A Walk Around Long Island, Andaman

I reach Long Island on a whim. After spending four days in Mayabunder, visiting the villages of Karmatang and Webi, I decide I want to hop on a bus now – and I do. No one truly knows the exact timetable of the buses. And deciding to leave on a Sunday does not help my case – apparently, buses on Sunday are fewer than on other days. So I pack my bags and sit at the side of the road for almost 45 minutes with my host until the right bus finally appears. A hurried goodbye later, I am seated in a local bus with all eyes on me – an evident outsider, a solo woman, a backpack on my back. But people have enough of me soon and go back to minding their own business – staring outside the window, eating fruit, watching that movie or knitting that sweater.

At the Yeratta Jetty waiting for the Ferry to Long Island, while LPG cylinders were being loaded in hundreds onto a dinghy, things pretty much go the same way again. A few curious stares, a few curious questions – “aap India se hain?” A solo, Indian, backpacker woman does not seem like a common occurrence in this part of the world. But I am unfazed. The journey is beautiful. The ferry takes us through beautiful mangrove forests and small islets passing us every now and then. How many salties – saltwater crocodiles – live here I think to myself, given all the warning signs one sees at the Yeratta Jetty.

Foreshadowing

I deboard and a massive signboard welcomes me to Long Island. Most other passengers don’t care much for the signboard but for me, an instant smile dawns on my face and I think to myself – “I’m going to stay here for a bit”. But I also immediately tell myself, “don’t be silly. You have no idea what this place is like.” And it’s true, I didn’t. When a fellow guest at the homestay at Mayabunder asked me, “what’s at Long Island?” I didn’t know how to answer. There was no network connectivity that I could do a Google search and show him images so I just shrugged and told him, “I guess I’ll find out.” But there was definitely a feeling of knowing…a feeling I couldn’t shake off but also didn’t want to dwell on because, you know, expectations are the biggest bane of a traveller.

I reach my resort, put down my bags, freshen up and before I know it, I have already spent a week on Long Island visiting its pristine beaches, taking boat rides to nearby islands, spending Christmas with the Ranchi People, snorkelling at its many locations, going on long swims, eating countless samosa chaats and writing, a lot.

First Stroll, Last Day

To mark my last day on the Island, I keep my bags ready and decide to go on a stroll around the village before the ferry will take me back to Yeratta, then an auto to Rangat and then a bus back to Port Blair (and then a ferry to Havelock…you get the idea). The village is as quiet as quiet can be. Perhaps in my previous quests to always have someplace to go, I didn’t quite realize how quiet it is in the village. The creepers adorning the abandoned wooden houses of Long Island that once housed the workers of the erstwhile plywood factory all seem new to me today, even though I have passed by each of these multiple times in the past week. On my left is the ocean, the Guitar Island visible in the distance and a few fishermen standing at the shores, trying to catch the tiny fish that remain around during the low tide. With the low tide, the sound of the waves crashing also ceases to exist. The quietness of the village makes all the more sense now. The ocean feels like one giant lake.

Aloe vera plants hanging outside a few houses distinguish the inhabited ones from the abandoned. Aloe vera is sacred here. Not quite, but having a cooling plant when you spend your days out in the sea trying to catch for a livelihood, is as sacred as sacred gets. Along the single paved road in the Island are little patches of grass that have persevered and grown regardless – a haven for goats despite the massive maidan or playground that lays right around the corner. The moment I reach the maidan, the quietness of the village gives way to screaming teenage boys engaged in a football match as if it was life or death. The smell of tulsi that otherwise wafts in from every house I pass soon turns into the smell of fresh samosas being fried for the evening at the only samosa shop on the Island.

Hellos Before Goodbyes

I walk a little further and right before I reach the busiest part of the Island at this time of the day, I shout hello to the little girl who lives beside the samosa shop and loves to roughhouse her chickens. The Jetty, bringing in its last group of passengers who have just returned from a busy day of shopping or completing official errands at Rangat, the biggest and nearest town from Long Island. It’s just been a week but in an island as scarcely populated as this one (only about 1,000 people in an area of 14 square kilometres), it’s not hard to start recognizing the same people you pass by every single day. On my way back, I smile at Ashita Didi rolling out more dough for more samosas as the daily evening customers start coming in. Then I bump into Jack. Jack is not quite a person, but an important personality of the Island nonetheless. He’s the last remaining of the twelve donkeys that were brought on to the Island on a dinghy to help with the transportation of goods but couldn’t survive. The reason for this changes, depending on who you ask.

As I continue to walk some more aimlessly around the village, I jump at the sound of a horn behind me. It’s not quite usual, you see, to hear the chugging motor of a vehicle very often here. Scooters have become slightly more common now – maybe twenty in total can be found across the Island. But apart from those, there is one tempo and one Omni that serve as taxi, ambulance, transportation vehicle or whatever else need be. The difference between the narrow main road and the narrower bylanes is not much – just that to main road houses all important buildings beside it. The government offices, the Island’s only school, the power grid, the mosque, the church, the temple and so goes the list. A peek into the bylanes might make them seem unimportant and yet they are more full of life than the main road could be. The children, their goats and their dogs all play around outside their houses while some elders of the family watch over the young ones and the others go about preparing for dinner.

Fading Sounds of the Day, One Last Time

The last azaan heard from the mosque marks the end of the day. Once the azaan is completed, the last sounds of the day begin to fade is as well. The birds calling it a day, women sweeping the day’s dust off their porches, the screaming teenage boys now laughing and joking and patting each other on the back after a good evening’s game – all indicate to the end of yet another day at Long Island. The sun that sets by 4:30 pm here is the last nail on the coffin. Most of the noise has now concentrated around Ashita Didi’s samosa shop. On some days, a group of children will come and one of them will buy twenty-five samosas as a feast for their friends to celebrate their birthday. But the one thing that remains constant is the chatter of the village’s important men all hanging by the shop every evening. The school’s headmaster, the village’s pradhan, the boat owner are the first ones to arrive every evening and the last ones to leave. The only other noticeable sound is the occasional hum of the manual sewing machine at the tailor shop right beside Ashita Didi’s.

And with that, I see my host coming towards me on one of the village’s twenty scooters to take me back to the resort and prepare for my departure in a dinghy that has been arranged. I missed the day’s last ferry aimlessly walking around the village, you see. But it’s no worries. Some jugaad can always be managed here.

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