Day 37 - Nicobar Diaries

14th December 2017

(I have no food on my table - plastic table and chair bought to aid work and provide one of those required surfaces upon which one can put things - and yet there are always tiny ants swarming over it. They climb over my arms while I work and then travel over the island with me.)

It took some time for things to get going once I got here. I spent two very long days on the ship, during which I had an attack of loneliness, a little breakdown when my cabin-mates weren't around and then wrote some cheesy letters to friends. It was only as the ship was approaching Campbell Bay - the three hours of crawling towards the harbour in sight - when I was introduced to Jaya and her daughter by the wonderful old man I spoke of, who chatted me up while I was looking for dolphins. Of all the introductions and meetings I've had so far, which is many, this one has truly blossomed. We've become dear friends seemingly overnight, albeit in a mother-daughter manner. She and her family (husband who works in the Stores for the Forest Department and two girls just younger than me) adopted me without taking no for an answer. They gave me a bed to sleep in while I struggled to find an empty shelter to rent for my stay.

Jaya still stresses out about my well being, especially if too long has passed since I dropped by for tea or a meal. I'll never stop being amazed by how hospitable people here can be. Coming from Mumbai where our door is often closed even to friends and family if unannounced, I wonder if I deserve such love and warmth. It's not easy being on either side of that door, and I'll be damned if I don't uphold Nicobari values well into my life.

With this family's help, a lot of asking around, riding around on my scooter, some begging and groveling, I convinced a Mr Murugan to rent out one of two shelters that had been left in his care. He said I could have the one without a working bathroom, having promised the "good" one to a family who was to arrive soon. He and his right-hand-guy promised to help me fix up the house within 3 days, during which time I moved out of the Government guesthouse and into Jaya's home. After a week of their call-dodging, false promises and my nagging, I finally received the keys to a semi-functional home. It took me some days and a trench in my stipend to set it up and clean - and I live to tell the tale.

Work-wise highlights

-- I decided to begin conducting my interviews from Govind Nagar itself, as I was still setting up home in that village and it helped to not travel too far in that time. I got my surveys printed, charged up my dictaphone and set out. My first two interviews were awkward. I realized this only later while listening to my under-confident self on the recorder. I have a terrible recorded voice, so child-like and high-pitched, why do people speak to me over the phone?

Anyway, I picked up pace, confidence and structure soon enough and have managed to complete most of my interviews for this settlement. I am much more fascinated now than I've ever been. The stories and experiences that I get to hear make me feel for both the people and monkeys. Looking at conflict through avenues that bring me closer to the affected and the affectee is hard on my thoughts about the situation here.

The interviews are varied and every home is different in the way its members respond. Some homes have enthusiastic interviewees who answer most of my questions even before they escape my lips. A couple of people have enacted their experiences or the behaviours of the visiting monkeys. Some people are willing to share, but feel their experiences aren't worth sharing. One old man was so busy cleaning rice, he took 20 seconds of contemplation to answer each question. Sometimes it's easy and fun and intriguing, and at times there are long, awkward pauses and smiles. And generally, there's chai.

Most of the non-academic details from my interviews are in a document I'm maintaining on the laptop. The optimist in me thinks there's a book to be written from all this, the potential is mind-boggling. Gently having mentioned this to Ma and Nana over the phone led to them recommending illustrators for the book I haven't yet written. The instinctive encouragement on their part makes me want to give it a shot.

-- I've nearly habituated my troop entirely and it's a humbling feeling. I don't take this trust lightly, especially since I know what it was like when I first started out. I'm following the troop near B-Quarry beach, decided to do so after piloting with 4 different ones. The others were either inaccessible in spurts or outside the anthropogenic gradient I was interested in. I think I made a wise choice with this troop, since their home range covers forest patches, clearings, human habitation and coastal areas. I'm constantly discovering new things about their behaviour that I'd enjoy delving deeper into later on. I'm keeping record of these ideas, they keep me engaged.

