Andaman

Do you have an INR 20 note? On the reverse side of Gandhiji, do you see a Light house, a hill and a beach? The name of the hill is Mount Harriet, the name of the beach is North Bay Beach and they are located in Andaman, which I visited and fell madly in love with the place and its people. 

There are few direct flights to Port Blair. Mine was a connecting flight from Mumbai to Chennai and then to Port Blair. My friend, who was accompanying me, joined me directly at Port Blair.

Flight from Chennai to Port Blair was almost uneventful, except that for the first time I was surrounded by only madrasis (South Indians). They spoke in a language which was, well… madrasi to me.

“If you board a flight from Ahmedabad to Mumbai, it feels as if you have arrived in Gujarat itself. The moment the flight moves, everyone starts talking to everyone else. The tiffins start to open, and you are engulfed by the smell of khakhra, fafda and other Gujarati dishes”, someone once told me.

The experience was somewhat different, yet similar. The language was different. The smell was different – my neighbor smelt almost of a jasmine tree. It was too much madras for me, yet pleasant.

Veer Savarkar Airport, Port Blair is an International Airport. However, there is nothing international about it. It is a small Airport. It is so small that you can’t even explore it. The exploration ends before the airport does. The washrooms are slightly clean – which means that they are unclean. There is no AC. The Airport has a small tea-shop, few tour agency shops, pre-paid cab service, a gift shop, two luggage belts, six chairs with half-broken hands, advertisement hoardings of SBI, LIC, few hotels and BSNL Lightening fast 3G – which is not active by the way.

The un-international-ness doesn’t take away the beauty of the place outside the airport building. It is lush green. There are a few buildings present. One cannot but sense an old-world charm – a village-like feel. Photography is not allowed. There is no IGI-type security. I was even allowed in a No-Permission zone. The tea shop was there, and the guard noticed me waiting for more than an hour. When I requested, he let me in. Another guard stopped me, but the previous one just said,

“No problem”, and smiled. The airport was more national than international – or was it Indianness?

At Port Blair, we stayed at Hotel Nagri Inn, where I struck up a conversation with the owner, Stephen.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“29 years.” Stephen told with amusement in his eyes and tone, and rightly so. Andaman was more foreign to me than other “real” foreign soils. Most of the neighboring foreign is closer to India than Andaman.

“It’s a really nice place.”

“Yes. Andaman is a beautiful place. We receive all our supplies from Chennai and Kolkata. There are times when weather gets bad, and the supplies get late. There are times when the newspaper comes late – whole month late - due to heavy rain.”

“What do you do then?”

“What can a man do when it’s pouring endlessly? You sit down with the papers and cups of tea, and read the whole bunch. Life goes on. You get used to it.

“Andaman is a place where you should come and completely switch yourself off. There is a couple from Rajasthan that came to Andaman during July. They came again the next year during the same time. I was little confused and curious. No one comes to Andaman during the monsoons. I asked them for the reason. They told me that rain is scarce in Rajasthan. They crave for the rain and come here to see it. They never went out of the room. They ordered their food and tea there itself. They just stared at the rain. It gave them peace.”

“This place is good for tourism. Honeymoon couples come here, and we leave them on isolated islands in the morning, and we get them in the evening. They may do anything that they want. Complete privacy. It is illegal to go to those islands, but we manage.” There was an evil grin on his face.

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My friend and I decided to complete the SCUBA diving course at Havelock Island. We were to catch a ship to Havelock, however, by the time we reached the dock, the ship had sailed. Decision was made in haste to visit “Three-Islands”. The three-island trip includes Ross Island, the North Bay Island and the Viper Island.

Ross Island was the Administrative Headquarters for the islands, before an earthquake rocked it in 1941. One can see remnants of an opulent past in the ruins of the church, swimming pool and the chief commissioner's residence with its huge gardens and grand ballrooms. From 1942 to 1945, the island was under the occupation of Japan. However, the allies reoccupied the island in 1945 and later abandoned it. There were Japanese bunkers that led them from the inside of the island to the shore. Then there was an over-growth of trees. The roots of the trees had covered the whole buildings. It was something that we saw for the first time. Apart from that there were some camera-friendly antelopes.

The beach around the North Bay Island is famous for under water corals. It is a good place for scuba diving and snorkeling. There were water sports also available at the North Bay Island. There was one light tower, which seemed to have come out of nowhere. Half its head was visible from the distance. While people snorkeled and did the banana ride, we ambled from here to there.

