A journalist at the Manipur-Myanmar border

Last week, dusting off some of my old notebooks in a futile attempt to get rid of mountains of seeminly useless paper at home, I suddenly came across hurriedly scribbled jottings describing one of my most cherished assignments one has had the fortune to undertake.

This was in the year 2000. the location was Manipur-Myanmar border in India's north-east and the protagonist was an elusive insurgent leader in the region, fighting for an independent homeland for his people.

The chronicle of that rare rendezvous some seven years ago is worth recounting. Here goes. The planning is done well in advance and after a lot of homework.

The first approach is made through a friend and fellow professional and is followed up by an e-mail. Setting up the mechanics of the trip takes almost a fortnight but by the time I land in Imphal, Manipur's capital, everything is working like clock-work.

The first evening in Imphal just goes by, both I and photographer colleague, Nilayan, waiting for the trip in a mixture of apprehension and anticipation. We are told to be ready by 6 a.m. on the morrow so we get a small haversack each ready, full of what we think are the essentials for the next few days.

DAY I:

Yumnam Rupachandra, the first contact and correspondent of The Statesman, arrives with four others Khelen Thokchom, editor of local English daily, Sangai Express, two photographers, and an ANI correspondent - bang on time and we are off in a Tata Sumo getting out of Imphal in the next one hour and reaching a small town.

After a quick breakfast, we turn off the highway onto a dirt track and arrive at a village where we are told to unload our rucksacks and wait. Ten minutes later, an ordinary looking guy with a heavy jacket rides into the village on a bi-cycle.

He could have been one of the several onlookers gathered around us but there is difference: a small Kenwood trans-receiver is slung around his neck. The boy-man introduces himself as Inga and chats animatedly with our local friends in Manipuri. Rupachandra translates for our benefit: "An armed posse will escort us from this point on," he tells me.

Sure enough, half an hour later, they start coming into our sight. Wearing jungle fatigues, superbly fit and armed with AK-56s, the band of 11 boys, all of them in the early twenties, march in in a single file.

The leader, who is also carrying a similar trans-receiver is Chairen Lapka, a lance corporal in the UNLF hierarchy, issues instructions to his boys to pick up our luggage. Apparently, we are treated as VIPs, so we are exempted from carrying our own bags.

So with two "scouts" in front, the procession begins. We march in a single file on the dirt track leading out of the village. The pace, as it happens in the beginning of any journey on foot, is brisk.

The sweating begins in the next 15 minutes and all our heavy jackets and sweaters come off one by one.

After an hour or so, the water bottles come out, so do the biscuits and chocolates. We city types are beginning to tire and wonder what we have got ourselves into. On the way, villagers stare at us, as if watching an exotic species.

They are used to armed men walking through but not 'civilians' like us. After two and half hours, we reach a village where we are supposed to have lunch. The welcome break is seized and all of us lie down on the cool grass. Lunch is served. Rice and Dal hasn t tasted as sweet anywhere before.

Meanwhile, Chairen is busy making further arrangements determining the route ahead the checking for any enemy movement. As he explains through Rupachandra: I am not so much worried about the security forces. What I am concerned about is our rivals attacking unexpectedly.

Apparently other groups such as the Issac-Muivah faction of National Socialists Council of Nagaland (NSCN) bitter enemies of the UNLF-- control some areas en route. We gain begin walking, this time silently.

As dusk dissolves into darkness, the fear in my mind accentuates; each of us is strangely quiet. What if there is an attack? Are these guys capable of warding it off? The walk continues for the next four hours with little or no banter between us. Around eight pm, we reach a riverbank. Chairen is constantly in touch with base on radio. We wait.

A truck is supposed to pick us up on the other side. That s what I think. How wrong I was. After half an hour a Shaktiman truck simply wades through the waist-deep water and comes on our side. We all gratefully clamber up at the back of the open truck happy that we don t need to walk any more.

Ten minutes later though, all of us were wishing that we had continued walking. The Shaktiman was lurching violently traveling on a dirt track, cutting through the jungle along the way. Tree branches were hitting us from both the sides. My thoughts go back to the Tata Safari ad which says "Make your own way."

If the makers of Shaktiman saw the way the vehicle was going through, they would perhaps film the journey and simply put it up as an ad! An hour later we reach a village, gorge the simple fare of rice, tinned fish and some dal and crash for a cold sleep on the wooden floor of a safe house.

Chairen s men, showing no signs of tiredness despite having walked the whole day, carrying our bags in addition to their own weapons and rucksacks, stand guard outside. I sleep, thinking about what more is in store for tomorrow.

DAY II:

Begins early at 5.30 a.m. A quick change of clothes, brushing our teeth and we are off to another nearby house to avoid prying eyes of the villagers. There, a meal is being prepared. So all of us go down to the river for morning ablutions, shivering in the cold.

The water is ice-cold but refreshing. At 8.30 a.m. we have our rice and board our luxury coach. The Shaktiman floor is now stacked with a lot of hay to make us comfortable!! The journey begins. Within 20 minutes, any semblance of a road that existed vanishes. We are now going through a river, through a river mind you and not along it.

The driver is least bothered about the peebles and rocks in the riverbed or the steep inclines that he sometimes has to climb to avoid deeper stretches in the river. And all that we can do is to wonder at the audacity of the driver and the power of Shaktiman.

Even the manufacturers of the vehicle had not correctly gauged its capacity. Six hours of this journey and we come to a halt. From hereon, Chairen and company hand us over to another platoon, led by another tough but smiling corporal named Sajong.