I met a pujari whose temple is just at the beach. He feeds the monkeys regularly, much to the dismay of some people. Sometimes he shouts out to me, informing me that they're arriving. Often I'm following them already, but I humour him and thank him heartily for the help. He's a Tamilian and chats me up whenever he gets a chance. I've now developed a short-short hand so that I can continue making observations while he tells me about his life, the monkeys and Lord Krishna. He's been inviting me to his temple for evening prayers, I think I might go one of these days.

The pujari offering some coconut prasaad to my study troop

While the macaques are a bunch of naughty goofballs in most people's eyes, I can't help but be in awe of them. At the end of the day, these are wild animals - brilliant, intelligent and full of personality. Maybe our shared mannerisms and diet make them so relatable that we overlook these things. I also realized that I underestimated the time I need with each troop - it's a combination of now wanting to delve deeper into each one and juggling the behaviour work with my social surveys. I'm wondering whether to stick to just one and get to know them intimately and reliably.

-- I had an idea for citizen science a few days ago, which Rana seemed to really like as well. I'm flying with it. I start tomorrow and am hoping ardently that it works.

Only 5 months to go.

Non-work-wise, it can get lonely. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for all that's happened so far. Many people have helped me, struck up conversations and welcomed me into their lives, but I'm ultimately on my own for the most part. What makes it harder some days is knowing that this past month has crawled past, and I know that there's 5x to come. The rational parts of my mind tell me that the first month was bound to be a stretch. I was setting up the whole project and my immediate future, stress being my side-order to every meal. Once work begins in earnest, days are bound to fly by, and maybe when they do, I'll wish they didn't. 

Keep Safe Distance: The Hebbal Project

It's been roughly nine months since I began traveling 17.5 km to get to work each day. Considering I live in Bangalore now, where distances are magnified by its tipsy traffic and where daily cab rides at office-going hours could deprive me of large swathes of my own salary, I wasted no time in procuring a hardy second-hand scooter. My deep purple Honda Activa, albeit a little wobbly, has repeatedly carried my clumsy bottom to office and back loyally. She's squeezed through tiny gaps between cars and provided me with a false sense of progress in standstill traffic. She has whizzed past trucks too large for her own good - a trusty little Scrappy Doo in the big bad Bangalore world. She's rolled over many a pointy object, throwing me at mechanic after mechanic, patching up her well-worn tires. One would think traveling 35 km a day could get boring/exhausting/frustrating/excruciating/brain-numbing, but on most days, luckily for me, I had more than my personified scooter for company. I had a Dincy.

What is a Dincy? Oh, I'm so glad you asked.

A Dincy is a curly-haired female being. A textbook nerd (thank you, Dr Seuss). She is eternally fascinated by the world around her, taking it all in one hazy phone photo at a time. She is my default pillion, seated fixedly behind me in a good-for-nothing helmet of her own choice. From there, she points out the humour hidden in traffic - funny road signs, car stickers, dogs wedged into two-wheelers and oddly-shaped helmets. Our journeys are autobiographical, with people and our immediate surroundings reminding her of various anecdotes to keep me entertained with. But, believe it or not, this post is not about Dincies (if there can even be more than one of these strange creatures). This post is about Project Hebbal - one of her many cranial gems.

All photos taken by the aforementioned Dincy

At the start of this literal and metaphorical journey in February, we were stuck somewhere along an 840 m stretch of traffic bottleneck - as we still are on most days - called the Hebbal Flyover. This flyover is strategically planted, ensuring that most traffic going to school/office/college has to crawl over it. At two inconvenient spots, more commuters pour in, causing the existing lanes of traffic to squirm awkwardly out of the way.

One such inching day, Dincy decided to time how long we took to cross over. She did it again the next day, and the next, and the next. We agreed that we could find the optimal time to cross over Hebbal if we kept meticulous note of when we reached the flyover and how long we spent on it. It became our pet project (and a convenient way to justify when we left our homes later than planned). Being the sole scooter maneuver-er across our many 'data points', I have come to claim equal authorship over our several month long academic endeavour. I present to you, our findings.

How long it took my Activa to get over the Hebbal flyover (840 m) at various starting points in the AM - a liberal scatter that is explained below.

It took us an average of 6 minutes and 21 seconds to cross over, clocking in at an incredible pace of 8 km per hour. I must admit that this was rather disappointing, because on most days it felt like half an hour, considering we were often running late as well. However, allow me to now elaborate upon the many confounds that our project is rife with.

#1. These results are only applicable to travel by scooter - a rickshaw would take 2-3 minutes more, a medium-sized car would take 3-4 minutes longer, and I'm certain that buses would inch along slower still.
#2. My scootering skills: As the days rolled by and frustration with everyday traffic increased, I got more proficient squeezing through narrow gaps and maximising on wiggle-through opportunities, shaving off more time from our data than when we began in Feb.
#3. Between April and June, we had some blissfully traffic-less days despite being tardy thanks to schools being closed for summer, reducing much of the traffic (informed speculation!).
#4. There is a second route (via Hennur) one can take to the office, bypassing the mountainous Hebbal, which is longer but allows for uninterrupted movement. I've found it usually takes even longer than if I persevered through the flyover traffic, however, it's worth it for the maintenance of sanity. Because I take a look at the vehicle pileup and reroute through Hennur, we have missed several data points that would have held us in place for 10-15 minutes. Somehow, it wasn't worth it even for science.
#5. Traffic policemen! Most of Hebbal pileup is because of the chaotic manner in which people force their way through unmoving traffic at the two inlets I mentioned earlier. On occasion, there has been a traffic cop at these points, directing traffic, helping things move along like butter. Well, semi-solid butter. This has shaved time off of our timer and proven how having someone stationed there regularly could have saved us the trouble of starting this project in the first place.

So, what do you do with this information? You can use it to determine when to leave home in order to beat the rush or simply use it to know that you're not going to beat the rush because you left late like we generally do.You could use it to ensure you don't take the flyover into the city close to 9 am unless you absolutely must. You can use this to prove to the Bangalore Traffic Police that we need to address this bottleneck because there is now somewhat hard data to prove that it should not take more than a couple of minutes to cross 800 meters of road. You could also use it to feel better about yourselves, knowing that you didn't spend enough time stuck in traffic to find an internal urge to study your time in it. The possibilities aren't limitless, but plenty.

In the meanwhile, we shall go back to navigating through incorrigible traffic, dodging people who never use indicators and overtake from the left. Dincy will keep taking photos of odd happenings and I will continue to resist the urge to honk back at the Uber driver who thinks I can make way for him in the middle of a red light.

Day 12 - Nicobar Diaries

20th November 2017, Andaman Sea

(A filler post - pieced together from incomplete jottings and to-do-lists)

Coral Queen is swanky. Okay, not swanky in the literal sense, but swanky in comparison to M. V. Campbell Bay that I took the last couple of times. It's a tinier ship, something I found endearing and novel until bad weather and halpa (the sea-equivalent of airline turbulence) hit us. When docked, it looked sturdy and bold, like a short-yet-feisty person, but appeared rocky and dainty once out at sea. Like a Victorian relic washed abroad due to torrential, tropical rain.

This journey, like the others, was a solo one, or so I thought. I had two days of solitude, a good book, a pair of binoculars and a ship full of people who'd soon be my neighbours. I was covered. Typically, I'd find myself on the deck through the daytime hours - binoculars hanging around my neck and book in hand - scanning the seaface for cetaceans or any marine life between chapters, or leaning over to look at the tip of the ship as it breaks water, sending flying fish in panic-stricken directions. The latter wasn't as possible as I was accustomed to. Owing to the tininess of the ship, a thick rope boundary was drawn between the railings and the passengers, leaving a wide berth of tempting deckage restricted. So, I shared bum space with many more people per square foot than anticipated, striking up conversation between sentences. 

