the andamans

to my mind there has always seemed to be a frontier like aura to the idea of the andamans. this of course has a lot to do with its position on the map- all the way in the middle of the bay of bengal, but of course so much has to do about the fact that the most famous monument there is a prison. reinforced by the history books of my childhood has left me with the notion of these islands as being on the edge of the civilization. and in a sense it feels like that too within the city of port blair and when taking the ferries that connect the islands. there is beauty there- not the lighthearted kind, but rather a savage kind, simmering in darkness.

port blair is a fairly tacky town whose two main streets lead from the harbor to a rambling city of tin sheds and intermittent government rcc buildings on the hills. our hotel room overlooked the city from one of the hills and from our balcony we could see ferries chugging in and out of the harbor. the tin roofs that glint like shards in between the lush green landscape don’t allow for the city to devolve into the picturesque tropical. on the other hand they further the impression that this settlement is only temporary. a stop gap measure before it is going to be wrapped up and the inhabitants are going to go back to the mainland where they actually belong. after that, nature and the aboriginals can roam here freely again.

the whole of the andamans that one is allowed to encounter as a tourist is one which does not interact with the ‘local’- if by ‘local’ one is to mean the original inhabitants of the islands. in an effort to preserve their paleolithic culture reservations have been set aside in the mountains that are accessible only by special permits. i am as yet ambiguous about this isolation. i am told that the tribes want it that way. the ‘local’ that one encounters is a culture of a generic indianness- an amalgamation of a variety of foods and languages that represent that different parts of the country from where immigrants landed (mainly from tamil nadu and bengal). all of these varieties have been blended together to form a community whose ties are bound an idea of belonging to the same motherland and by the use of hindi.

but what is this tainted kind of beauty. on the second day in port blair we took a day long ferry ride to a series of islands around port blair. the tour began at the base of the cellular prison and you walk in between a martyrs memorial and a tsunami victims memorial to the boat full of bengali tourists. the first stop is ross island where the old headquarters of the british was. the first thing you encounter are japanese bunkers restored and painted brick red. the whole of ross island is now a ruin. enormous trees grow out of the buildings destroying them and holding them together. a swimming pool has been resorted and glitters with blue tile among the ruins while the church tower is engulfed in roots and branches. after that is a trip to viper island where more hanging gallows and prison buildings are there to see. and that is it. the last stop is on a coral beach where snorkeling and a glass bottomed boat reveal a dusty brown underwater landscape that forms the edge of a rainforest above. the sunset at corbyns cove on was further dramatized by some fires burning in the surrounding hills that made smoky and ominous the forests. like something out of king kong.

the humiliation of colonialism, the loneliness of incarceration , the tragedies that are inevitable living on the frontier of civilization all seem to contribute to the dark stain that exoticizes and makes even more strange the stunning landscape. because everywhere you look, on all sides is the sea.

the water is crystal clear, a deep aquamarine blue. a still water- waveless. like its waiting for something. softly in the darkness. black water- kala pani. in the distance the rainforests rise in a deep green in layers to the edge of this mirror scratched by ripples that turn the sky into silver streaks within. when you look over the edge into the water you can the sunlight trapped below the surface in webs of shimmering gold. the water is so clear that shallow areas can be seen in the distance by the way the color of the water lightens. flying fish scatter as our boat approaches. the clouds gather and part revealing a pristine blue sky all the way to a sharply defined horizon line. somewhere blue green silhouettes of distant islands can be seen until a thunder shower shrouds them in a grey mist.

the water around havelock island had none of this dark aura. at radhanagar beach when the afternoon sun came through the wave as it approached the water became a gemstone, dazzling and green. an emerald being held to the light, reflecting and refracting until it washed over you. if the wave broke behind you could see the froth dissipating straight through the clear water. the white beach was deserted but for a group of day trippers and white skinned tourists on their tropical holiday.

we traveled through havelock on a two wheeler that we hired and i drove for the first time. the town, as it were, of havelock is a recent formation, coming into being when after the partition bangladeshi refuses were given plots of land to cultivate, cleared from the rainforest. these are strung along the two main roads leading away from the jetty. while one skirts the edge of the water with new resorts on the white sands the other road goes through a valley of huts and paddy fields with the rainforest standing above on the hills. our hotel was an all wood affair with soaring ceilings where the restaurant served chinese, continental, punjabi… but we had grilled white snapper. the other place we ate at was a much fancier joint called the ‘wild orchid’. our company were scuba divers from germany and australia. very few indian tourists stay the night here. “there is nothing to see. “

the second day at havelock we took a boat as early as we could for a 45 minute ride to elephant island where giant trees lay dead fallen into the water and a coral reef teems with fish of every imaginable color. through a clear water you could see an unimaginable variety of form and shape, bulbous, craggy, tree like forms; clam shells with felt blue and tiger striped wavy mouths that opened and closed as we drifted above, jellyfish within whose tentacles shoals of tiny fingernail sized vermillion darts flitted in and out. while we got there early and were lucky to have the sunlight cut through the water making a spotlight on the underwater landscape; some of the later arrivals were not so lucky. it clouded over soon though only temporarily. an oil massage by a swarthy tamilian on the beach was meant to be an added indulgence.

the only starchitecture this time around were the beautifully scaled, cascading terraces of charles correa's bay island hotel at port blair. a huge overhanging roof protects these verandahs from where every view of the bay is a photo frame. the red tiled roof has been unfortunately replaced by the shiny metal that seems to be the real vernacular of port blair; but from within the building still exudes that particular ease and roughness that so much of his work does.

all this time i did feel like somehow the trip was incomplete without satisfying my anthropological, voyeuristic urge to come in contact with the tribals. to see with my very own eyes!!! the closest i could get was a visit to the anthropological museum that got abandoned because of a mix up in flight timings; and a vcd cover that was being sold at the port blair hotel. the vcd advertised ‘the wonders of the andamans’ and in the montage of the images on the laminated cover besides the cellular jail, the volcano on barren islands an the fish in the coral reef were sullen dark negroid naked bodies wearing jewelery made of sea shells and nuts. they stared suspiciously at the cameraman who seemed to be clicking the photograph from a moving vehicle as the group of people stood by the side of the road. this is the image i left the andamans with.

itinerary – for my records.

1^st – flight to chennai / rejected hotel at mount road, found another nicer one at egmore.

2^nd – flight to port blair / hotel megapode overlooking harbor / lunch at bayview and the blue boat / walk to cellular jail past mosque / cellular jail / dinner at hotel

3^rd – the harbor cruise / ross island, viper island, north bay / corbyn's cove with the king kong landscape / cellular jail at night / aberdeen bazaar/ dinner at ananda

4^th – ferry to havelock / kishore kumar piped music / silver sands hotel / the wooden room / the silver beach / driving to radhanagar / emerald water / the village / the sunset / dinner at ‘wild orchid’

5^th – elephant beach snorkeling / massage / drive to kala patthar

6^th – ferry back to port blair / the thunderstorm on the boat / megapode.
7^th – port blair to chennai flight / rickshaw to mount road / lunch at sarvana bhavan below film posters/ books at higginbotham’s – grimm’s fairy tales and angela carter/ flight back to mumbai.