Rain in Odisha and the proverbial camel in the tent

Rains make me nostalgic about Odisha. No! Not Mumbai, you snob Mumbaikars! Although you happen to be some of my closest friends, I must say you are way too snob on that and I have taken up this sovereign duty on my shoulders to make sure you learn that there can be non-stop rain in other parts of the country too. And no! "Aala..aala paausaa" is not the only song of its kind. 

I spent 4 eventful years in Odisha and learnt names of places that my Odiya friends never heard of . That is among other things I mean. What did you think now?! My work involved travelling to various tribal districts of Odisha which included, Boudh, Jharsuguda, Sundargarh, Rayagada, Nayagarh,  Dhenkanal and Angul. Dhenkanal is known for its educational institutes and Angul generally reminds people of the big factories including National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) but I saw a different Angul and a very different Dhenkanal. This is a post to share that story.

Pallahara Block of Angul and Parjung Block of Dhenkanal were almost equally poor and inaccessible and inhabited by mostly the same tribe groups, Santhal, Ho and Munda. Mundas were more in number in Parjung and Ho dominated Pallahara. They are geographically situated next to each other. Both lie in the Eastern Ghats mountain range. 

My colleague Saswati and I were supposed to travel around Odisha for 15 days at a stretch. As I had a 4 year old at home at that time, the concession I received was that we can come back to Bhubaneswar before proceeding towards Jharsuguda, the western part of Odisha. It was the month of October and Dussehra was already over. Hence, rain was not expected. But, we faced rain everywhere we went. Thankfully not at the time of travelling but rain got our travel plans all mixed up and what's worse it even got mixed in the water we drank! Bottled water was not considered an option. Firstly, we were in inaccessible areas for more than 4-5 days at a stretch. As we were travelling on motorbikes, carrying so much water would have added to the burden. Secondly, there were ideological reasons. If other human beings can survive on that water, you can too. It made no sense to you? Well! It made a lot of sense to us then. Thirdly, in the hilly forested tribal areas one generally had access to unadulterated natural water. And we were not considering rain in the month of October. But as I said, rain it did. Our meetings got affected, the rivers looked rough and the drinking water was not worth looking at before drinking. We fretted over the weather under open sky in the evenings and really did not like that we could only go to 50 percent of the villages that were originally planned. At that time I was working with an organisation that believed to justify the days spent in a rural and completely inaccessible area, one would have to at least hold 3 meetings in 3 different villages, which in turn meant one had to walk/ride a bike for several kms per day. 

After spending 3 nights in Parjung it was time for Pallahara. We were in two motorbikes. Amulya and Jaypal were the persons riding the bikes and Saswati and I were the passengers. We reached a town around 3 PM and had our lunch. We were well in time to reach Pallahara  before sundown. Amulya even mentioned, "Ohh! I am so relieved we are out of the forests and were not stuck anywhere. Imagine getting stuck with these two animals" We protested loudly! What did he mean! and had a hearty laugh. We knew what he meant. However, as it turned out, he spoke too soon. Soon after we started riding towards Pallahara, it started raining cats and dogs! It rained so hard and so sudden that within minutes we were left completely drenched and it was impossible to ride the bikes any more. We therefore stopped by the roadside the moment we could spot a hut. 

The hut turned out to be a cowshed where we sat along with the animals for the rain to stop. The two rooms nearby belonged to a tribal family who built that makeshift shelter to stay near their field. 4 PM soon became 6 PM but the rain did not relent. It was getting darker. The house-owners asked us to sit at the thresh hold of their store room instead of the cowshed. It was thatched a tad bit better than the cowshed. And at that time, it really mattered. As the evening progressed and rain started pounding the earth only harder, we started acting like the proverbial camel in the tent and pulled our legs inside the hut. As the house-owners saw that we would not go anywhere that night (we could not, to be fair to us), they came and told they can not offer us any food. They had hardly anything for themselves, but we could sleep in the store room if we wanted. The room was 6 foot by 6 foot and about a foot was covered by a plank that had cow-dung cakes on them (fuel essential for rural families in India). Four of us shared that room that night near the highway, in a paddy field, when it rained incessantly. Saswati and I tried to call our homes and friends just to narrate the impossibility of the situation. We are stuck after coming out of the forest. We were stuck so badly that each hour seemed longer by 3 hours.  Amulya and Jaypal walked with an umbrella to get some food. They could find so little and came back so soaked that it was ridiculous to even trying to eat the food. We hardly slept that night and the rain relented only around 3 AM. In the morning we found that Pallahara will be completely inaccessible after such heavy rain. The treacherous mountain roads will not be  bike-able any more. We were hence advised to go back to Bhubaneswar. We took a "cantor" (a locally made bus. Don't ask me why is it called so! May be because of its loud singing ;) ) from the road side to reach the nearest main road where proper buses ply. This was 34 Km away. We laughed looking at each other every time parts of the shattered windows in the cantor fell on the road with each jerking. The conductor wondered what was so funny!

We discussed later, how any other urban family would have probably called police if strangers occupied their veranda for the whole night. When I look back to the night, I can not feel more grateful that our host family never heard the camel in the tent story and hence did not listen to the Sultan's advise to businessman Mohammed "Never let a camel get his nose in your tent. When you give the foolish a little, its never enough. They are never satisfied until they have it all!" Atrocious advise!! especially when you think we could have been stuck out there, isn't it? But we all know the story by heart and use the simile liberally. What a relief some people never read it!