An elderly man - thin and distinguished grey, with the slightest slouch of the shoulders - walked up to me and asked me if I was the 'scientist type' - he had seen me writing and reading for a day. I gave him the modest truth, being careful to sprinkle the word 'student' into my description generously. He asked me if I had a place to stay when I got to the island. Fact was, I didn't. I was going to spend a few nights in the Forest Guesthouse while I scouted the area for a place to rent and turn into a field base. He insisted that I meet Jaya.

Jaya was the center of a small group of 5 women, draped in a bright blue saree with her short hair tied up tight, not a single strand out of place. Once he pointed her out to me, I couldn't help but notice her and her exuberance. She was loud, high-pitched and had a smile plastered on her face constantly. He introduced us and I was whisked away, into the group of chattering women. We went to the dining area, where they were sharing a 15 rupee packet of banana chips, and a barrage of questions followed. They were bored on this long journey and there I was, a serendipitous source of entertainment and intrigue. Who was I? Where was I from? What was I going to do there? Why am I traveling alone? Wasn't I scared? Do I get paid to do such outrageous things?

Providing honest answers, I've found, paves the way to receive more information than I imagined/wanted/needed. Nonetheless, it builds relationships, and I didn't realize what a rock-solid family I was steadily becoming a part of that first evening aboard Coral Queen.

Over the next two weeks, Jaya Aunty became something between my islandic older sister and mother. She put a roof over my head and food in my plate for two weeks while I scrounged the place for a house to rent, began scouting for field work and steadily began conducting my interviews. She also gave me the seeds of a few vessels to make tea and rice, a plate to eat out of and a mat to sleep on when I finally found a place. 

When I first walked into it, it was extremely dusty, had fungus all over its plywood walls, a fan hanging precariously on its hinges and several broken pipes. It hadn't seen electricity coursing through its wires for months, and it was hard to believe that it was ever occupied. It took several trying calls, personal visits and more scrounging to find resources and people who could help me restore it to a place I could spend six months in. It's hard to have a sense of urgency in a place that seems to function along its own timescale, moving imperceptibly in the Andaman Sea. With my scooter as a sole assistant, I steadily put together a field base, set up in Tsunami Shelter 6A of Govind Nagar, Campbell Bay. Its large hall had but a plastic Nilkamal table and chair. One bedroom lay empty and the other held everything that I brought with me in my rucksack, neatly piled around my sleep-mat. The kitchen started bare, but appeared lived-in as days went by. I shared my outdoors bathroom with 3 friendly chickens, 4-5 goats, my neighbour's cow (who kept trying to worm her way into my kitchen) and, occasionally, the ranging macaques.

A week into living alone in my tsunami shelter, two neighbourhood dogs - Pandu and Chotu - began living with me. I had a home.

Day 10 - Nicobar Diaries

18th November 2017, Haddo Warf

This was my last day in Port Blair before heading off to Campbell Bay in Great Nicobar, and it was a long one. I started the day making long lists of things to do, buy and pack before getting on that ship. I also had to find good network and internet to send some emails to the officials at Campbell Bay confirming my arrival dates (now that I had tickets) and follow them up with phone calls to account for all bureaucratic and internet-related inefficiencies in Great Nic.

I had also discovered two things:
1. My scooter was giving me great mileage.
2. I wouldn't be allowed to load my scooter onto the ship if it still had petrol swishing inside its fuel tank.

I decided to set out early and run all my errands in a non-parsimonious order so as to use up maximum fuel since I filled her up entirely like a fool yesterday. Since I didn't know about photocopy machines and printers in Campbell Bay just yet, I also got some data sheets and permit letters in place. Since the island authorities keep track of every new person to set foot on the island, I also got my photo taken, so I could attach it to my application. It turned out blurry-eyed and sweaty, with large patches under my pits thanks to the sweltering day and my running around.

