Tag Archive for 'Tourism'

Hostile tribes, human safaris, earthquakes by the month, seaplanes, micro volcanoes, jobless elephants and really stupid tourists. Shubhangi Swarup in Open:

Jarawas are a lonely people and they have been this way for some time. Their group of Andamanese Negritos is believed to be the most isolated in human history. Ever since migrating from Africa an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 years ago, they have lived in the Andaman forests without any contact with the outside world, protecting their privacy by being relentlessly hostile to outsiders. The Indian Government has demarcated a tribal reserve for them to lead undisturbed lives. This is a jungle spread over South and Middle Andamans. Despite the Centre’s best intentions, a big fat highway called the Andaman Trunk Road runs through it. Although the Supreme Court ordered the road closed in 2002, it is clearly still in use. And thus we have the oddity of hundreds travelling to and fro daily through a place designed for seclusion—listening to loud music and littering the reserve while they do so. Curious Jarawas stand along the road, and some tourists treat them like foreigners treat beggars in Mumbai. They take their snaps and give them knick-knacks. In this circus was I a silent observer, travelling in a state transport bus from Port Blair to Diglipur, in the last week of May.

It was my first time on the islands, but I felt connected to the place. After Independence, my grandfather, a forest officer, was posted here. My mother was born in Port Blair’s Cellular Jail, part of which had then been converted into a hospital. She told me bedtime stories about the islands. About Lilliput volcanoes that could be destroyed with a twig, sharks flapping noisily in the sea and lapping up humans, hostile tribals attacking outsiders with arrows. Once there, the tales became vivid.

I did come across miniature volcanoes, little mud piles bubbling over in Baratang. I didn’t see any sharks, but I did see a crocodile accused of eating an American tourist. The tribals my mother feared were also there. They were Jarawas, whom she had never seen but I did on my bus journey. There was a woman standing on a hillock, dressed in nothing but a red girdle of sorts, holding a cherubic baby at her waist while older children stood by the road. The bow and arrows of my mother’s childhood nightmares were missing, though. More: