This article is composed of two separate but convergent stories. One is narrated in normal text; the other is in italics.

Stilwell Road between Nampong and Pangsau Pass (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Mid-January 2010.

Assam Rifles camp at Jairampur, Arunachal Pradesh.

The wooden table, covered in clean white cloth and moved by smartly dressed soldiers to a sunlit spot for photography, resembled the typical setting to display captured arms. It appears often on television – rocket launchers, AK-47s, rounds of ammunition, all stacked, labeled and kept on a clean, white tablecloth. That day however, as I got my small camera ready, the soldiers brought forth rotting pieces of weaponry. Two machineguns of World War II vintage, rusted to golden brown with yellow streaks, several parts missing. They kept it reverently on the table and as soldiers do, faded to the backdrop. Some days before, just behind the camp’s administrative block where I stood, men were tilling a patch of land to cultivate plantains and papaya, when the foot-deep blade of the tiller struck metal.

Welcome to Stilwell Road.

Officially it was National Highway 153 running in from Assam. Earlier, past the dusty, coal-smeared roads of Ledo and opposite another military camp, a large board with an overgrown path nearby and a long forgotten railway track leading to a long gone bridge had announced start of the Stilwell Road. Across the river, the old track now partially covered by earth, led to the Lekhapani station with its plaque reminding us that it used to be the eastern most tip of the Indian Railways. The last train to the erstwhile coal loading station was in February 1997. On the road nearby, a truck lay overturned on the road, its load of coal being shoveled into gunny bags by workers. It must have begun its trip at Ledo, a coal town with an open cast mine operated by Eastern Coalfields; long stretch of road bordered by heaps of excavated earth and a stream colored yellow with effluent. For those in search of Stilwell Road, this was the Ledo of World War II, from where General Joseph Stilwell of the US Army built a road into Myanmar to connect with the famous Burma Road leading to China. It was a Herculean task involving the Americans, the British, the Chinese and Indians; a road that cut across high mountains and dense jungles, best captured in an oft published black and white picture – one snake of a road slithering down a mountain.

At an outdoor camp in the Himalaya in 2007, I met Pearly Jacob. She was from Mizoram in North East India, working in Bengaluru (Bangalore), the South Indian city made famous by the IT industry. Despite my desire to visit the North East, I had never made it anywhere that side. Courage, especially the courage to travel alone, was in short supply. Much of my so called adventures had been with others. It usually embraced conquest of something – a peak or a pass – as objective, while real adventure lay already lost through sticking to familiar group. Perhaps she would travel with me? Pearly laughed off the suggestion, asking why I would need company. Instead she cited a friend – Malayali, brought up in India’s IT capital – who had gone exploring in Myanmar. I didn’t seek details, for the person’s whereabouts appeared hazy and more important, somebody taking off just like that made me feel like an abject coward. Couple of years later, Pearly herself reached Thailand. In a remarkable journey, this former radio jockey at World Space, cycled through a few countries in South East Asia into China and then traveled right across to Mongolia.  Late November 2009, after a long gap, I checked Pearly’s travel blog and saw a remorseful entry on Arun’s demise in Dali, Yunnan. That’s how I found the name of the man who went off to Myanmar, obsessed by the Stilwell Road. An Internet search then threw up Arun Veembur’s obituary from The Hindu: Young Writer and Intrepid Traveler Dies in China.   

The Stilwell Road’s construction and the preceding airlift, flying in supplies from Assam to Yunnan in China across mountains exceeding 10,000ft in elevation, was considered one of the most remarkable chapters of World War II. It was necessitated following the Japanese invasion of China and the consequent inability of Allied Forces to supply China by sea. To make matters worse, the Japanese land thrust towards India from South East Asia, cut off access to the Burma Road once Myanmar fell. The airlift from Assam – called `Flying the Hump – became a legend in aviation history. Flown by American and Chinese pilots, several aircraft were lost on this route at a mountainous knot on the planet where the combination of altitude, rain bearing clouds and powerful winds made flying terribly difficult. The jungles below were called an aluminum trail for the aircraft debris strewn around. Needless to say, the terrain made rescue operations difficult. Yet rescues were carried out. The planes transported items ranging from ammunition to fuel and even currency notes, often making for a combustible mix when kicked around by turbulent weather. There were two flight paths across The Hump, the dangerous upper one from Assam and an easier lower one from Calcutta. In 2010 the lower one was being used by China Eastern airlines for flights linking Kolkata and Kunming. Some of the air strips associated with the Second World War airlift had since come under Indian Air Force charge and were still functional at Dibrugarh. As were the tea estates which lent their names to the air strips, provided accommodation for the airmen and whose personnel – through the Indian Tea Association – were associated with building railways and roads in these parts, not to mention, taking care of the refugees that poured into India when Myanmar fell to the Japanese. The 3727ft-high Pangsau Pass in the Patkai Hills was where they had crossed into India; that’s where the Stilwell Road was headed.

