Swimming against the stream

May your life shine as bright as the sun! I am so happy you came here from so far away just to talk to me! I’ve never done anything like this before in my life…. 

This wonderful response was given to me by one of my research-participants that had just finished a mental map of his local environment.  As a closeby villager had only died the day before after being crushed between two rocks he had been drinking heavily and was quite drunk when we met up for this exercise.  As this mostly served to break down his nerves (many people we visit for this research are illiterate and some have never even held a pen in their lives) we chose to continue.  Apart from the fact that he was worried about his labelling being washed away by the water of his drawn river, he did a wonderful job and was cracking jokes all the way. 

We, meaning Binnie (my wonderful research assistant) and I, have started our case study of the Chuzachen mountain about 3 weeks ago.  Chuzachen was the place where I was lifted off the streets 3 times by the government agent (who turns out to be from the Intelligence Bureau) during my explorations of Sikkim.  None of the activist I had spoken to in the past weeks knew much of what was going on in this place, neither did any of my supervisors.  This was quite a surprise to me as Chuzachen hosts of 1 of the only 3 mega-dams that have actually been commissioned and are operational in Sikkim up until now.  Based on the fact that this place has a town directly on the riverbank as well as settlements higher up the slopes, combined with the fact that there seems to be fairly absent civil society and hardly any previous research done, I decided this would be my place to be! Looking for unmapped territories, it seems I have found it.

A downside of going to unexplored areas is of course the lack of local contacts, meaning we had to navigate the murky waters of Indian Bureaucracy by ourselves, as well as deal with the intelligence agent as diplomatically as possible.  I had been warned by a phd-student on the same project that the Indian Intelligence agents keep big files on researchers that look into hydropower issues, but she had never met any of them before.  Here in Chuzachen, he is hard to miss.  We get daily phonecalls for updates and beyond that I found out that intelligence had tracked down my hotel in Gangtok through my internet connection… crazy shit.  Sometimes even I forget that I am not doing anything wrong and need to remind myself that I am just doing thesis research.  Luckily Binnie is as bad-ass as she is competent and she has managed to wind everyone around her finger with just the right mix of ‘chaal’ (attitude) and diplomatic verbal skills.

Apart from collecting letters of all local authorities, meeting the community representatives and win the heart of the intelligence agent, I also had to meet the Gangtok foreign registration officer multiple times in order to ensure extension of my permit.  Tourists are only allowed in Sikkim for 8 weeks. As my site selection and expert interviews already took me 4 weeks, I really need my full time in Sikkim.  After trying to send me off to Delhi and playing the usual powergames of office-burocracy, the officer gave me his verbal promise that will stamp me another 3 weeks of permit.  We’ll see at the 3rd of April what that promise is worth, or whether Sikkim will spit me out when my permit expires…  Fingers crossed please!  I have 3 days left!

Beyond all this swimming against the stream, life is only getting better.  This adventure has taken a rural twist and it reflects in my Nepali vocabulary.  My parents came for a 3 day visit during one of their Asia-trips to celebrate my moms birthday with me, so I took them to my host family in Gangtok as well as the farmhouse at which Binnie and I are staying on the mountain next to Chuzachen.  Here in Dallapchen it seems like they have never seen a foreigner before.  This other day, an old, half paralized lady had walked for 2 hours to our house and sat on the porch.  When one of our hosts asked her what she was doing here, she just said; Foreigner, foreigner…  Sadly we were out at that moment.  So when my parents came, we finally took the time with my parents to visit all the neighbours who had been inviting us for tea since our arrival here.  Again, as like everywhere I go in this place, we were received with big smiles, milk and sugar tea (or when you’re less lucky salt tea) with biscuits.  The people here are truly wonderfull.  On the road, I was proudly showing off to my parents, how by now I can name all the farm animals that we pass, while Binnie actually talked to them.  Her impersonation of a goat is so perfect that she’s driving them all crazy when we pass.  It’s quite hilarious to see the surprise and confusion on their faces when she starts bloating.

In the same flow of thoughts I think I should mention that this blogpost was written on the tunes of Binnie who’s performing a private opera in front of me while ‘fixing’ her toenail with her teeth.  Just so you know what I am dealing with here…. ;)