The cargo ticket said I needed to be at the loading docks by 5 pm. I hurriedly finished all my work by then and reached Haddo. This is a fairly large dockyard from which the heavier passenger and cargo vessels leave. It has multiple entries - all leading up to the same places - but open at varying times. It has broad walkways and cement platforms, large enough for trucks and cranes of immense girth to pass through. Having to walk from one end of the docks to the other takes forever, and the expanse of platform seems never ending. It's got 30-foot-long shipping containers piled up in colourful columns to one side, which I've only been trained to look at as a potential site for an action/horror film shoot.

I had to sign myself and the scooter into the docks, providing the necessary paperwork, and was then let in. Once I got there, though, I found four others with their two-wheelers, making multiple rounds of the wharf to use up their remainder petrol. My tank was so far from empty, I felt even sillier. I needed to find a way to manually empty it there itself, now that I had done the long-drawn entry procedures. In addition, I was told that it would easily be another three hours before the crew would get around to loading our bikes. These would be the last cargo to go in, after all the other inter-island supplies, that came with their own sarkari paperwork which had to be checked by the Captain.

In all that time waiting and twiddling thumbs at the dock, I made conversation (dare I say friends?) with the Captain and few men from the crew. They were all pretty helpful and sympathetic about everything taking so long. Two others who had a little too much fuel in their tank used mine (with the most petrol) to scout for pipes and bottles that we could use to suck out the excess. I had nearly two liters still inside, which was great news for mileage and scooter potential, but a real pain at the docks that evening. The yellow fluid was like precious gold, and everyone stood clutching theirs cautiously so as not to mix it up and end up with less than their rightful share. Once the accessible petrol had been drained, we left our scooters on and running to burn up any traces that may still be there. The Captain would walk by, rock our bikes side to side and give us a disapproving shake of his head if he felt any swivel. My conscience burned with the petrol.

It was past 8:30 and very dark by the time our tanks were dry and in line to be loaded. I walked the scooter up a narrow, angled plank into the bottom of the ship, now filled with vegetables, fruits, mechanical parts, fish stock and other supplies. After watching these things being transported into the ship's hold for nearly four hours, I was amazed to see so much room still available. I then strapped my scooter in with scrap ropes to some potato crates and left after saying hearty byes to the crew and others at the dock, as though I'd known them for years.

Since it was already so late, I had long missed the last bus heading home. I requested Ravi, ANET's trusty cabbie, to come and get me. I got back to the base at nearly 10. I gave Sachin (another researcher) all my extra free fuel for which he gave me a rare smile, had some cold dinner, packed up my bags and crashed.

Lots to come.

PCOS - Periodic Curtailment of Sanity

It's now been twelve years since I was diagnosed with PCOS. While I've come to accept and live with it wholeheartedly, I still send a loving barrage of disappointed expletives to my uterus every month. Or every other month. Or every few months. Or twice a month. All dependent on how often my ovaries choose to throw a physiological tantrum.

PCOS, or Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome is a complex hormonal disorder which affects about 1 in 5 women in India, albeit in very different ways. Even though it's something so frightfully common (where mentioning I have PCOS triggers multiple, "so do I!" responses among my female friend circles) it is widely misunderstood, or simply not understood. Put lightly, PCOS is an imbalance in the release of 'male' and 'female' hormones. Often those with PCOS have higher levels of androgen and testosterone which throws the regular 28-day menstrual cycle off whack. Periods become irregular or may not come at all. The ovaries often collect fluid in and around their developing eggs, forming cysts. Because of this, the cysterhood of eggs stick together and may not release into the uterus in a timely manner.

This syndrome (or way of life, as I have come to know it) could occur due to increased androgen levels or genetics (brought to you by sexual-selection-avoiding humans). Both these leave you predisposed to PCOS, at times manageable through stringently maintained, painfully healthy lifestyles.