The Stilwell Road’s construction and the preceding airlift, flying in supplies from Assam to Yunnan in China across mountains exceeding 10,000ft in elevation, was considered one of the most remarkable chapters of World War II.

Several years ago, a civil contractor was intrigued by the bricks he was being supplied. They were old and unlike the regular ones. Investigations exposed theft from a local cemetery. That’s how state authorities and the Assam Rifles stumbled upon what is now an official World War II cemetery, with almost 1000 graves, many of them Chinese. I sat before the grave of Major Hsiao Chu Ching of the “ Independent Engineers of Chinese Army stationed in India,’’ born July 1913 in Hapeh Province and died, December 1943. Less than 100 feet away was the newly erected memorial and a row of Assam Rifles soldiers gearing up for the arrival of Pallam Raju, the then Minister of State for Defence. He was on his way to the 2010 Pangsau Pass Winter Festival at Nampong, last settlement on the Stilwell Road before it crossed the pass into Myanmar. The festival had built a buzz around the road, a buzz that highlighted its potential place in trade. This one was compelling, running as it did from Assam through Arunchal Pradesh to Myanmar and eventually, Kunming in China’s Yunnan Province. No other road did this. At the festival’s inaugural ceremony attended by Arunachal Pradesh’s then Chief Minister, the late Dorjee Khandu, speakers welcomed the tribal artistes from both sides of the border and hoped that the road would be opened for trade.

The old rusted guns unearthed at the Jairampur military camp (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

You know that a person born in the noisy 1980s is different, if he likes Buster Keaton, Hollywood actor from the era of silent movies. Unusual tastes, often dismissed as eccentric, are typically the product of investing in a fascination. It betrays curiosity. Arun was unusual, often entertaining friends with a Keaton or Charlie Chaplin act. He was an only child. His father worked with the DRDO in Bengaluru. His mother was related to E.M.S. Namboodiripad, Kerala’s most famous Communist leader. The parents moved to Thrishur in Kerala. As a young man shifting from engineering to a course in journalism, Arun displayed a craving to know. He was an avid reader, a keen quizzer and passionate biker owning a RD 350 and a Yamaha Crux, but had a penchant for trouble. “ With him around, the darnedest things used to happen,’’ Darshan Manakkal, who along with Robin Browne, had been Arun’s seniors at Christ College in Bengaluru, said. It all started with holidays in Assam, where Robin’s parents lived. The first visit was to Tezpur; the second was to Dibrugarh with forays to Margherita and Ledo. That was how Arun came to know of the Stilwell Road. On return to Dibrugarh, he found books on the subject in the personal library of Robin’s father, who had an interest in the World War II history of the region. It probably began focusing his life for the Stilwell Road began to grow as an objective. In appearance he was a scrawny individual, possessing many of the habits of the contemporary urban youngster. “ But he had this urge to show that he was capable of what seemed difficult,’’ Arun’s uncle, Rajesh P, said. According to friends and family, he also had another under-estimated virtue. Arun could make people feel special and he never hesitated to strike a conversation with anyone, rich or poor, big or small. Not long after he stumbled across the Stilwell Road, he did his basic mountaineering course from the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and made a third visit to Assam, this time traveling down the Stilwell Road with a view to hit the Pangsau Pass. Manu Neelakandhan, Arun’s cousin, believed that he was turned back just before the border by the guards. Arun had worked with Deccan Herald. After returning to Bengaluru from this third trip to Assam, the young journalist took up jobs – he worked at Silicon India and Mid Day – purely to fund what he realized he should do next, go to Myanmar. In his mind, a book on the Stilwell Road was taking shape. It became an obsession and for a brief period the bug bit Rajesh as well. One day he called up Arun from the Blossom book store on Church Street and said there was a copy of General Joseph Stilwell’s autobiography available. “ Pick it up,’’ Arun said, thrilled. By now it was official to family and friends that Arun would head off on his little project.

Lobbying to reopen the Stilwell Road had been on for some time. A news report from Kolkata dated August 4, 2004, said that the Eastern Region Chairman of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations had pitched for reconstructing the road. In November 20, 2008, a report quoted the Chairman of the China Council for Promotion of International Trade, saying in Kolkata that reopening the road could be a vital trade link. Another report cited then Minister of State for Commerce, Jayaram Ramesh, symbolically handing over a sack of salt to a Myanmar army officer at Pangsau Pass. He said the Commerce Ministry wanted to reopen the route by 2010. Then a June 18, 2009, report from Guwahati quoting B.K. Handique, then Minister for Development of North Eastern Region, said that plans to reopen had been shelved following Myanmar’s objection on security grounds. At Nampong, I asked Pallam Raju what the government’s official position was on reopening the road. He declined comment and referred me to S. Sharma, Secretary of the Border Roads Development Board who said, the Border Roads Organization had nothing yet to do with the Stilwell Road. Reconstructing the road was probably important for Arunachal Pradesh. The state with China to the north and west had only Myanmar to probe for international trade route. Setong Sena, then Finance Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, had been among those who visited the Prime Minister’s Office to seek the reopening of the Stilwell Road. According to him, the government had put the Stilwell Road as a third priority after routes opened in Mizoram and Manipur. Now in retrospect, it appeared that the Myanmar authorities having seen India build a Friendship Road into Myanmar from Manipur were possibly wanting similar work this side. Indeed, much of the Stilwell Road in its World War II form reportedly lay on the Myanmar side. That was great history but it raised the question – how can there be trade if the road was too bad for modern transportation?

(…TO BE CONTINUED)

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. He would like to acknowledge the assistance provided by Ripunjoy Das and Pranab Phukon while doing this story. An abbreviated version of this article – ie part one and two – was published in The Hindu newspaper. That article has a photo of Arun. This is the link to the article in The Hindu http://www.hindu.com/mag/2010/05/02/stories/2010050250140400.htm A bit more elaborate version was published in Man’s World (MW) magazine.)

This article is composed of two separate but convergent stories. One is narrated in normal text; the other is in italics.

Past the cemetery at Jairampur, the only reminder of World War II on NH153 aka Stilwell Road was a narrow Hamilton Bridge.

Stilwell Road between Nampong and Pangsau Pass (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

Nampong resembled a market town spilling with activity for the festival. There was a designated spot for traders from Myanmar. Business was brisk and the articles on offer included packaged food items, garments, toiletry, cosmetics and small gadgets. A lot of the stuff was Chinese but some, like the instant tea and coffee, was from Myanmar. A particular attraction were knifes and ceremonial swords. Although there were instances of the same tribe spanning both sides of the border, not everyone there for the festival succeeded in communication. Plenty of gesticulation and intonation sealed a transaction. The currency was always rupees; that’s what the Myanmar traders preferred. Border policing in these parts worked on the principle that people residing in the neighborhood of the international divide be allowed to cross. There were specific dates for visits by either side. Previously a visitor from Myanmar crossing over to the Nampong market was identified by a rattan basket. Then, the basket while still around, was overshadowed by weather beaten 4-stroke step-thru motorcycles. They were allowed to be driven till a small clearing overlooking Nampong, where all vehicles were parked and the visitors walked down. The Stilwell Road was in the process of being widened here. It alternated between very narrow stretches that emphasized the lush green jungle around and bulldozed patches of orange earth betraying the soft terrain that had made work difficult in the 1940s. Past the last Assam Rifles check post, the road deteriorated into a bouncy, mud track. Tucked behind a couple of bends was the real boundary line between India and Myanmar with an old stone marker and alongside, an overgrown path – the old alignment of the Stilwell Road. Few more turns and the first check post on the Myanmar side drew up followed by a cracked building with a derelict Lifan truck parked in front. Ahead, the village of Pangsau in Myanmar was already busy with people who had crossed over as part of the festival. Behind the market place, a steep road ran down to the edge of a beautiful lake – The Lake of No Return. It was associated with the region’s World War II history as a lake into which planes crashed. Its shores were utterly peaceful.

