Sound has this strange quality of transporting you in an instant, to another time zone.

I am not
one of those who gets up at 4 AM, gets ready by 5 AM and dashes off to Lodhi Gardens for a
long walk in the company of tombs and Memsahibs (Makbara aur memsahibs). I usually get up
with sunrise, make my own tea and then settle down with tea and newspaper for a long lazy
morning. Quite often the news in the newspaper does not register. It is just an excuse to let the
mind float like a kati-patang. Infact, it can be called the Kati-patang Yog. I find it extremely
energising and firmly believe that it is perhaps helps me to face the world for another daya
world of which I am no longer able to make sense.

The other day this peaceful routine of mine was disturbed. I woke up to what sounded like a
deafening canon fire and bombs exploding as if the Third World War had already started
courtesy George W. Bush and Saddam Hussain. Thank God it was nothing of the kind. Only
the gods were at play in the heavens to the sounds of thunderclap and lightening.

I peeped out of the window. The sky was full of clouds colliding in terror with each other like
soldiers abandoned by their generals. Apart from the lightening that insanely pierced the sky,
there was just the cold grey of an early winter morning that provided a background to this
taandav of nature. The sound and fury of this taandav sent me back to an evening three years
ago at Unakoti in Tripura.

In December 99, I was in Agartala, the capital of Tripura to make a three part television series
called On The Road. The idea was to travel by the National Highway No.44 that runs through
the entire length of Tripura and report on the development activities in Tripura.

Tripura is one of the smallest states of India. It has one of the highest population growth rates of
over 34%. It is surrounded by Bangladesh on three sides and has a tenuous link with the rest of
India through Mizoram and Assam on its Northeastern border. Most of the important cities of
Tripura such as Sonamura, Belonia, Sabroom and Kailashahar are close to its border with
Bangladesh. Even Agartala city is just two kilometres from the border check post. The illegal
migration of people from Bangladesh into Tripura is rampant and accepted. This is the main
reason for the exceptionally sharp increase in the population.

Of course there is also migration of people from Assam and West Bengal. Altogether the huge
migration of people has titled the demographic balance against the local tribals. This is the
main cause of the tribal unrest in Tripura.

In the first three days, I shot in and around Agartala that was once known as the city of temples
and palaces. Ujjayanta Palace, the main palace of Agartala, now houses the State Assembly,
dramatically symbolising the transfer of power from the kings to the commoners. This is rather a
sad end to one of the most successful ruling dynasties of India i.e. the Manikya dynasty of
Tripura that had a continuous succession of 183 kings.
The successive migration of people into Tripura, while creating some problems, has also made
it into a multi-religious tapestry. Tripura has nineteen scheduled tribes and all the four major
religions of the world are represented here Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Budhism. On the
outskirts of Agartala at Pecharthal, I saw a beautiful Budhist temple. On enquiring, I was told
that two of the 19 tribes of Tripura i.e. Chakmas and Mughs are Mahayana Budhists. These
tribes came to Tripura from Burma or Mayanmar via Chittagong. In fact, the main image of the
Budha in this temple was also brought from Rangoon in the 1930s.

After shooting in Agartala, we took the National Highway No. 44 and reached Tealiamura town
that is actually an overgrown village. Here I met Hemant Kumar Jamatia, a well-known folk
singer who was awarded by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 1996. Hemant sings in kokbarok,
one of the tribal dialects of Tripura. In his younger days he was an activist in the People
Liberation Organization. But when I met him he had given up the path of armed struggle and
had become a member of the Zila Parishad, after contesting elections.

The Zila Parishad had organised a lunch for my shooting unit. It was a simple lunch served with
respect and affection. The loud and ostentatious culture of the mainstream India had not yet
spoilt the public life of Tripura. After lunch I requested Hemant Kumar Jamatia to sing and he
sang a song of mighty rivers, refreshing winds and of peace in his golden land.

Music seems to have very deep roots in the soil of Tripura. Incidentally, S.D.Burman, one of the
most original composers of Bollywood, hailed from Tripura. In fact he was a scion of the royal
family of Tripura. In Ward No.3 of Tealiamura town, I met another singer Manju Rishidas.
Rishidas are a community of cobblers. But in addition to making shoes etc. some of them also
specialise in making and repairing percussion instruments such as the tabla and the dhol.

Manju Rishidas was an attractive woman who was a radio artist and also represented her ward
in the Nagar Panchayat. She was illiterate but knew what her ward needed most i.e. clean
drinking water. She had managed to persuade the Nagar Panchayat to provide clean piped
water and pave the main streets of her ward with bricks. After singing two songs for us, in which
her husband tried to gate crash as I was also shooting with her on camera, she quickly switched
into the role of a housewife and served us tea without any self-consciousness. I am sure this
cannot happen in a north Indian village even now where a new kind of untouchability still
prevails in the name of hygiene.

