TRAVEL WRITING
More than a rain story
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`The book comes alive in his journey into the "watery innards" of Cherra...and in his account of the lifestyle of the Khasi people.' In the accompanying interview, MURALI N. KRISHNASWAMY talks to Binoo K. John.
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Such heavy rain produces dampness which penetrates everything, causes severe soil erosion and floods as the waters rush down to the plains. Tables, chairs, benches must be fixed with bolts, otherwise they fall to pieces ... Clothes, linen, bedsheets and blankets are always damp and have an unpleasant odour. One longs for sunshine in order to bring out everything out into the open air to dry. Salt melts and medicines are spoiled. Flour and rice become lumpy unless they are closed in airtight containers and kept in a heated room.
"Cherra Resorts", p.100, Under a Cloud
"BOOKS on India," says author Binoo K. John, "are full of monumental accounts from the unseen and perilous edges of human existence. Into that great and cataclysmic tradition this laughably simple account of life in the wettest place on earth seeks admittance. It is a bit daunting, I guess, to make the story of rain fit in somewhere (at least as a footnote!) in that timeless scroll of travelogues on India ...
"How much more can you say about Cherrapunji where nothing happens apart from the fact that things there are a bit cloudy?"
There surely ought to be quite a lot to write about, you can say, when those of us, who may be in a minority, cannot help but agree with John when he says that in this attempt to look a little beyond monsoon gazing, there are the attitudes as irritants ... first, for most newspapers, a day in Parliament House would result in more sensational stuff than a monsoon story from remote Cherrapunji (or Cherra) and that second, Cherra, for a long time, has remained that minor question in geography class, and, in its variations, the favourite quiz tie-breaker question ...
The phenomenon of the monsoon, says the author, has always enthralled him, and in his Under a Cloud — with its eye-catching cover and a few colour plates — he sets about the task of looking at life in the world's rainiest place (along with Hawaii's Waialeale), unravel some of the mysteries attached to the phenomenon at Cherra and the nearby village of Mawsynram (where it rains a bit more) and then casts his story keeping in mind that he cannot bombastically claim: "No one has ever described the place where I have just arrived." He was "a poor third".
It is a challenge indeed which John faces, to hold aloft a nugget of information, as Under a Cloud has, for a while now, faced mixed reviews in the market.
The "Great Rain Show" crucially begins at midnight, where there is "an aura of expectation and a soporific stillness in Cherrapunji"; a phenomenon that has cast a spell on locals, visitors, meteorologists and neighbouring Bangladesh (which bears the brunt of Cherra's "frothy cataracts") alike, and played out for three months. In fact, in 1873, a torrent of water is reported to have moved 250-tonne block of granite over a distance of 100 yards in a night.
But what is even more fascinating is that in this plateau, there is no flooding. And there can be a drought too. Or even the biggest recorded earthquake (8.8 on the Richter, in 1897).
Of course, while it would be interesting to quote the numerous facts, especially recorded during the Raj that John has acknowledged from his many archival sources (the main one being the Assam Gazetteer), the book essentially comes alive in his journey into the "watery innards" of Cherra — in his descriptions of the beauty of the hills, and his account of the lifestyle of the Khasi people who inhabit them. This could be the heart of Cherra, not the rains, and, in a way, the heart of his book as well.
And so we have children skipping along to school with their attention on not getting their notebooks wet, and the "in-good-shape education industry in this playground of evangelism"; the blanket-covered labourer waiting to be hired; John's classifications of his experiences in the various jeeps and rickshaws in Shillong; the shadow of secessionism; the bureaucrats; his run-ins with the Khasi women, "with their sense of purpose, poise and confidence that comes with their having been brought up in a matrilineal society"; a hair-raising trek and stomach churning meals.
There's even Denis Rayen, from Madurai and his Cherra Resorts (and now the paduh - "the youngest son" — having married a Khasi); a symbol of the modern age, whom John acknowledges with gratitude.