I found Khaing Tun’s diary on the Internet. In an entry in Yangon, dated February 3, 2007, Khaing noted on the upcoming trip she had organized, “ Arun (from Bangalore) has many questions and continued to be so enthusiastic.’’ Unlike in India where there was little tourism in the North East around World War II sites, there were regular trips in Myanmar, usually availed by Second World War veterans who had fought in the region. Arun had got himself on to a similar trip to the Myanmar side of the Stilwell Road. Khaing met Arun on February 16 at his Yangon hotel along with Peter, whose interest in the Burma Campaign of World War II was triggered by Louis Allen’s book `The Longest War.’ The next day, a third person, Ron, arrived. The team hit the road for Pangsau Pass and Myitkyina on February 18. Photos of Arun from the trip show a T-shirt clad, bespectacled young man, busy scribbling on a note book or standing with camera in hand. On February 21, after traversing through a lot of harsh terrain, the team was advised not to proceed towards Pangsau Pass and instead turn back from Nanyun. The main problem had been the three foreigners in the team – an Indian, an Australian and an American. Apparently, permits were only as good as the goodwill of local military officials and to the team’s bad luck they had a newly posted commander put his foot down. They withdrew to Shinbwiyang, which as per the Stilwell Road’s old alignment was 105 kilometers from Pangsau Pass, and from there to Myitkyina, 342 kilometers from the pass according to old estimates. There the team took a plane back to Yangon. However Arun and Peter got off at Mandalay to travel to Kunming in China. Little was known of this trip likely down the Burma Road; when built the Stilwell Road was connected to the old Burma Road at Wandingzhen. Arun was believed to have reached Kunming in typical backpacker fashion with no money and just happiness for the journey done. He eventually found a base at The Hump, a backpackers’ hostel with a colorful bar. It had a lot of World War II memorabilia for theme, especially the aviation part including those flights from Assam to Kunming. Arun loved this place where all sorts of travelers and people with crazy projects washed up; he also became a good friend of the hostel’s owner. According to Pearly, much of the `work’ Arun did subsequently was basically anything to further his stay in China.

Shop at Pangsau in Myanmar (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

What struck me that day in Pangsau was the absence of the Myanmar military. At the first check post I had seen a policeman; at the second I saw one person in olive green surrounded by men who looked like villagers. A senior officer of the Assam Rifles later said that overt military presence had been relaxed on either side for the festival. Nevertheless it felt strange to be in a country ruled by a military dictatorship with no passport or visa on oneself. You worried when the veneer of welcome would crumble. Either side of the border in these parts had experienced insurgency. In Myanmar it was the Kachin rebels. There was reportage on the Internet by the Kachin News Group on the Stilwell Road in Myanmar; about reconstruction, accidents and life along the road. On the Indian side, Dibrugarh from where one proceeded to Ledo, was the home town of Paresh Barua, leader of the ULFA while Jairampur and Nampong fell in Arunachal Pradesh’s Changlang district, which along with neighboring Tirap district, were part of the Greater Nagaland claimed by Naga militant groups. Consequently, Naga rebels had been active in these districts. Further, Indian militant groups have operated from foreign soil and militancy everywhere had links to narcotics. In Dibrugarh, I met Dr Nagen Saikia, former Member of Parliament and former President of the Asam Sahitya Parishad. He wrote in a newspaper article that reopening the road would be a blunder.  Dr Saikia felt that the government’s `Look East Policy’ was both an oversimplification of the North East’s cultural roots and a boost to international trade from the region earlier than required given China’s confusing stance towards India. “ Assam also does not have so many products to trade with Myanmar and China,’’ he said.

