Brahamputra Baba
The Tsang Po is the only male river in India. It is feared and revered in most of Eastern India, and unlike the other great rivers of India; that is Bharat, where all rivers, in much motherly affection, have a maiyya affixed to their names, the Tsang Po has a baba (father) affixed to its! It is held in much awe and is only addressed as Brahamputra Baba! Be as it may, but Brahma, its patent parent God, does not have much of a following or Faith in Hindu India, and has only one solitary temple; despite he being credited with the rachna (creation) of our sansar (world) and all; in Rajasthan’s Pushkar, dedicated to him and for some very interesting and good reasons too! Ask any pujari (Hindu Holyman) and he will come up with Brahma’s indiscretions, and with whom! And for this very good reason too, had many a curse and invective hurled at him by the other devtas (gods) of the Hindu pantheon of the treyeta yug (Third Era).
Folklore has it that, if you cross the Brahamputra once, you are, willy-nilly in for having to cross it fourteen times till the baba is done with you. And it better be with a somber prayer in your heart and as much humility as a full bladder can come up with. Ask me why? Well, whilst serving in the Lohit Frontier Division in the erstwhile North Eastern Frontier Division (NEFA, now Arunachal Pradesh), I was deemed to have come up short on reverence, whilst crossing it at Gauhati (in Assam state of India) for the first time, comfortably ensconced in a first class coupe. I and had to pay for this gross lapse in propriety soon. Compelled to cross it for operational reasons, in a tiny country mar-boat in pouring rain, in the height of the monsoons, we got lost in its many sand-banks for the better part of an entire afternoon, and just about made it to Shaikhowa ghat from Sadiya, with the body and soul barely together. Completely shaken by the experience, I went straight to the regimental mandir (temple) for penance and forgiveness from the Baba. It was only after the panditji (Hindu Holyman) had repeatedly reassured me that; all would be well, that, I went to unburden my distended member/organ. Boy, was that a relief!
A raging mountain runnel going by the very homely name of Telu, is one of its tributaries. It has a very US-tilted townships on its eastern bank; quite close to the MacMahon Line; called Hawai, which about makes up for one with very rustic nuances. It was at Dichu, which is a good two days hard slog from the nearest Indian habitation of Walong, and is located in a ditch of raging mountain torrent; whence the name; bang on the Indo-Tibetan border, that, in 1969-70, I was once incarcerated on duty, along with six OR of 4/3GR , for over six months; living on nothing but the meat of the hunted ibex, for surviving the sheer boredom and ennui of the Caribou free-drop drab, insipid & tasteless compo-rations of the Indian Army Supply Corps. Life was on slow motion on this forlorn advance warning out post of the forward deployed Indian Army defence net-work. The PLA was comfortably billeted in ….???… just across the highest water-shed. In the 1962 Sino-Indian Border War, in October, they had come down to Tezu; via Walong; about a hundred and fifty kilometers to the south, in world record breaking forced marches in an advance to contact ( with the enemy i.e. Indian Army) mode. They evacuated Tezu unilaterally in November, but not before they had made an inventory in every abode, of the belongings left in hurry, by the fleeing populace. Even in the 1970s, the locals spoke in hushed and awed tones, off the honesty and integrity of the occupying Chinese troops!
Near Tezu, is the old WW II USAF camp of Denning, so named after the commanding USAF General of the times. He used to organize USAF transport flights over the ‘Hump Route ‘ over the high Himalayas, to Kunming in Southern China. The Allies were supplying Generalismo Chiang Kai Shek’s Chinese armies battling the Imperial Japanese (Axis) Forces, and the overland route to China; the Ledo & Burma Roads; were not complete or were being repeatedly cut by the Japanese stay-behind parties. Many a laden military aircraft crashed; unable to gain enough altitude to go over the Hump, in the raging monsoons, and the accompanying thunder and lightening, and high cross-winds and tearing high gales, sudden storms and zero visibility. The Indian Army and Assam Rifles patrols, keep coming across the wrecks of these aircrafts even now. In the early 1990s, when Lt Gen Mike Lahiri of 3 GR, was the DG AR, The Assam Rifles; the Sentinels of the North East; recovered, with the help of the Abhor and Mishmi tribals; the engine of the aircraft, a DC-4 Dakota, of the US AF, that crashed with the cranky WW II Brig Orde Wingate and his staff of the ‘Chindits’ HQs listed in its manifest.
