It dates back to 2018-19. After several years of dormancy Oil India Limited had made moves to bring back into production the Kumchai oil field in Arunachal Pradesh. Flow of crude oil from old wells, after work-over, had started and production was expected to enhance on completion of drilling of the new wells. Carrying the produced oil by road tankers from Kumchai to Digboi Refinery on regular basis was not conducive; in order to transfer the expected enhanced production to the refinery in a faster and safer way it was planned to put a pipeline in place. But laying a pipeline across the Noadihing river traversing its way between Kumchai and Bordumsa was a tough call. The river that in winter flows in a narrow stream meandering through the sandbars, turns to a devastating monster with monsoon rainfall and flows across its complete width of around a kilometer. The water rushing down from the hills uproots and carries along big trees as well as boulders and mounds of soil and stone. The surge of water, logs and silt washes away anything and everything along the way and a pipeline would be no more than a tinker to it.
There are, of course, technologies to construct pipeline underneath the scour depth of such surging and wide rivers but that requires extensive study of the river. Such methodologies are time consuming as well as costly. Deploying such technology to construct a pipeline might be cost prohibitive in case of Kumchai field. But then the pipeline was a necessity and it was to be laid in the shortest possible time. So, our team entrusted with the task, worked out a way to construct a pipeline across the bed of Noadihing that would serve the purpose for the time being but won’t give away that easily to the river current. We commenced our work well before the onset of monsoon but bursts of untimely pre-monsoon showers and the resultant flash-flows created difficulties.
On one of the trips to the worksite I met Omyong, a leading resident of the Singphoo village on the way to our worksite not far from the southern bank of Noadihing. He had been extending a helping hand in activities of the Company in that area since long. So we also engaged him to help us in our construction of the pipeline across Noadihing; and he instantly turned out to be our right hand man particularly in matters like arranging local workers, informing us of the day-to-day weather condition and water level of the river, arranging boats whenever required, facilitating lunch at worksite at short notice, attending to complaints of the locals, liaising with government offices of Arunachal Pradesh etc.
On not finding the ever-busy Omyong at the site for two consecutive days I queried and he said that it was due to his engagement with different aspects of arrangement for celebration of SHAPAWNG YAWNG MANAU POI –the new year festival of the Singphoos. In India the Singphoos basically reside in Tinsukia district of Assam and the nearby Lohit, Namchai and Tirap districts of Arunachal Pradesh. That’s why the formal celebration of SHAPAWNG YAWNG MANAU POI is arranged in Assam and Arunachal in alternate years. The previous year the festival was arranged at Margherita in Assam and that year the arrangement had been done in Namchai. Like our Bohag Bihu SHAPAWNG YAWNG MANAU POI is also celebrated with fervor for three days with many programmes and naturally the budget was expensive. Even though the government was expected to support certain aspects, arranging for the rest was still an uphill task for the organizers. The Committee approached our Company for some support and the Company also responded positively. Alongwith certain other officials of the Company, the Celebration Committee also invited our team engaged in construction of the pipeline to take part in the festivity on all the three days. We were taken in by warmth of their invitation, but it was not possible to attend on all the days; so we decided to make it atleast on one day.
It was 13 February 2019, the second day of the celebration. After taking stock of the progress of work at Noadihing we moved to Namchai – myself with enthusiastic young collegues Prankush and Sukungta Monlai. Khamti youth Monlai is from Lathao village, a few kilometers ahead of Namchai. We rang and informed Omyoung,-“We are reaching shortly.” At Namchai we drove off from the National Highway and moved through a newly developing locality to the site of the function. Omyong was waiting for us with two other committee members. As we got down and stepped up they welcomed each one of us with a traditional scarf and a headwear. Both the traditional pieces were made of cloth with square patterns formed of pink and black stripes. The scarf resembled a narrow neck comforter and the headwear, though looked like a cap from a distance, actually had not any top cover.
We roamed around the field teeming with people in joyous mood – laughing and smiling and greeting one another. The atmosphere elated us and we took few photographs with a group of young girls dressed in traditional attire and then moved up into the Changghor -Stilt house serving as the office of the Committee. It was time for lunch and most of the invited guests had already moved from the office to the long hall-like Changghor erected nearby for the feasts. Omyong and two others lead us courteously for lunch from the office to the hall. The floor of the hall was made of solid bamboos tied together and then covered with mats woven from fine patidoi cane. At the place for serving food, laid on the floor for the specially invited guests, were two rows of cushions facing each other; there was also a long single row of cane mats. We were offered seats next to a person in glittering orange-red traditional Singphoo attire and introduced,-“He is our revered King and the Chief Guest of this celebration.” We were next introduced to two distinguished persons seating in the row in front,-“This gentleman is the Buragohain and next to him is the Borgohain of the court of the Ahom King. They are our respected special invitees.” After introductions and exchange of greetings drinks were served – everyone choose his own drink from among the assortment of traditional wine, whiskey, cola and other cold drinks. At the same time lunch was served.
