an ocean, the width is enormous.
In the evening we walked around the
streets of Dibrugarh. The place seems
dominated by Marwari traders and the
main street is indeed called Marwari
Street! In fact right upto Arunachal I saw
more & more Biharis, UPites etc than the
people from NE.
Tomorrow we go to Tezu and then to our
destination Amliang
Vast Rice Field
Assam Tea Garden
The Rainforest
Bramhaputra from our Balcony
3
VKV Girls’ School Tafrogam - 2nd
September
We set out at 7.15 am after a breakfast of
Khichdi. The drive from Dibrugarh to Tezu
in Arunachal is fantastic; I haven’t seen as
much greenery in my life. First came miles
of Tea Estates, then miles of paddy fields
and finally very dense and deep rain
forest. In between we passed through
Tinsukhia town that looked like a typical
shanty town. This is the staging point for
goods for the whole of north east (and is
also the rail head). A few km down we
stopped at another VKV School near the
famous Doomdooma tea estate gardens.
In between we went through a stretch of
about 40 km where the road was great and
the surroundings very good….nice looking
houses and a general sense of well-being.
Only to be told that this is Kakopathar, the
epicenter of the Assam ULFA movement.
We arrived at Tafrogam after crossing the
mighty Lohit river at Parsuram kund. The
whole journey of 250 km took almost 8 hrs
out of which a substantial portion was
hilly. The Tafrogam School is spread over
30 acres of lush dense forest. After a meal
& a short nap we attended a cultural
programme put up by the students (this is
a girls’ residential school with over 300
students). It was an interesting mixture of
VKV prayers and tribal songs and dances.
The talent is obvious as the entire 90 min
show was staged without the help of a
teacher or choreographer. The girls spoke
very good and accented English.
After the programme we met a bunch of
girls who were curious about us and our
families and children & grandchildren.
Lohit at Parshuram Kund
Tafrogam School
Teacher’s Day
4
A teenage girl Valiga spoke to me in broken
Marathi; she appears to have learnt the
language watching Marathi TV channels!
Then she greeted me with Kem Cho on
learning that I had come from Vadodara;
thanks to TV again.
The staying arrangement is very nice…we
have a nice clean room in the teacher’s
quarters with a tiny garden outside
sporting very delicate pink lilies.
We leave for Amliang on 2nd Sep at 8 am.
This is a 4-5 hour journey; about 120 km.
Amliang - 3rd September
It rained hard the whole night and it
occurred to me that it has been raining
ever since we landed in Assam 2 days ago.
Nobody knows or cares how much it rains;
may be over 300 inches (Cherrapunji is a
short distance away). The local guy told
me that the rainy season starts in January
and ends in December!
We wake up to sunlight at 4 AM!; the Sun is
definitely an early riser here!
The breakfast, lunch & dinner are all the
same; rice, dal soup & a vegetable mixed
with potatoes. But the food has been tasty
by and large.
Left Tafrogam at 8 am for the next 120 odd
km that is supposed to take 4-5 hrs. The
school principal called up a few people to
check on the usability of the road as the
road had been severely damaged 2 months
ago. This part of the journey passes
through some of the most difficult
mountain passes and due to rains the
landslides are daily phenomena. On
receiving the green signal we set off.
Tafrogam School
Way to Amliang
View from Hawa Pass
5
Quickly we climbed the hills and the next 2
hours was a fascinating steep uphill ride
around the Lohit valley. The view of the
horseshoe shaped valley from top (appr
8000 ft above MSL) is spectacular. The
river simply roars and pours into the basin.
We can see Assam plains for may be
hundreds of miles.
We went through two mountain passes and
the dense forest did not leave us even for a
moment. There is hardly any habitation
visible; may be just a house here or there
and a few roadside huts of the Army Border
Roads Organisation.
About 30 km short of Amliang, a border
road guard flags us down. We can see a
huge length of the hill washed away in
landslide along with the road. The army
made fresh road thrice only to lose them
again within days. After some wait we are
waived on with another vehicle in front of
us. The next few minutes were straight
from a sci-fi movie….the freshly made road
is basically a roller coaster of a mass of
mud and we simply hurtled down a steep
few hundred feet towards the valley! I
closed my eyes and I wonder how the
driver kept his nerves.
Wonder School - VKV Amliang - The
school is spread over an up and down area
of 35 acres with over 200 of students in the
hostels and another 100 as day scholars.
