MIZORAM ON MY MIND

Mizoram's been in the news, off and on, and on my mind for over a year.
Read a news report last week that said two years after the Bru National Liberation Front surrendered to the Mizoram government ending a decade of tribal insurgency, most of the former rebels are finding it hard to make ends meet.
This is also the year the state expects the dreaded 'Mautam'. Every 48 years, a species of bamboo in the state flowers, and is followed by an invasion by rats on granaries and paddy fields. Famine invariably ravages the state. Agricultural scientists say the bamboo flowers increase the fertility of rats.
The irony: Mizoram is blessed.
My first impression -- and a lasting one -- was a visual feast I tucked into last year from a small Alliance aircraft window: unending stretches of rolling hills, and silver hues of mist hanging barely a few inches above, as if wondering where to settle.
The plane was just as undecided: it made a sudden descent into one of those stretches, leading to one of the most charming landing stations I've ever seen.
Mizoram was as much about natural beauty as the mystery that's tied to it. Lengpui airport didn't look like an airport at all -- it was like a small waiting room that had sprung up in the middle of a hill station. The locals gave us cold looks (which I later discovered was reserved for 'Indians'); the winding road to Aizawl had hills, forests, waterfalls and homes hanging precariously from hill slopes, but people were not heard; much less seen.
As I took in the sights of Aizawl, still bowled over by its beauty, there was a sense of trepidation too.
The state is well and truly cut off from the rest of the country. The closest thing to home was a 'Bombay Dhaba' in an Aizawl marketplace. Prices of the most common things here are high since, as one shopkeeper told us, the goods come from either Hong Kong or Myanmar -- and yes, they do have their version of Burma Bazaar in the heart of Aizawl...
Aizawl is a pretty little city -- more like a small town -- word of the "foreigners" arriving (that was us) had spread, and a shopkeeper in the main market even asked us if we were the guys from "India". Everywhere we went, children would stop to stare at us and say, 'Indian, Indian.' And except for a few youngsters -- who, perhaps by virtue of having studied in places like Delhi and Mumbai, were more familiar with the 'strangers' -- they all gave us the looks.
Besides, we saw people looking stoned, faily regularly. One woman suddenly parked herself in front of us in a marketplace and kept looking through me, which unnerved me a bit...
Now for the brighter contradiction: they're a very warm people -- we attended a church service in Dawrpui, for the experience, and though it was in Mizo, the atmosphere was electric... There were drums, guitars, impromptu singing (and dancing) by local parishioners, and a great deal of devotion, which was very moving.
And the best part yet: the countryside is untouched by the marauding "tourists from India." In addition to the fact that there are no Pan Parags and Kurkures scattered all over the place (although the local people are addicted to paan eaten with a supari that leaves you feeling dizzy!), you can see clouds touching the hills everywhere -- in fact, you go through them quite often...
Their bamboo handicrafts and shawls are to die for, and the women are slim and lovely. Brought back a mini-version of a charkha in bamboo, and a lovely smoking pipe, among other things...
But there was something that didn't quite feel right, although three days can say very, very little about any place. Perhaps it was the "frostiness" we encountered. That very "safe" distance people kept from us.
Plus the nagging thought that there's a dark shroud on both sides of the divide. Came back home feeling that there's so much more I want to know about that state, its culture and its people, just as they probably want to know beyond the horrific stereotypes we carry about each other: The Mizos, we say, are the dog-eaters. The Indians, they say, don't care for us or treat us as one among them; they're rude, and besides, what has anyone done to ease that perception or bring the state into the mainstream?
Isolated, mysterious, Mizoram truly is. But I can't help going back there again and again, soaking up every bit of news I get about the state. It's now a deep, beautiful, indelible part of my memory.