While it's difficult to explain exactly what's going on inside my body to someone who's never had to deal with PCOS - or in the case of men, with periods itself - it's actually pretty straight forward. PCOS could lead to irregular/scanty/heavy/no periods. It could manifest as acne, hair loss, weight gain (hello, my puberty), facial hair or the inability to conceive. However, it doesn't mean every woman has to put up with them all. I have to deal with weight gain, hair loss and severe cramping regardless of whether an egg descends from my ovaries that month or not. Someone else may break out with acne despite being twenty years out of their teenager phase and still have just the right amount of adipose. Fact of the matter is, it's a pain and we don't know what's going on with our bodies either. Sadly, in the long run, PCOS isn't just a monthly bother. It could pave the way to obesity, heart disease, infertility or diabetes.

While my reproductive organs down there are taking holidays and see-sawing on imbalanced hormones, my brain wallows in confusion and disorientation. PCOS causes mental and physiological stress, since the body is constantly trying to cope with unpredictable cycles, fluctuations and discomfort. In addition, it leaves one vulnerable to depression, anxiety and eating disorders. I've been battling with societal depictions of what the ideal woman ought to look and feel like for years on end, and body positivity does not come easily. How can I love my body when it feels like it doesn't love me? It's a cyclic conundrum, just like my primary dysmenorrhea (the uterus never stops throwing curve balls).

Having symptoms crop up through the cycle (or another non-round shape) each month has taken me down many a Google search, desperate for answers, solutions or comfort. But all this has ever done is is feed my reason for worry. I've assumed the worst, like ovarian cancer, convinced myself of parthenogenic pregnancy or thought I was abnormally messed up in the lady parts. Fact of the matter remains that a gynecologist is always the one to provide maximum emotional comfort - provided you find a non-judgmental one. Since PCOS affects each woman so differently, it's terribly hard to find universal symptoms online - or even the right combination - to fit everything you're going through perfectly. Only a gynecologist can listen to your woes, look you in the ovaries and assure you that it'll be alright (maybe with a little customised treatment and exercise). No matter how much inertia there may be, it helps to visit one, just for the peace of mind if not solutions. You'll be okay. I'll be okay. The entire cysterhood will be okay. Not great, but we'll take what we get, just like our PCOS.

Day 9 - Nicobar Diaries

17th November 2017, Phoenix Bay

I woke up before my 3 am alarm and was ready at 3:30 am. Paranoia began to set in and so, I left for Phoenix Bay. I rode in the dark by the aid of my new headlight earlier than necessary. It started to rain a little near Manjery, but I braced myself and kept going. By about 4:30 am, I had reached Bathu Basti, where I stopped to withdraw money. Chandni (our coordinator back in Bangalore) felt bad about my funding being held up and wired a little bit over to me for the time being so I could buy ship tickets for my scooter and me. Street lights began coming on around then, although I wondered why they’d turn them on now only to switch them off half an hour later.

[If you're not sure of what's happening in today's post, read about Day 8 here.]

I got to Phoenix bay before 5 am but discovered I wouldn’t be allowed inside until 5:15 am. I had to patrol restlessly outside till then while the two cops on duty tried to figure out why I had bothered coming so damn early. They wanted to know why I came all the way from Wandoor myself at an ungodly hour when I could have paid someone else to do it for me.

The ticketing business opens up all kinds of job niches. There are people you can hire to stand in line physically for you until they’re nearly at the counter when you can take over from them. There are agents you can employ to pull a bunch of shady strings to get you the seat you want. There are sneak-approach individuals who will make their way through the entrance when the counters open and plead with the first few in line to buy an extra ticket for them. Apart from these, there are the supporting figures who come by very early to sell tea and water to those in line. The counter opens at 9:00 am. At first sight of the guards/policemen/policewomen who open up the main door at 8:30, riotous excitement bubbles from within the three queues (women, men, elderly).

