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