Lamka, November 20: In a clear indication that famine has indeed smacked the backbone of the living wages of Churachandpur hill tribes, the 40 odd villages surveyed by MHJU representatives in the last five days have recorded an alarming 70 percent decline in their harvest.

Several factors could have been accounted for the devastation, but in broad terms it is nature that has spurned the jhum dependent tribals.

Though rodents, the widely publicized source of menace is generally responsible in 50 percent of the tragedy, storm in early parts of October robbed a handsome share in mincing the harvest.

Boars, bats, and even parrots have their own stake in the havoc.

In the villages, not a single farmer could collect/store adequate food-grains to last a year.

In fact, except for those villages with good proximity to the township, majority of the interior villages were not in a position to celebrate the Christmas with their own harvest.

So grave is the situation that a family with maximum harvest at Mualnuam village reaped 150 tins, but with 18 members in the family it would merely last them three months.

Otherwise, atleast 70 percent of the villagers have garnered sufficient food-grains each year.

When the media team reached this breezy hilltop village and chatted with a handful of farmers, an old man who identified himself as Thangrem pointed to a man seated silently on the side and said, 'his name is Dongkhual, and he has borrowed one and a half tin of seeds to sow in his field but reaps just one.

He still owes me another half'.

Seated next to his ailing mother in Sinzawl village, Chinzalang could only afford to share how rice was air-dropped during the famine that besieged them 50 years ago.

May be the meagre harvest of half a tin of paddy compelled him to recollect the grim memory.

That still is not the worst case scenario; there are hundreds and hundreds of farmers left not even with a single grain to harvest.

Imagine the fate of Lalhminglien, a resident of Pherjzaw who went to his field a day ahead of his harvest and expecting atleast 700 tins was greeted with a meagre 10 tins the next day.

Rats in group have turned his dream into a nightmare just in one night.

Worse, among the half dozen farmers without any harvest, Sieltinchung, Lalchungnung and Lalrinsang share the fate of Lalhminglien but without a single grain to harvest.

Pherjaw in normal years harvest about 25,000 tins of food-grains but with just 1000 tins spared this year, the aggressive rodents have rendered foodless by a hefty 24,000 tins.

'Many of our women return with tears from the field,' Lalhmapui, Chief of Pherzawl told the visiting team.

He himself had reaped two tins from the 3 tins he had sowed.

At Lawibual village, none of the farmers were empty handed.

But Tuanzakham blankly said, 'I reaped 3 tins and garnered the maximum record'.

Pumzalam, Secretary of Bukpi V/A confirmed to the team that they had indeed said they will have to eat anything that could not call them 'Pa-(daddy)'.

'With you by our side, we were positive that we are going to survive the famine.

Otherwise we have no option but to die a slow death or migrate to Mizoram to avail the relief packages there,' he said, visibly alarmed.

The media team bumped into a poignant moment as the wife of the village chief who had shared her heart throughout the night bid adieu with the words, 'our life and future are in your hands.' Seated around the kitchen fire, she had told the team the day before, 'mothers come to me in the evening, asking me to give them something to cook, I can't afford to turn deaf on their plea, and my stocks are waning'.

With 200 household, 12 in Bukpi has recorded zero harvest, other 40 records less than 10 tins, 60 won't last till Christmas while the remaining would last only till February 2008.Of the fifty families in Chongchiin, 40 recorded zero harvest.

'When the ferocious rats don't even care of the fire we lit around our fields, when we could step over rats even while enroute to our fields and when we fought for the food-grains with the rats sitting next to the straw we cut and could kill them with our Sickle, what other fate could we expect,' is the comment any villager could give.

In Santing, 400 tins of food-grains, sufficient enough to sustain the life of a family is all they got.

Kamkeilon village in Henglep records 5 family with zero harvest and their upper limit is 100 tins of 5 tin sowed.

Everywhere, the situation is critical and their food-grains already waning.

The media has done their bit, it is time the government make their promises a reality and the famine related grants visible to the common man.

Famine already hit the interior and it is the relentless effort of the government that holds the life of the hill tribes.

The ugly facet of famine has resurfaced after fifty years; it is now upto the government to proved its worth and safeguard the fundamental right of every life in the hills.

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