Tealiamura is the last stop before we enter into the disturbed and violent heart of Tripura. For
the next 83 kilometres on the National Highway No.44 upto Manu the traffic moves in convoys
escorted by the CRPF. I had requested the Chief Secretary and the I.G., CRPF to allow us to
travel ahead of the escorted convoy. With some reluctance they had agreed subject to the
conditions that I and my cameraman would travel in the armed vehicle of the CRPF and that we
shall do so at our own risk.
The convoy started around 11 AM. I was too busy with my shooting to be afraid until my CRPF
escort pointed to two stones deliberately placed to mark something on the adjoining ridge. One
of our Jawans was killed here by the insurgents two days ago. A chill ran down my spine. For
the rest of the journey to Manu, I could never forget that insurgents with guns may be hiding
anywhere in those beautiful forests surrounding us which otherwise looked so peaceful.

Manu is a small town on the bank of Manu river, one of the major rivers of Tripura. We reached
the bridge spanning Manu river as the sun was pouring its gold into the waters of Manu. There I
saw another convoy. A huge convoy of thousands of bamboos tied together to form a giant
dragon was floating down the river. It was lit by the golden light of the setting sun and was
being escorted by just four persons unlike a full company of CRPF that had escorted our
convoy.

We had now arrived in the North Tripura District. Here one of the popular household activities is
to make thin bamboo-sticks for agarbathis. These are transported all the way to Karnataka and
Gujarat for making into agarbathis. The capital of North Tripura District is Kailashashar, close to
the border with Bangladesh.

I called on the District Magistrate who turned out to be a young man from Kerala. He was bright
and hospitable and full of enthusiasm. Over tea, he told me how the cultivation of TPS ( True
Potato Seeds ) had caught up in Tripura, particularly in the North District. Each hectare would
normally need about two metric tonnes of conventional potato seeds. As against this just 100
grams of TPS is enough for one hectare of potato crop. TPS from Tripura is now being
exported not only to Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, but also to
Bangladesh,

Malaysia and Vietnam. The Collector asked one of his officers to take us to village Murai where
TPS was being cultivated.

Then the DM suddently asked me Would you like to shoot at Unakoti? The name sounded
vaguely familiar but I did not know anything about it. It is one of the largest, if not the largest,
Shiva shrines of India, the DM added. A Shiva shrine in this part of the world where local tribal
religions have flourished for ages? My curiosity was obvious to the DM. It is deep into the
forest, though only nine kilometres from here, he said. By now I was hooked. Having travelled
from Tealiamura to Manu I was feeling bolder. I said I would definitely like to go there and if
possible shoot there.

The next day the DM made all the escort arrangements and even offered to host a lunch for us
at Unakoti. We reached there at about 9 AM but had to wait for more than an hour as the sun
hits the site only after 10 AM because it is surrounded by fairly tall mountains.

Unakoti means one less than a Koti or a crore. According to legend Unakoti has one less than
a Koti images of Shiva. Scholars believe that this site is spread over than ten square kilometres
and flourished for over three hundred years between the 9th to 12th centuries during the Pala
period. It has huge bas-relief cut into the mountain sides. One huge rock depicts the myth of
Ganga descending from the heavens to the earth in answer to the prayers of Rishi Bhagirathi.
To prevent the earth from being hurled into the Patal Lok under the impact of Gangas descent,
Shiva was persuaded to hold Ganga in his locks and then let her gently flow to the earth.

Shivas face occupies a whole rock and his locks are spread on the top of two mountains. This
is the largest base relief of Shiva in India. A perennial water fall flows from the mountains which
is considered as holy as the Ganga. The entire area is literally littered with the images of gods
and goddesses.

The real builders of these base-reliefs have still not been identified. The local tribals believe
that it was Kallu Kumhar who had carved all these images. He was a devotee of Parvati and
wanted to accompany Shiva and Parvati to their abode on Kailash Parvat. On Parvatis
persuasion Shiva agreed to take Kallu to Kailash if he would sculpt a koti images of Shiva in one
night. Kallu worked as a man possessed. But as the dawn broke the number of images was still
one less than a koti. Shiva who was keen to get rid of this nuisance called Kallu, used this
excuse to leave behind Kallu Kumhar and his images at Unakoti.

By the time we had finished shooting it was around 4 PM. As the sun went behind the tall
mountains suddenly a fearsome darkness descended on Unakoti. Within minutes the clouds
rose from nowhere. While we were still collecting and packing our equipment, the army of
clouds began to clash to the accompaniment of lightening and thunderclap. The tandav of
Shiva had begun, the kind of tandav that I witnessed again in Delhi three years later on a winter
morning that had transported me to Unakoti.