I did not speak to Arun’s parents, who at the time of writing this article, were still in mourning. It appeared that the variety of work Arun did to stay in Kunming and complete his book, ranged from content development for The Hump and tourism in the area to work with the Yunnan Chamber of Commerce and helping Indian businessmen in Yunnan. He learnt Chinese. Both Rajesh and Manu recalled conversations involving potential business contacts between China and India. In 2008, Arun briefly visited India; then returned to Kunming. Around this time, Pearly who was passing through met Arun in Kunming. He had been her senior in Christ College. In her blog, Pearly captured the emergent core of Arun’s travel philosophy. He had moved on from Lonely Planet-totting backpacker to staying and knowing. Pearly was in Kunming for a month, she then moved to Dali. Arun, who had by now started developing content for a website related to the historic city, initially made periodic visits as part of his assignment and then after Pearly resumed her journey to Mongolia, himself shifted to Dali. On the fateful day in early November, Arun was out on a solo hike in the Changshan Mountains. During descent, he slipped at a dry waterfall and injured himself badly. Having informed his friends in Dali of the accident, Arun who was on a less frequented trail, crawled under a ledge for shelter. By the time rescuers found him, it was too late. He was 28 years old. “ He had told me that traveling and writing was what he wanted to do. After Stilwell Road, he had planned something in Peru and another trip in Europe,’’ Rajesh said. The family was trying to compile Arun’s notes from China.   

Lake of No Return (Photo: Shyam G Menon)

The road came with a fan following attached to it. At Nampong, I met Professor H.N. Sarma from Digboi, former Principal of the Margherita College and acknowledged locally as an expert on the Stilwell Road. There were a couple of vintage jeeps driven in for symbolism. Teams continued to attempt traversing this link between India, Myanmar and China; some like the Cambridge / Oxford team of 1955, Eric Edis in 1957 and Donavan Webster later, wrote memorable books. Others plotted travel in Internet chat rooms. None of this mattered for local people crossing the border. Quirks of history and accumulated neglect had made their everyday life an adventure for others. The irony of the Stilwell Road was that not long after its completion and the first convoy of Allied supplies reached China by that route in February 1945, the Second World War ended. Hundreds of lives had been sacrificed building the road but its use in entirety for the purpose it was meant for – a transport link between India and China, was hardly tapped. In the years following the war, the forces supported by the Allies shifted to Taiwan and mainland China became a Communist nation. Then in 1962, China invaded India in a war that contributed greatly to the mistrust which came to characterize relations between the two countries. Economic growth only made them competitors. Post World War II, Myanmar enjoyed a brief fling with democracy before slipping to military rule in 1962. Over the last decade, while India initiated steps to work with Myanmar including the opening of trade routes and proposing a sea port at Sittwe, the latter’s proximity to China was arguably more. In recent years, the junction of India, Myanmar and China has been called the setting for a new Great Game of sorts. Sixty eight years old, the Stilwell Road awaits realization of intent.

Arun was a good writer, peppering his observations of China with wry humor. But what got me off my chair and off to the Stilwell Road was an eight point-declaration of intent written in September 2009 at Dali that he subsequently mailed his friends and they in turn, mailed me upon hearing my queries. The eighth point said, “ I stand firmer than ever in my dedication to the avoidance of boredom. This boredom is not the situational one, like when a reputed bore buttonholes you at a boring dinner (well, even there I would try my best to flee to the loo and dodge out the back door). It is a boredom of existence.’’ That last point had visceral connect for it described the state of the world around me. There were those of us who tried to break free from that boredom but never succeeded in getting past its strong gravitational pull. There were those who manufactured a picture of virtue from their daily surrender to boring rat race. Privately they admitted they were bored. But soon after, they constructed a magnificent justification for ignoring the obvious. In fact, it had become one of the challenges of my times – everything becomes boring; how do you avoid pattern susceptible to such entrapment?

Arun seemed aware and he tried. Significantly, he articulated the predicament beautifully and bluntly as a “ boredom of existence.’’

The least I could do to commend his spirit was, be at Pangsau Pass.

(CONCLUDED)

(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. He would like to acknowledge the assistance provided by Ripunjoy Das and Pranab Phukon while doing this story. An abbreviated version of this article was published in The Hindu newspaper. That article has a photo of Arun. This is the link to the article in The Hindu http://www.hindu.com/mag/2010/05/02/stories/2010050250140400.htm A bit more elaborate version was published in Man’s World (MW) magazine.)