The guy who built this school twenty five
years was surely a brave man. From an
urban school point of view, the setting, the
classrooms, dorm, kitchen etc…everything
is very basic and built with meager
resources.
Way to Amliang
Roller Coaster to Amliang
Opium Farm High Up at Amliang
6
The children mostly come from farming
background and haven’t had a chance to
see any city. There are 13 teachers who
live a life of multi-tasking; there is no
additional office or hostel staff. Apart from
teaching, each teacher puts in 3 to 4 hours
a day doing administrative work or
managing hostels including sleeping in the
dormitories. Their dedication under hostile
conditions is awe inspiring.
How hostile are the conditions? Here is a
sample. Amliang has no telephone, mobile
or internet connection and no newspaper.
Electricity is very erratic; it is available
just for 2 -3 hours a day and the voltage is
usually less than 140. A mini-bus comes on
alternate days from Tezu which is a town
about 5 hour’s drive. The villagers have
cows but they are not milked so milk is not
available either; everyone drinks
aristocratic black tea. A tiny roadside shop
is the local supermarket.
On 25th June 2012, a huge landslide
happened about 30 km short of the school
and all links to the outside world got
broken. No road, no electricity, no
telephone, no bus, no truck so no food!
This school, a dozen teachers and the 200
odd children lived in isolation for 2 months
till the middle of Aug when a very
temporary road was made by Army. This
road got washed away the next day and the
Army kept making a road and losing it for
the next 10 days or so. By this time the
school was close to starvation and rice was
requested to be dropped by helicopter.
Additionally some rice was located in the
government godown 40 km away and was
hand carted. For two months Amliang went
without electricity supply.
So we have come to a place which has
lived without pretty much everything.
Amliang School
School Assembly
Rose Garden
7
Life in Amliang - 4th September
We begin to teach in the school …this is an
interesting exercise. The children are very
shy and I have difficulty trying to
understand them, their names and their
way of speaking. They don’t ask many
questions and I can’t figure out if I have
been able to put things across.
But they are a cheerful and hardy lot. Our
Physics lessons for class IX & X have gone
pretty well and we have begun to enjoy
being with the children.
Surprises don’t end here. During the
morning and evening prayers these children
sing Sanskrit Shlokas and Gita verses
accompanied by harmonium. The
intonation and the melody are so good that
I simply close my eyes and enjoy the
trance like experience every morning &
evening.
I played football in the evening with the
boys. The boys love the game and are very
good at it and they are fearlessness
tacklers. I was scared that I might break a
bone today but they were kind (though I
have a very sore back and one foot is
aching).
The routine for the children is formidable –Sunrise – 3.30 am
Wake up time - 5 am
Hostel cleaning – 5.30
Prayer 6 -6.30
Study -6.30 – 7.30
Get ready, b’fast – 7.30 -8.30
School 9 to 2 Pm
Lunch and rest upto 3.30
Games 3.30 – 5.00
Bathe and washing – 5- 6
Evening prayer – 6 to 6.45
Study – 6.45 to 7.45
Supper 8.30
(Candle) Lights out 9.30 pm
Studies at 6.30 AM
Bathing is Fun Time
Prayer at 6 AM
My Friend Bimanso
8
Children do a lot of work and do it
cheerfully; cleaning the dormitory &
toilets, washing clothes, tending to
gardens, cleaning the school compound.
Impressive work ethics!
Food is frugal; three identical meals a day
consisting of rice, thin dal and a portion of
vegetables. Sunday treat is fish and I look
forward to eating fresh mountain-stream
fish.
The Teacher’s day – 5th September
It has stopped raining, thank god. The day
is suddenly bright and nice and a bit warm
too. Like other schools, the children have
taken charge. A surprise; a few children
have taken on the role of the cook!
Afternoon started with a game between
the staff and students and it was a typical
school game with a lot of energy. Halfway
through I saw a lovely rainbow in the sky.
The tall mountain across the river has a
small clearing near the top and I was told
that what looks like a vegetable patch is
actually opium cultivation.
I haven’t missed the daily newspaper, the
up-to-the-minute news on mobile and the
TV. Looks like the world can do fine
without me reading.
But the isolation can do interesting things
too. Our Social Studies teacher Mrityunjay
said that while teaching class V, he told
the students about the President of India,
Mrs Pratibha Patil only to realise a few
days later that the lady was long gone
when someone pasted an old newspaper
cutting showing the chief minister of AP
greeting the President Pranab Mukherjee.