Last was the Viper Island. Viper Island was the site of the jail where the British used to imprison convicts and political prisoners. It has the ruins of a gallows atop a hillock. The jail was abandoned when the Cellular Jail was constructed in 1906. It is a beautiful island. Rest aside; I was perplexed at the British way of killing. Why would anyone bring people to such a pretty place to – kill?! May be they wanted the convicts to feel better at the time of departure.

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Havelock is a beautiful island. It is one of the few places in Andaman where the authorities have permitted and encouraged development of tourism, with a focus on promoting eco-tourism.

After checking out a few hotels, we decided to stay at Hotel Sea View. It was lush green with palm trees. There were bamboo huts facing each other. Each hut had an attached bath and a small area outside to sit and relax. Next to our hut were the huts which inhabited foreign females, who were pretty and scantily clothed (nothing happened between us! They almost ignored us). The white (sand) and green (water) of the beach was visible from there. It was a perfect place for unwinding. Later, we got to know that our neighbor firangs were planning to stay there for 3-months. My dislike for the corporate India and the desire for a 3-month break rose.

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Approach-avoidance conflicts can occur when one goal contains both positive and negative characteristics. For example, an individual may be nervous to fly in an airplane, but if that is the only means of transportation to visit family, the individual experiences an approach-avoidance conflict. For example, an individual may be nervous to get 15 meters under the water, but if that is the only way to scuba dive, the individual experiences an approach-avoidance conflict.

We were to leave for the first dive at 7.30 am. This has often happened with me that I continue thinking about doing a thing, and when it comes – butterflies! Waiting for the girl to come, and when she does – butterflies. Waiting for the first day of the college, and when it comes – butterflies. Waiting for the dive to happen, and when the time comes – well – more than just butterflies!

They make you dress up in wet suits. Wet suits are close-fitting garment made of a permeable material; worn in cold water to retain body heat. They are body tight, and give nice shape to your body even if you don’t have one – especially if you don’t have one. The kit was prepared, and we were all set to go for the first dive of our lives.

Sea is HUGE. Nothing else has so much power as the sea. Just a small flick of current and you go swaying away.

“Respect the sea” was the first instruction; and there were a few more.

• Stay together
• Stay calm (well!)
• Breathe at all the times
• DO NOT TOUCH anything inside the water unless told to; etc.

On the boat I was like a child on the school bus on the first day of school.

The first dive was just under 6 meters. It was the starting where we were supposed to practice skills: to get used to breathing under water, to understand under water language, to practice neutral buoyancy – to stay at a level, to swim a little and to balance.

A small confession: even till the sixth dive, I had goose bumps - butterflies. Though the confidence grew, but the level was not high. It was a pain to stay at the level I desired. So often I touched the level when I wanted to go up a few meters; and when I wanted to stay low, I shot up. Often my instructor had to hold my hand and bring me to the desired level.

The names of the dive sites were kewl. They were the “hip” places of the sea: The Wall, MR Mars, Nemo Reef, Jackson’s Bay and the like. These sites have been explored and discovered by the Dive India divers.

My favorite site was MR Mars. It is a ship wreck. As we descended, we saw a ship at the bed of the sea. It reminded me of Titanic, except that “our Titanic” was some fifty times smaller. The intrigue, however, was similar. It was calm and still, unlike the thoughts in my mind. On the ship, the fish swam at places where once men walked. Looking at the fish in their natural habitat was nice – aquariums kill the spirit of marine life.

The instructors were amazing group of people. All of them had an experience of more than 500 dives. Couple of them had dived for more than 10000 times. There was a natural cool-dude-ness among all. They looked contented and enjoyed themselves. After all the dive sessions got over, we asked our instructor, Siddharth, if we could add him on Facebook.

“Sure you may, but I can respond only after June. I will go to the main land then only.”

“Oh yes, no proper internet,” we realized, remembering the sleepless nights we spent when we didn’t receive any e-mails from them.

“Yes. It’s good no – no telephone, no internet, no troubles!”

What could we say?

I was to return alone from there. My friend’s parents were coming to join him. Highly clichéd, but I hated returning – leaving that virgin land, with no telephone, no internet and no troubles was difficult. I felt it was a blessing in disguise that there was no “development” there. Stephen’s words came to my mind:

“Life is tough in Andaman. Nothing is produced here. Everything comes from the mainland. The phone connection goes down for days together and the internet speed is slow. But we are happy with it. We don’t want “development” to come here – too big a price to pay for that.”