Coincidently, we end up taking our child to all sorts of places, in sorts of traveling modes and let him meet life with all sorts of stories and that’s why Manas becomes an important part of our north-east travel story
Surprisingly, many people born and brought up in Assam don’t seem to have heard of Manas. However, let me tell you that the lesser known and least crowded Manas is a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site, a Project Tiger reserve, an elephant reserve and a biosphere reserve in Assam.
We reached Manas National Park after a day at Pobitara. Not many people come to Manas unless they plan to go to Bhutan through Manas National Park.
Manas is under the newly formed Bodoland Territorial Region, which was largely affected by insurgency in the 90s and hence was closed for many years. This we learnt after reaching there. No wonder, there were just two jeeps including ours for the safari the day we ventured and very few people in Florican cottages (the only popular & respected place) where we were staying.
A few people, fewer children, no TV, no internet, a small village, a mud road, fencing and then the national park just in the front of the gate. Ideal settings for the new (TV, I-pad and phone) generation to find a new meaning of life. Given that my son is a little more friendly than usual and loves talking, he caught hold of locals working in Florican cottage to tell his stories and listen to theirs. In simple words, rather than being in a room without any entertainment option, he preferred to disturb them throughout our stay with his non-stop talks.
On the first evening, he gave me a little introduction of his Krishna bhaiya, the one he had been talking to the most there. By the second evening, my son came with a chocolate in hand- ‘Krishna bhaiya gave.’
“I love Krishna bhaiya. He is in school but he is also working “. “How will he study and give exam??” After a pause…empathy+ emotions “I want to be rich only to help people. I can give everything.”
And we continued our conversations on what we could do, what he wanted me to do and what were our limitations.
Albeit his emotions were momentary, I never expected traveling to bring such lessons this way into my son’s life. The next day, of course, he denied sharing his favorite biscuits with me while I was really hungry????
That’s how all of us are carrying good and bad within us and depending on our interactions with the environment anything gets triggered. Anyway, my intention to write all this is not to tell another story but to request you to travel to places like Manas, stay with locals and do whatever possible to help lives here. I believe traveling has a greater meaning..it is also the friendships that we do, the love that we spread and a few healing words that we end up saying to the people we meet besides monetary exchanges.
