ISLAND NATION

Jirkatang,the check point,is but a settlement of half-a-dozen huts,mostly to serve a fast breakfast and achingly sweetened chai. Passengers pay obeisance at a temple and then go behind it to relieve themselves. The road is barricaded and a notice details convoy timings. Another has a list of dos and donts,mostly donts,which travelers must observe during the journey. You are about to enter the Jarawa Reserve Forest area,the board informs in bold.
By common knowledge of everyone milling around the check post,this is where civilisation ends. Civilisation,I reckon,as we know it.

We are soon moving through evergreen tropical opaque forests. The leaves are wet still from an early morning shower; their wetness a moving spectacle of sun sparks. As we progress into the reserve,trees get taller and broader. Some reach heights of 150 or 200 feet and keep the road in perpetual shade. Thick undergrowth crowd around tree trunks; it forms a natural barrier against human intrusion and clear vision. The air is heavy with moisture and a feeling of the unknown. As if pairs of fatigued eyes are following the bus from the bushes. Ancient outlooks still not accustomed to the rattle-rattle bus and the intruders its ferrying.

Its eight years since the Supreme Court ordered the closure of the ATR for being the ground zero of a clash of civilisations. It is not mere rhetoric,for the two erstwhile-warring parties included the Jarawa,a primitive Negrito tribe that has lived on the land for many millennia,and the government machinery,with its brute intent on building a road that cuts through the Jarawa Reserve and connects to the semi-urban towns of Rangat,Mayabunder and Diglipur,where refugees from mainland India have been resettled. For tourists,the road leads to beaches like Amkunj,Cutbert Bay and Karmatang,home for nesting turtles in winter and a distinct shade away from the growing money-mindedness of the more-popular Havelock Island. The road has also been the high ground of Jarawa tourism,where tour operators have taken tourists on degrading guided sight-seeing trips of the naked tribals; soft drinks,potato chips and tobacco often getting traded for a photo-op.

Beginning from the late 1960s,when the road work started,conflicts have raged. The Jarawas fought back bravely with their bows and arrows. The administration,it is reported,responded with superior firepower and electrocuted barbed fences a gross mismatch of primordial cheek versus modern might allowing the road to be built through the tribal forest core. When the Supreme Court passed landmark orders in 2002 asking for the ATRs immediate closure,it was a firm thumbs-down to the many contributions of modern man towards the primitive society potentially-lethal bouts of measles being one.
That the road continues to be in operation despite SC orders,for many rights activists,means the end of the road for the Jarawa,whose reduced numbers hover around a fragile 340.

Apni ki Bangali? The question from my middle-aged co-passenger unsettles me. Im not sure how without speaking a word,I could have betrayed my linguistic identity. I find him looking at the airlines CCU tag tied around my knapsacks tail. Yes,Im a Bengali. The answer puts a wide smile across his weather-beaten face. It is followed soon by a moving story.

When his family was herded onto a ship from their refugee camp in Bengals Ranaghat in the 1960s,Shulin Roy was too young to care. His father,having lost family members and property to communal violence in Bangladesh,could only think of those that survived. Remote Diglipur in North Andaman island,where the Roys were settled along with hundreds of other refugee families by the government,was at least far removed from the spectre of violence. We cleared trees to start cultivation and now my STD booth is doing well. But we could never regain our life, he says. His father is long dead and Roy never had the means to chart a route out of the island life. The road,he adds,is his only link to the outside world. What will happen if its closed down?

Suddenly,theres a commotion from the front. Oije, points out Roy. There. A group of Jarawas,including children,are lined up along the road with arms outstretched. The traditional owners of the land are now used to easy handouts ever since Enmei,a young injured Jarawa boy emerged from the forest in 1997,was treated at Port Blairs GB Pant Hospital,returned to the forests only to reemerge with more Jarawa members. It marked the end of hostilities,which crowded the decades from the 70s the Jarawa had finally given up,given in.
As our bus reduces speed while passing the group,Jarawa children run alongside shouting at us,Doh-doh. Give-give among the first words learnt in their interaction with modernity. Nuisance, grunts a passenger. Theyve become beggars,seconds another.

The bus patterns its way out of the reserve,and there are delightful moments: the charming Uttara jetty near Kadamtala framed by drooping mangrove forests and shimmering blue waters; Baratang with its unique and cavernous limestone caves and mud volcanoes; acres of tropical green suddenly breaking into pristine white sand beaches and dazzling sea at Betapur; the large-beaked green and yellow striped bird that flew past us and offered a fleeting glimpse of Andamans cache of natural wonders. And as a culinary round-off,there was the fresh-off-the-net surmai meal I had near Rangat.

At the spacious Turtle Resort,with the empty expanse of the scenic Kalipur beach and a J.M. Coetzee novel at hand,my mind wavers though. Im caught between Roys story and the image of a Jarawa lady I had spied from the bus. She had sat next to a ditch,her bare back facing the road,head sporting a red ribbon a colour often exploited to court the tribals. As we passed,she had looked resolutely and unblinkingly at the bus. In her look,she had seemed to carry yet the pride of her tribe.

FAST FACTS
GETTING THERE:
Port Blair is connected by direct flights from Kolkata and Chennai. Ships are the other alternative. Indian tourists dont need a permit to visit Andamans; for foreigners the paperworks a mere formality. Book tickets for the bus ride both luxury and standard through the ATR a couple of days in advance from the central bus stand in Port Blair.
BEST TIME TO VISIT:
Andamans dont have a distinct winter as such,but the winter months nevertheless assure a milder sun. The pre and early-monsoon period is a good season to watch remarkable cloud formations over the sea,greener greens and crisper air.
ACCOMMODATION:
The Turtle Resort at Kalipur,Diglipur,Ph: 03192-220603 is state-owned and typically screams for maintenance,though it is spacious,well-located and has a certain charm. The Hawksbill Nest 03192-279159 off the beautiful Cutbert Bay beach,Rangat,is the other option among a handful of private lodgings. Type in http://tourism.andaman.nic.in/ before you leave.
EATING:
The options arent too fancy unless you are into fish and seafood. The meals at the resorts are basic but often worth relishing.
REMEMBER:
Photography,along with all forms of interaction with the tribals,while travelling through the Jarawa Reserve is strictly prohibited by law. The administration is inflexible on this count.