The PLA, in 1962, did not venture further down towards the plains owing to the dread of the tempestuous Digaru Nullaha and nothing else, I think seriously. Digaru feeds the Telu near Paya. It becomes a frothing and turbulent torrent in no time flat, once it rains upstream in its source, and catch-ment area higher up in the craggy hills. And it rains in repeated cloudbursts right from July to June every year in Arunachal! Then, almost in the same genre like the use of bullock-carts to transport coloured TV sets in rural India, in this age of the WWW-internet and email etc, remote- sensing, rocket-science, and satellite-imagery in India, that is Bharat really, elephants are pressed into service by the Assam Rifles (AR), to ford the Digaru with some gainful modicum of success and guarantee. 2 AR has psychederms on their PE (Peace Establishment), even as STOL (Short Take Off & Landing) aircraft land and take off from the ALG (Advanced Landing Ground) at Hayuliang, which, as any Mishmi tribal knows, is no bigger than the flight deck of INS Vikrant at best! And the cross winds do get the wind up on a less than daring pilot of the Indian Airforce. But these fly-boys fly in and out of Hayliang come wind, hail or high water, and think nothing of their exploits in the 1962 gifted and now very aging and falling-apart Caribous, that USAF pilots of the day would not touch with a very long bamboo barge- pole even to please a dying aunt!
The causeway-cum-bridge over Digaru at Paya Camp gets washed away every now and then in flash floods. The AR elephants are therefore, much in demand despite the odd red face, occasionally. One such face was to be of none other than that of our CO’s. Young Mike Lahiri, who had played for the Indian first eleven in the prestigious Merdeka football tournament, in his days, was also a US Army trained Ranger Green Beret, ala Rambo to boot. He was tall, and robust both of body and spirit, and as tough as nails. In his eagerness to get across without much ado, he thought nothing of mounting the barebacked elephant. Unfortunately, the elephant didn’t like this breach in his sartorial preferences very much. And, therefore, in this much degraded sartorial status of his, in disgust, thought of getting even. He suddenly sat down midway, in the Digaru in high spate. Instantly, Mike went for a mighty toss! He fell in to the drink in a most spectacular fashion: heels over head sprawling, arms flailing and what have you. This had the most expected result on the entire range of fauna and flora of the tropical rain forest and the Gurkha johnnies. They laughed their heads off but, wouldn’t lift a finger to put him out of his embarrassing misery at the bottom of the nullah, neither for love, nor money or even his hollered threats of dire military consequences in the Orderly Room! They had the Tiger really down and out and made much mirth out of his predicament. It is another matter; however, that, they were quite prepared to die for him in battle, doing his bidding.
(The Writer Lt. Col A.K. ‘Sam’ Sharma is an alumnus of the National Defence Academy, Kharakvasla. Col Sharma was commissioned into the 3rd Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army in Februray 1964, He retired in 1997 after serving for 33 years. A graduate of the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, he holds a MSc Degree in Defence Studies from the Madras University. This officer has been on the instructional staff of two of Indian Army’s premiere training institutes: the College of Combat; now known as the War College; (Directing Staff Junior Command Wing-1972-1975) and the Infantry School ( Senior Instructor, Platoon Commander’s Wing—1984-87) both located in Mhow (MP); where he taught tactics at the unit and sub-unit levels to students, some of who were from friendly foreign armies. He has also served at the world- renowned Indian Military Academy, Dehradun. Col Sharma can be contacted at aksh9@airtelbroadband.in)