However, halfway through, what is most riveting is when John begins to unwind his journey, and meets the rain men to unravel the magic behind the blast of rain in Cherrapunji's Met office (there is one modern computerised rain gauge which unfortunately does not belong to the Met Department but to the North Eastern Hill University); where an analysis of the figures in the row of columns have Met offices the world over reaffirm Cherra's exalted status as being the "Clouds Own Country").
In the end, it's a journey well done, and for those of us, especially who live/ed in the hills, and who know what rain is all about, here is a welcome addition to the bookshelf.
Under a Cloud: Life in Cherrapunji, the Wettest Place on Earth, Binoo K. John, Penguin 2004, xvii + p.161, Rs. 250.
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Excerpts from an e-mail interview with Binoo K. John:
FROM The Curry Coast, to Under a Cloud ... . You've been quoted as saying that "to wander to the unfrequented yonde" is the fate a travel writer willingly embraces. And yet to Cherrapunji you knew you would be a "poor third". You were no David Livingstone ... .
"Poor third'' was obviously ironically meant. It doesn't matter if you are third or fourth. Alexander Frater spent half a day in Cherra, and Jenkins of course wasn't looking at the rains but at the Welsh missionaries. Even few journalists have been there though it is one of the most fascinating places in the world. We are just not interested in our own places or our own. Foreigners have written the best history and the best travelogues about us. My book was also an attempt to reverse the trend.
Your book is a simple account. Yet, your critics have accused you of a rather lacklustre account of the rain-swept Khasi Hills. In contrast, they say, would be Nirad Chaudhuri's majestic description of the monsoon rains in Kishorganj. Others have also said you seem to be a journalist in a hurry. In hindsight, would you have liked to redo the book, or parts of it differently?
Genius lies in simplicity. I can't say if my description of the rain is better or worse than Nirad Chaudhuri's. Many critics keep looking for carping points. We need not react to all that. Under a Cloud was called the best travel writing in India ever: by India Today. The Outlook reviewer said I was in a hurry. Maybe I was. Rain doesn't last for ever and I had no intention of staying there for a year. Cherra is a tiny tableland.
Your quest took you through a part of India that still "has problems" with integrating itself with mainstream India or vice-versa. From your experiences, to what extent do you feel has the Northeast been misunderstood? ... the "gormless Khasi" for instance? Would there be conflict too? The reference being to p.112 where there is the issue of the clash between the traditionalists and the council members.
There will always be a conflict between traditional government and modern government in the Khasi hills. It will be a long time before the Northeast is fully integrated to India, there are too many cultural problems, apart from geographical and political. People in the NE are Mongoloid unlike the rest of India. But things are going in the right direction and people there are getting used to mainstream and have started thinking nationally I would like to believe. All thanks to television and cinema and positive discrimination by the government.
How much of a balancing act has it been between weaving in material from the archival sources and your actual experiences?
It's not a balancing act. I use history and anecdotes to drive my narrative as I did in Curry Coast. Historical anecdotes work well in a travel book.
How much of a difference has the launch of your book made to the lives of the "rain men", upgradation of equipment, and the conditions they work in? One can immediately think of Ramakrishna Sharma/ Pintoo ...
Books don't make any difference to the ways of government and bureaucracy. It's a shame that we don't have a proper met station in Mawsynram which records slightly larger rainfall that Cherra.
How successful have you been in transposing Cherra into the mainstream? And of "the arduous task of taking others on the journey"? Have your experiences given you material for another project? Say a film on Cherra?
I hope my book will inspire other Indian writers to write on India's wonderful places and not leave it to foreigners to tell us about ourselves.
Going by the reactions and reviews so far I think I have achieved more than I wanted to. Cherra is no longer a subject for me, for a film or for another book. I am on to my next project with Penguin. Though I wanted to complete a trilogy of travel books, I have to move away to another genre.
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