The human rush this time around was not as much as my last couple of attempts. I was, however, stuck behind a slightly older woman in a thick nylon kurta. She reeked. To the high heavens - of sweat far too potent to be fresh. To top it off, fumes of saliva and tobacco hit me in waves every time she turned towards me. It was a bad day to be downwind. I put my head down and tried to focus on my book and umpteenth cup of chai. Three and a half hours after the absolute assault to my senses, we were let inside where the B. O. diluted into a large volume of cooler air.

The room we’re let into for ticketing is quite spacious with multiple air conditioners (all functioning on ‘fan’ mode, so it’s more breeze than coolness) and 10-15 different counters. Each counter deals with a different travel route, further divided into the same three categories of age and sex. To be fair, the cops controlling the crowds alternate between the men, women and senior citizens when letting people into the sought-after counters.

The race for a place in the ultimate line inside the room is a battle of wits, experience and human resource. Families will bring out their biggest guns to secure a bunk for their members. These guns are often the most frail of their elderly, made to stand in the shortest of the three lines and thereby, reach the counter first. I’ve seen 40-somethings in their worn sarees and cracked spectacles trying to wiggle their way into the ‘Senior’ queue only to be caught and sent to the back of the other overflowing lines.

At precisely 9 am, they decided to turn on the computers, but the computer at my counter wouldn’t come on. A gradual congregation of employees assembled around the CPU, muttering incoherently to each other, muffled by the thick glass between us and them. They were laughing, cracking jokes, looking at their phones and passively hitting the power button over and over again to no avail. Finally, one of them went off and returned with a screw driver. He took the cover off of the CPU and then… began hitting the power button once more, only now with the hood off. Watching this unfold after four hours in queue made my knees angry. Another fifteen minutes of them pretending to fix the issue, they opened up the next counter for us and I got a ticket! I always have a relieved-yet-deliriously-happy smile on my face after getting a ticket. Few other endeavours are as fulfilling in the end.

Now that I had a place to lay my head for two days at sea, I had to buy some cargo space for the scooter. I knocked against a closed glass door behind which I could see people drinking tea and reclining leisurely for a while before I was attended to. They didn’t realize that Coral Queen would be sailing on Sunday. Once they confirmed that this was the case, they handed me all the paperwork to fill out in triplicate (how much does a scooter weigh? Without any internet, I had to get a friend from mainland to Google it and tell me it was about 110 kg).

Got out of there in a victorious flash. Stopped at Bathu Basti for breakfast and then went right back to ANET. I indulged in a rare but well-earned afternoon nap and slept through lunch. It was wonderful.

When I woke up, I took the scooter down to ghumai and caught up on some phone calls. Things were finally falling into place - I was leaving on Sunday and it felt good to have a concrete plan. Scary, but good. I’m going to miss everyone.

Over dinner, I was very seriously asked to come back intermittently, saying that I’d get unbearably lonely if I didn’t. Maybe they’re right.

Day 8 - Nicobar Diaries

16th November 2017, Phoenix Bay

Visited Phoenix Bay today since the Directorate of Shipping Services (DSS) was being absolutely useless.

Phoenix Bay is where one has to go to book tickets for inter-island ships. It's an ancient first-come-first-serve process, where islanders and visitors far exceeding the number of available seats queue up outside the office at least three hours before the counter opens in hope of securing a bunk out at sea. When I was there for my recce in June 2017, it took three attempts and a cumulative effort of 15 hours of standing in sweaty lines before I got a ticket aboard the M. V. Campbell Bay to Great Nicobar. 

Ship timings are erratic, as are the schedules for when the single ship designated to the route you're interested in leaves the Bay. A couple of days before the ship is to set sail, a short ad is put in the 2-page local newspaper 'The Daily Telegrams*' following which, a mad rush of people gather outside the booking office a day before departure.
After combing through the Daily Telegrams every morning in the hope of finding a ship that leaves soon and trying to get through to the DSS that simply responded with a bored, "We will advertise when there is a ship leaving" I figured going to Phoenix Bay in person was the only option. Sure enough, there was a ship for Sunday (19th) and tickets for it would be sold on 17th - tomorrow! I called Naushad immediately and decided to get the scooter from him today itself so that I could ride it to the office earlier than the first bus from ANET and ensure that I get a ticket.

