Happened to travel to Andaman last month (that by itself is a separate story).. Oh my!! What to say it was simply amazing!! Being a descendant of Chennai, I have never seen such crystal clear beaches before.. it was like a paradise. Had it been a trip with friends, would’ve enjoyed more. My camera was my only companion there… there were lots to capture!! I had to make sure that the cam’s memory doesn’t run out of space.. also capturing some of the old poses given by my dad’s friends J
Now this post isn’t about the places I visited in Andaman. For that you may have to check my pics here – This is about “Jarawas” – one of the tribal groups who still have their presence in Andaman. We were travelling to a place called “Baartang Islands” known for its Mud volcanoes and Limestone caves. It was a 4 hour travel from the place where we stayed.. out of which 1.5 hours was through the restricted routes where Jarawas stay!!
The area is completely isolated and not accessible to public – even our cars were escorted by forest guards. That’s where I started to think about them. Got to know few things from cab driver. Really interesting facts about “Jarawas”. Govt is trying to educate the people (or rather corrupt them!!), there are funds pouring from other countries to help the Jarawas. But looking at their life style I’m sure not even 1% of it has reached them.
I was just imagining this – A particular group of people have been surviving the great tsunami, floods, other natural calamities, with no access to hospital, unconcerned about the global recession, not caring about share markets, without knowing what money is, without using mobiles, without using Face book ;), still relying on Catamaran boats as their means of transportation, trading fishes and turtles for fruits and vegetables from nicobarese, without visiting Satyam and PVR and every other luxuries that we have… yet living safely, disease free and happily!!
Where are we heading guys??
P. S: Do you know that in terms of number they are only about 300 – 350 in total. They completely survived the Tsunami that hit Andaman coasts during 2005. They seemed to know about the Tsunami few hours before it hit and moved to safer places.