Teacher’s Day Washing
Every Boy Has a Sling
9
Stars in my eyes - 6th September
Ramesh and Shyam bhaiyya the two
supermen are the pillars of VKV Amliang.
They can do everything; cook, clean, wash,
iron, run generator, do electric repairs et
al. Looking at the frugality of food, we
were expecting to lose weight; actually
these two have taken such care for us that
I think opposite has happened.
Last night after dinner, I heard some
strange noises outside. So Madhu & I came
out with a torch and found that on the
football field in pitch darkness, some 20
odd children were practicing a play for the
Vivekanand Jayanti programme of 11th with
just a tiny flash light planted in the
ground. A boy was sitting in a meditative
pose (as Ramakrishna) with devotees
asking him questions about life!
And then as I looked up I saw the most
amazing sight; the sky was crystal clear
and millions of stars were twinkling in the
dark night. It took me back straight to my
childhood when on summer nights we went
to the terrace to sleep with stars in the
eyes. I had completely forgotten how a
starry night looked like because Baroda
Refinery flame drowns out this wonder of
the world. And then I saw the giant milky-
way going all the way from one end of the
sky to the other.
Lohit & the Hanging Bridge - 7th
September –
Clouds have disappeared and the day is a
bit warm & crystal clear. After the morning
prayers at 6.30, Shyamal Chakravarty, the
school principal, takes us on a walk outside
the school. As soon as we step out, Blackie
the guard dog begins to walk ahead. This
cute dog always kept guard whenever we
stepped out of the campus.
We can now hear the roar of the mighty
Lohit river and in a few seconds we see it. I
Ramesh & Shyam
Guard Dog Always on the Watch
Sita Swayamvar
10
am quite surprised by the volume and the
speed of the flow. It’s a big river that
becomes Brahmputra as it drops into the
Lohit valley of Assam.
Soon we leave the tiny road and begin to
walk down towards the river through the
dense bamboo forest. As we reach the river
I see a suspension bridge, about a km long.
The bridge is about 2 feet wide and is
surfaced with broken planks and pieces
wood. As Madhu & I started to walk, the
bridge began to swing. Then I saw the fast
current of the river below me and I began
to lose my sense of balance too. It got very
scary by the time we reached half way.
Somehow we muddled through and reached
the other end. In the excitement I did not
notice that my palm was bleeding because
of the abrasion with the guide rope. Madhu
too had an injury on his toe and was
offered a tetanus injection! I couldn’t
believe this, no electricity, no telephone,
no milk, no shops but tetanus - yes.
Mini Kishore Kumar - 8th September
Last night we heard somebody playing the
flute at a distance and it turned out to be
the young Sanskrit teacher Navjyoti Sharma
from Assam. We invited him to our room
and hearing music, Bangla Dada Sanjit
Bhaduri came running and within minutes
came Waghmare sir from Nagpur and then
Bipin Kumar from Manipur. Soon we had a
roaring Mehfil that went far into the night
and a non-singer I too got carried away and
sang a few songs. We had a hard time
breaking up.
Dada (who is the computer teacher) is a
live wire and his sense of joy and
enthusiasm gets to everyone quickly.
The Hanging Bridge
On the Way to Hanging Bridge
Furious Lohit
Sanjit & Mrityunjay
11
Home Connection - 9th September –
Pravin Dabholkar, came to Amliang and we
had a nice chat about the origin of VK
Vidyalay in NE and their future plans.
Pravin is a karmayogi in the best tradition
of Vivekanand philosophy. An engineer, he
gave up a lucrative career in industry to
become a full time svayamsevak. Last 5
years or so he led the initiative of
Vivekanand International, a think tank on
security. He belongs to Nagpur and it looks
like public service is in Nagpur’s blood
(Eknathji Ranade too came from here).
I haven’t spoken to Padma for the past 9
days and in the evening we drove to the
tehsil town of Hyuliang. The BSNL
connection was so bad that the calls kept
dropping every 2-3 seconds. The jeep
driver took us a few km downstream to a
spot where suddenly the same BSNL came
alive.
The driver showed a place about 10 km
uphill from the school from where the class
IX & X children shoulder-carried 20 kg bags
of rice during the July & August troubles.