Served on koupat (leaf of wild bushy plaintain) were typical items- topola bhat, dali, two varieties of boiled vegetable, ckicken meat cooked in traditional way without oil and species, delicate singphoo culinary of pork and buffalo meat both cooked in thick gravy and fish roasted on woodfire. I took all the items except the pork and buffalo meat. During my frequent field visits in Tinsukia district and adjoining area of Arunachal I had tasted, quite a number of times, traditional food of the Singphoos, the Khamties and the Fakials with chicken meat exquisitely cooked without oil and spice, but I can swear that I had never had any preparation of fish tasting better than the one cooked on firewood that day. The fish netted from some nearby hilly stream and almost equal in size to kuhi fish but somewhat flatter, were marinated in a paste of ginger, garlic, green chilly and few wild edible leaves after removing the scales and intestinal parts and then arranged on bamboo sticks and roasted over woodfire and finally each cut to three pieces and served hot. The taste was irresistible; I could not stop myself from asking for one more piece – one more- and one more. The fireplace was close to my seat; the lady roasting the fish confided in me,-“Oh! You are liking it so much but my stock in running out – it is very difficult to get this fish.” Listening to her I restrained myself though the taste buds kept tickling. The King also liked and appreciated the food and as he got up the others also followed suit. After lunch the committee felicitated the three of us with traditional dao (machete) in sheaths crafted from bamboo and cane, a souvenir of SHAPAWNG YAWNG MANAU POI festival and a calendar brought out on the occasion of Singphoo new year.
Meanwhile dance had started in the wide open field; an open stage was set up in the middle of the dance arena and a large tradition symbol of the Singphoos comprising of wood crafted head, feather and tail of the great hornbill bird was erected on the stage. That very symbol was also there in the souvenir and the calendar we were presented with. A group of young male and female singers sang a song on the stage accompanied by keyboard and traditional drums and a large number of peopled moving in lines danced to the rhythm. A huge crowd enjoyed the dance from the boundary of the arena. The King and the guests were taken to a gallery crafted of bamboo and set up on stilts and seated on rows of sofa. We exchanged few words with the King and started enjoying the dance. The dancers arranged themselves in two rows and while dancing kept stepping forward constantly; to accommodate the huge number of dancers the lines were made serpentine and they even crisscrossed each other. At intervals some people kept on leaving the lines to make way for those waiting eagerly for their turn to dance. Though many among the dancers were in traditional dress, majority were in modern attire. I observed that each line was headed by a person wearing high cone-shaped hat and special red and blue long traditional robe covering from shoulder to toe; the leadmen danced each waving a long crafted wand and the others were following them. The committee members let us know that the lead persons were of revered position in Singphoo society like priest and they had been from China and Burma (Myanmar). A small group of Singphoos migrated to our country centuries ago and they number just about ten thousand in India. The Singphoos are basically resident of an area covering southeastern part of China and the adjoining northern parts of Myanmar. There the Singphoos are known as Jingphoo. The Jingphoos number about ten to eleven lakh in Myanmar and two to three lakh in China. The Singphoos and Jingphoos are chiefly followers of Buddhism; as per information in internet they follow Therawad Buddhism. They being of the same ethnic lineage the Jingphoos are invited for SHAPAWNG YAWNG MANAU POI and the government makes special arrangement for participation of few from the two foreign countries. May be their entry is facilitated through the Tamo gate in Manipur.
Then came the invitation for guests in the gallery to take part in the dance. Few of the guests were already in the lines. I looked around for the Buragohain and the Borgohain but could not find them. I had the desire to know from them the details of the traditional Royal Court of the Ahoms like the Singphoos and the Gobhas. The King had danced a bit at the inauguration in the morning and he did not wish to take part again. We, the three, moved down from the gallery with the daos presented to us and got into one of the lines. I took out the dao from the sheath and hold it in my right hand pointing up, observed the dancers in front of me and started turning it to right and left by twisting my wrist in rhythm with the drum beats and alongwith stepped forward swinging the body to the right and left in synchronization with the song. The inhibition evaporated and I started enjoying the dance; everyone was engrossed in dance, some even singing the song and no one seemed to notice others. It sounded to me that the singers were repeating the same stanza of two or three lines – though I did not understand the song dancing to its tune freed up my mind. Closing my eyes partially I immersed in the transcendent rhythm.
