And now... back to my story.... 29th October finally arrived and we excitedly got onto the plane that was to take us to Calcutta, and then change flights to Imphal.

Immediately after Calcutta, the view out of my window changed. It was too cloudy to see the land below, but it was the clouds themselves that were so beautiful. Spreads of cloud stretched out like the ocean under our plane, forming a thick cover over the hills underneath.

I have been on many plane rides, and have seen clouds from planes before. But this time... well the clouds had a landscape all of their own. They really looked like the 'Swarg' on the sets of the Mahabharat, looking solid enough to walk on.

They had their own structures and formations, most of which reminded me of the Avant Card huge structures that one sees coming up in Gurgaon these days (who inspired who?) when the clouds cleared, I got my first glimpse of the landscape.

And it is breathtaking! Rows and rows of green lush forest covered hills, rising and falling like the waves of the ocean as far as the eye can see. But by this time I was exhausted. I don't know when I actually drifted off, but when I opened my eyes, we were in Imphal!

Standing on top of the airplane stairs waiting to dismount, I looked at the horizon, at the clouds above us, then down further at the hills in the distance. Then my eyes travelled further down to the ground. And there stood an army sepoy, standing in full saavdhan, with his eyes alertly looking in the same direction as mine had been.

He was holding a huge gun, had two smaller pistols strapped on his waist, and lots of grenades and other assorted explosives strapped all-over his arms and legs. As I looked around I realized there were many more of them, surrounding the airstrip, looking at the distant hills, ready for anything.

I remembered a scene from "Dil Se", where Shah Rukh Khan arrives in the north east, and the first thing he notices is the tanks and vans and the number of marching soldiers on the streets.

They were everywhere... and all of them fully prepared for war. I realized for the first time that my trip, might not be all fun and games after all. This was no laughing matter. I was reading a book on the plane, about a Naga girl who was raped by an army man, and I was disgusted to the pit of my stomach when one of them looked up from his cap and winked at me.

The male gaze is unnerving enough... it is downright scary when you are in an area where they are permitted by law to do what they feel is best. Power corrupts. And here, idealism died a long time ago, on both sides of the enemy lines.

I immediately started off on a recce, and went to visit the site of the exhibition. The drive from the airport all the way across town to Manipur University gave me my first glimpse of the city itself Imphal is situated in a valley, surrounded on all sides by low-lying hills.

The Imphal valley looks like its been scooped out in the shape of a big bowl. One of my friends told me that when they were children, they thought that the whole world was this bowl, and they were in the middle of it. The entire valley is dotted with little Pokhari's (lakes).

In the ancient times, it was these lakes that gave rise to the first settlements. People settled around these tiny sources of fresh water. Even today, you are sure to find a little Pokhari at the centre of each group of houses.

It is their main source of water and fish. And the entire valley is full of paddy fields! Rice and fish is their staple diet, and every family is in some way still associated with agriculture.

My naive observation was that there is no belittling poverty, and no beggars and slums in Imphal. I was immediately corrected by the activists travelling with me, who told me that slums and begging is an urban phenomenon, a result of large-scale migration to cities. It is one of the downsides to development. Which inversely means that there has been very little development here.

Imphal is a city all right, but it's very small, with very few vehicles, and hardly any industry apart from agriculture. I saw a petrol pump, but we never went there. It hardly ever works. Most of the times we bought petrol in canisters and poured it into our car tanks through funnels. Expensive petrol too.. and we complain about the petrol prices in Delhi.

When I got back, I took a cab home from the Delhi airport, and a very old man was driving the cab. He started up a conversation... telling me about the sealing (it was the topic of discussion those days) and his very difficult life in Delhi because of all the traffic jams.

"Bhaiya, ye toh kuch nahin hai", I told him. "Jahan se main aa rahi hoon, aap soch bhi nahin sakte wahan kaisi kaisi problems hain". "Acha", he said, "kahan se aa rahi hain aap?" And he heard about my whole trip to Manipur. "Mujhe toh pata hi nahin thi", he said.

"Mujhe bhi jaane se pehla kuch pata nahin tha", I smiled back. "Aisi cheezen sunne ke baad, meri problems kitni choti lagti hain, nahi?"

He was bang on. Here we are, feeling empty and restless when we have so much to be thankful for. One doesn't realize the value of ones own possessions, till one has looked beyond I guess. And the old taxi driver put it across succinctly.

One of the first conversations I had with Sharmila in AIIMS was also about development. I think I said something about the fast paced life of Delhi, which I meant in the context of stress, tension, and growing pollution... everything we dilliwalas are constantly cribbing about.

Sharmila looked up at me and said, "That's a sign of development. My people have never known this." I immediately started a counter rhetoric, giving her all the classic arguments of the superiority of rural life, nature vs nurture, Forest of Arden type arguments that have raged on since the time of Shakespeare.

Growing your own food, minimal pollution, no slums, no abject poverty, living in a community where people care... sounds good to a city girl like me. "But there is no industry in Manipur. So much unemployment. And no chance for a better life." She said.

No chance for a better life... that is true. Everyone there was educated. Every child went to school. But there is hardly any employment opportunity based on education. College graduates pull rickshaws there, and cover their faces in shame because of that.

Yes everyone grows their own food, but its out of necessity rather than out of choice. Our argument had gone on for a while, but today I think she is right. The flip side of development cannot negate its positives. We can choose a simple life if we want. But for them, there is no alternative.

Anyway, in Manipur, the city girl in me loved the Imphal valley! Specially the drive up to the university. There is one long road, which leads up to the university, with fields and fields of paddy stretching out as far as the eye can see, merging into the hills that are a perpetual backdrop, no matter in what direction you look.

The University itself is huge It takes no less than 20 minutes to walk from anywhere to anywhere, and walk you must-no alternative. There is a little hillock besides the Centenary Hall of the University, with an ancient temple atop.

to be continued.....

Read Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5