Dayani (who had motor-biked me into town) and I ate at Golden Dragon near Gol Ghar. It's a very homely place tucked away on the first floor, enclosed behind a grill door that is opened only if you ring their doorbell. A Chinese couple moved to Port Blair and started this restaurant there, although it feels like they've had to 'Indianise' their food regardless!


Around 4 pm, I bought the scooter. I was extremely excited and felt like the adrenaline of having to stand in line tomorrow had already kicked in. I even bought some snacks for the queue, keeping in mind how hungry I got in the past. I made sure all the papers were in place and left. I spent some time in Garacharma filling up the fuel tank and fixing up new mirrors. It was nearly 5 pm by the time I headed back to ANET. Darkness fell as I was nearing Manglutan and my headlights flickered weakly to a stop. There are no streetlights along that stretch, and a tiny Ishika sitting in my chest let out an internal scream. I made slow progress inching towards a tiny market along the way making use of when other vehicles passed me with their high beams and squinting in the moonlight. Luckily I found a place where I could buy a new bulb and convinced a closing mechanic to fix it up for me. It was nearly dinner time when I got back.

James** really liked the bike and thinks I got it for a steal, given the condition it's in. He played the guess-how-much-this-scooter-costs game with whoever he could find and beamed in his subtle James-like manner when its price was overestimated.

I was exhausted post-dinner and decided to turn in quickly despite the going-away party for a snake researcher who had been around for the past week. Since I had to be up and about for tomorrow's ticketing, I didn't face much resistance.

Before turning in, we had a short gathering at the dinner table about ANET's plan to have an 'open house' of sorts, where the base would be thrown open to all the residents living around it. There's always been a vague question-mark air among our neighbours in Wandoor about what all of us do at ANET. There will be stalls and props and visual representations of all the work that goes on behind our gates (which in reality are rarely kept closed). It's on the 14th of Feb next year and seems like a genuinely great idea. I hope I can come back to be part of it.

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*The Daily Telegrams is a double-page newspaper that is circulated within Port Blair. We usually read it a day late, since one of the ANET staff who lives nearby is the only one who subscribes. He brings it to us a day after his family is done reading it. The front page usually has very local news about ceremonies held, some politics, often a programme where someone was awarded a book or certificate, etc. The two pages inside have ads, vacancies, obituaries, birthday wishes and other birth-wedding-death announcements. The last page has some sports news and notices about shipping schedules. It's the cutest 4 sides of islandic information you'd ever come across.

**James is a beautiful man who has been part of the ANET field staff for many years. He's extremely curious and intelligent, and loses no opportunity to learn more about natural history. He can ID plants and birds better than most people (researchers included) on-base. All this being said, he's extremely modest and hard to impress, which means you have to have spotted something super rare to get his eyes to widen a millimeter more than their usual size.

Day 7 - Nicobar Diaries

15th November 2017, Bazaar

The whole Cotton's college gang and anyone else who was awake at ANET went for a bird walk (I'm realizing most days have begun this way). By the time everyone was up and ready and full of chai, it was sunny and too hot for real birding. Akshay and I skedaddled by 7:15 am since we had some stuff to get done in town. Also, Akshay had to reach the bazaar in time to buy a ticket to Baratang. It was going to be a while before I'd see him again, so I tagged along even on menial tasks.

We managed to get a ticket and had a little time to kill until the bus was to leave, around 12:30. We had multiple coffees and he shared some wisdom about owning, riding and maintaining a scooter.

Even though there are a bunch of people at ANET even now, it felt pretty empty after he left. I guess that's the difference between small talk and real talk.