How long from here, we ask. An hour at the most, he says. He could not have been more wrong in gauging our lack of strength. It took us three-and-a-half hours to reach the final destination. But I am jumping the gun. Before we began the steepest climb in our journey, we had to walk/wade through 22 streams!

Our shoes in our hands, the trousers rolled above the knee, we cross these rivers/streams, wincing every time we put our feet in the bitingly cold water and wishing we were back in Imphal.

At a place called Rest Point, Sajong says now it is only a 30-minute climb. It takes us two hours. As we puff and pant our way up the steep mountain, darkness descends. The narrow track on the edge of the mountains puts the fear back in us.

The legs are in the meantime buckling under. My old knee injury starts acting up. Half way up, Chinglen, Staff Officer of the UNLF headquarters meets us with a steaming cup of coffee and a plateful of biscuits. The break is welcome.

The boys, in the meantime, are amused at our plight. For them, climbing is as easy is as falling off to sleep. We are labouring our way up though. Finally after a lot of stoppages, we arrive on top of the mountain where a log is burning fiercely.

The warmth is welcome and so are the moulded plastic chairs. This is a transit camp, explains Chinglen.

Another round of coffee and we start talking. We are shown a specially constructed hut where we would be sleeping for the next two nights. I look around, trying to soak in the ambience. A diesel generating set is on.

Boys, young men and women in jungle fatigues and armed with the mandatory weapon, are bustling about the hillock. There are several huts scattered around. Guards are standing in attention along all strategic points.

As we look back on the journey and relate some amusing incidents to Chinglen even while applying Moov and Iodex to our aching feet and calves, a senior man, flanked by tough-looking guards, walks across to where we are sitting.

He introduces himself as acting chief of staff of the outfit and welcomes us formally. Then he gives us the biggest news we could have hoped for: Our chairman will meet you tomorrow, he announces without any preamble.

Those of us who know, how media-shy the UNLF chairman, RK Meghen alias Sana Yaima had been till then, are naturally elated. The tough journey suddenly seems worth all the pains and aches that we are nursing.

A legend, who had avoided meeting the media, seemed ready to talk to us. It would be scoop, we all thought and all the hardships are forgotten. A quick dinner and we all are ready for bed. And we sleep like a log.

Before we sleep, however, Chinglen gives us the password for the night, just in case, any of us ventures out of the hut. It is topi. Topi, topi, I mutter to myself, and pass into deep sleep, all limbs afire with pain.

DAY III:

Cold and stiff, a quick round of tea is welcome as we get up. Breakfast is also dispensed with quickly. Then the man we are all waiting for walks across from the other end.

Tall and erect, his gait confident, Sana Yaima, dressed in jungle fatigues and surrounded by armed men, stand in front of me and says: Hello, welcome to our makeshift camp. We all introduce ourselves and sit around the fire. After preliminary pleasantries, Sana Yaima says: Let s have the interviews one by one. And so it begins.

After the formal interview is over, the discussions veer towards the general scenario in the north-east. Sana Yaima comes across as a cool, confident and learned man, unafraid to voice his opinion on even controversial and touchy subjects.

On collecting money from everyone in Manipur, Sana Yaima says: Surfeit of various groups has forced us to stop collecting taxes from salaried government employees. You may call it extortion but we term it as taxes.

We still tax, businessmen, ministers and other people. The rates of course wary. We discuss the subject of recruiting children as soldiers. He doesn t avoid the topic. Yes we do get request from several parents, to take in teenagers but we refuse. Instead we make sure they are given the conventional education and only after they are 18, we take them in, Sana Yaima clarifies.

What is the kind of training that the outfit imparts to its cadres? All recruits go through a three-month intensive basic military training and then according to aptitude, each is assigned a variety of tasks. Some get specialized training in handling different weapons, he adds.

Indeed, I see new weapons like an AK-86, a sniper rifle, an RPG and several new, gleaming AK series rifles with the cadres. As photographers get busy shooting with their cameras, we hacks sit and talk on a variety of topics concerning north-east with the UNLF leader.

It is an education to listen to his vast experience in the jungles of Burma, Nagaland and Manipur, his association with different militant leaders like SS Khaplang, Th. Muivah and Paresh Barua among others. He recalls the various journeys that he has undertaken.

One particular description of the heat in the jungles of Burma stands out when Sana Yaima recounts that even candles melt in the intense oppressive heat in those areas.

A leisurely lunch follows. After lunch we laze around a bit and then go down towards a water point to take a quick bath. It is refreshing. Returning, we again discuss various aspects of the outfit. The way he tries to keep up the morale of his men and women, the logistics in running such an organization and at the end of it, one is only left marveling at the commitment of these people.

Whether they are right or wrong, whether they will ever achieve what they have set out to do, is a different point. What is important is the kind of dedication that these men and women display in adverse conditions.

The women number around 100, some of them in combat arms but most of them acting as radio and computer operators. Yes, even in the jungles, UNLF has lap-tops to work on.

The day slowly dissolves into dusk and then night. Sana Yaima makes arrangement for our journey back. The luxury coach will take you back all the way this time, he says with a chuckle, apparently amused at our plight while walking upto his den.

DAY IV:

Long day. We bid adieu to Sana Yaima and his troops at 10 a.m. Travelling back, my admiration for the Shaktiman and the men who drive it, only doubles. Throughout the day, there is of course some tension at points held by rival groups.

By midnight, we are back in Imphal, having had a memorable, once-a-life time experience.