Like the other elements of sangeet (music), dance has an important role in expressing eternal joy and in concentrating the mind during meditation as well. Few months back I had participated in a workshop of Art Of Living in Duliajan; one day, as part of the programme, at around dusk all the participants were led to dance in synchronization to a song played in low volume in an almost dark environment. After initial hesitation everyone danced freely. While dancing, immersing in oneself, it felt like moving into another world – the mind became aloft devoid of any earthly thoughts and track of time was lost. Later on every participant talked of a similar experience. Dance has an important place in Osho’s philosophy. The Sufi saints also take recourse to song and dance for feeling oneness with the Omnipresent power of Creation. Jari tradition of Assam is also on similar lines. All the classical dance forms of India have their origins rooted in the desire of submission to the Paramatman Parameshwar. Folk songs and folk dances have mostly emerged from paying obeisance to God, spirituality of life, prayer of Mother Nature, love and expression of joy.
While still enjoying the dance to my heart’s content one committee member approached and called us up for a cup of tea. We made place for few others waiting eagerly for dancing. Observed the time and we danced for forty five minutes but did not feel any tiredness.
Though numerically the Singphoos are now only a tiny ethnic group, from the time of Ahom rule they had a kingdom covering approximately the same area where they now reside in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh. When towards the end of the eighteenth century the Ahom rule slackened the Singphoo kingdom was almost independent but they lived in harmony with the other nearby ethnic groups like the Mottocks, the Khamtis, the Chutias etc. In 1828 when Ahom prince Gomdhor Konwar led a rebellion against the British the Singphoos also prepared for overthrowing the foreign occupiers. In 1830 the Singphoos joined the rebellion led by Piyali Phukan, Dhananjoy Borgohain etc. and prepared for war. But the native freedom fighters were easily decimated by shrewdness and much better weaponry of the East India Company. Pages of history tell us that the brave British adventurer Robert Bruce observed tea plants growing in wild in forests of upper Assam and though he identified the plant to be a species of tea he was not hundred percent sure. To ensure the identity of the plant he approached the Singphoo Chief Bisa Gam. He learned from Bisa Gam how they crush the leaves of the plant in bamboo pubs, ferment and boil it in water and brew the hot refreshing drink. That was the embryonic beginning of tea plantation in Assam.
In this way if we search inquisitively varied aspects of life of the myriad ethnic groups of Assam it will open up to us anthropological golden treasure troves; we have so much to know about the language and culture of each group. How remarkably different are the ways of life and culture of each group from Goalpara at the extreme west to the Singphoos, Motoks, Morans, Khamtis etc at the extreme east. It is so very important for every Assamese to heartily understand the essentiality of knowing the mosaic of Assam’s vibrant culture spanning over thousands of years alongwith pursuing knowledge in other areas of respective interest. Language and culture are inseparable from way of life; as way of life in never static so also are language and culture – rather they are like the changing scenario of the banks along a river. It is never possible to keep language and culture insulated from the changing times – changing times had infused electronic instruments alongside traditional ones in the musical performance at SHAPAWNG YAWNG MANAU POI, changing times have influenced the characteristics of Bihu. Celebration of Bihu today is appreciably different from the ways of celebration of the festival in our childhood days; but we cannot say with certainty that the ways of celebration we are nostalgic about were exactly as per the traditions followed centuries ago. We have to tune ourselves to changes with changing time but at the same time must stand united and guard boldly against incursion of too many alien elements and deformity into our language and culture in the name of embracing modernity.
As the sun was fast sliding down the western sky we took leave from the committee members and entered the exhibition area. Among myriad items in the different stalls few of the stalls had on display colourful stones of various sizes, we were told, were gems from Burma (Myanmar); their prices were also exorbitant. Those gems were probably collected from mines in Myanmar. A basket like bag woven very tightly with plastic tapes caught my eye and I bought it. When, even today, I go to market with that bag lot of people inquire as to where from I got such a fancy looking but useful bag.
After clearing the traffic jam around the festival field we moved further east a few kilometers and entered Sukungta’s parental home at Lathao village. There we gossiped with Sukungta’s father sitting in the comfortable portique of the modern concrete changghor sipping cups of green tea prepared from home-treated tea leaves and then started our return journey.
Our brief presence in the festivity of SHAPAWNG YAWNG MANAU POI and uninhibited mixing with all probably played a role in enhancing the goodwill of the local people towards our Company. Despite the difficulties brought in by pre-monsoon showers, with the cooperation of all, we could complete in time the task of laying the pipeline beneath the bed of Noadihing.