The Day-Before - 10th September
Tomorrow is a major annual school event;
the anniversary of Swami Vivekanand’s
Chicago address. The whole school is busy
preparing for the event that is going to
have the district collector as the chief
guest. Since nothing is available outside,
everything is hand made by the students
including the stage, lighting, decoration
etc. Previous evening we could not even
get chart paper from Huylinang, the
nearest large town. The principal asked me
to supervise the decoration of the school
main gate. The boys told me they planned
Pravin Dabholkar
Scaling 20 feet wall
On the way to Bamboo Jungle
12
to erect a structure of bamboo and
decorate it with banana leaves. This group
of 6-7 boys marched to the jungle with
large knives and in the next 30 minutes
walked back with a dozen green bamboos
each more than 4 inch thick & 20 feet long!
And they had scaled a 25 feet tall vertical
retaining-wall to reach the bamboo grove.
The entrance board is hand-made and
being hand painted.
The staff room being very bright & sunny is
my favourite place and as I write this, I see
an army of tiny children hauling heavy
class room furniture to the assembly hall
which is almost a quarter mile away. The
benches are made of heavy oak wood and
when I tried to haul one, it took six Bruffen
tablets to straighten my back.
Madhu spots a tiny kid and shows him a
hand trick; promptly the sweet kid shows
his own little trick to Madhu (the snap does
no justice to this episode; I have a
delightful video).
Vivekanand Day - 11th September
Today is the big day when the district
collector and about 200 parents are
expected for the 2 hour programme and all
the cleaning, painting etc was completed
last night. The village cows had other ideas
and they have littered the whole walk-way
with dung. One hostel battalion is deployed
to clean up again.
The programme went off very well; the
parents loved the song & dance stuff. The
younger children seem very happy to meet
their parents and the older ones are
stuffing themselves with the goodies their
parents brought.
Lifting is Child’s Play
Sita Haran
A Play
Everything is Handmade
13
12th September
It has rained the whole night and looks like
it will continue forever. At night Shyamal
bhai told us they he is arranging to take us
to another VKV school because he is afraid
that with constant rain the road might
collapse again and we could be stuck in
Amliang for weeks. So we pack up.
Normally the children are very silent but
today after dinner, class X students have
gathered around us and they are asking us
anxious questions about the possibilities of
going to college in Gujarat or MP.
Farewell - 13th September
We conduct our class IX science lesson
from 6.30 to 7.30 a.m. as usual and do
another one up to 8.30 for class X. After
the school assembly we get a farewell that
turns very emotional. We have gotten close
to each other in these 2 weeks and the
tininess of the place magnifies the sense of
separation.
Fortunately the road is still reasonably ok
and we manage to cross the mountain
passes to reach Tafrogam by late
afternoon.
Back to Tafrogam - 14th September
The morning and evening prayers here are
even better; the girls sing very well I
simply enjoy the experience. We take turns
to teach Physics laboratory experiments to
the students of class IX and X from 9 to
12.30. Balasaheb Nagware from Kolhapur
invites us for a meal and we get treated to
a nice marathi meal cooked by his mother.
In Amliang too we were invited by Shymal
sir, Waghmare & Sunil Dhawrale and we
are very grateful to their wives who cooked
wonderful food despite severe handicaps of
non-availability of grocery.
Science Class X
Teachers
Science Class IX
The Yogi
14
Shopping at Dibrugarh – 15th Sept
We returned to Dibrugarh today; the only
noteworthy incident being a somewhat
nasty demonstration and road blockage on
Assam agitation. And an elephant said
hello to our jeep.
The eagerly awaited time for shopping
came and we managed to buy Assamese
silk sarees and green tea. We were keen to
eat some local mithai and tucked mishti
doi and rasogulla followed by bangla mitha
patta paan.
As I wander around Dibrugarh I find it hard
to believe that two weeks have passed
since the last time we were here. It is as if
we have woken up after a delightful
dream. VKV gave me my childhood back for
some days and I will forever remain
grateful to Pravin, Krishna Kumar, Shymal
& Pandeji (who took great care of us
during our entire stay in AP) for this
experience.
As this journey comes to an end, Jagjit
Singh gazal rings in my ears –
Yeh Daulat bhi lelo yeh shohrat bhi lelo,
bhaley chheen lo mujh se meri jawani
Magar mujhko lautado bachpan ka
sawan,
woh kagaz ki kashti wo barish ka pani….
Prakash Patankar
16th September 2012
Dibrugarh
Photographs: Madhu Joshi
Close Encounter of Elephant Type
Victory After Showing the Hand Trick
The Lone Ranger