Dumde After A Hard Day’s Work

Arunachal’s Pasighat by the R Siang was where I last saw dumde, until last month in R Tuipui at dusk. There’s just something magical about fireflies. I loved Ray in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog and even now still listen to his heartfelt rendition of Evangeline once in a while. Ridiculous romantic Cajun bug in love with the evening star. Again, there’s just something magical about fireflies.

Fireflies tend to transport you to a world of imagination and fairy tales. If not, they are - at the very least - pretty to look at. And I fear their population is dwindling. Apparently, artificial lights and climate change has negatively affected their mating rituals and breeding cycles. However in India, there was significant increase in their population after 2021. Maybe the Covid human hibernation really did work wonders for firefly population. 

Sci-fi sometimes say humans are pests on Planet Earth. Sometimes, you have to wonder if there is some truth in that harsh observation. Even now, the rise in AI is apparently causing significant strain on the environment. From my rudimentary understanding, we are generating dumb Ghibli pictures and fart jokes at the cost of fresh water, it seems. AI, itself not being truly sentient, is also learning shit from its own self and running the risk of developing something like a digital Hapsburg Jaw over time. I’m guessing we are not getting Vision anytime in the future. Or more likely, if sentience is truly gained by AI, I suspect we get Ultron and The Terminator before we get Vision. Shivers.

In any case, without factoring anything religious at all, how good are humans to Nature? Just some food for thought. 

Anyway, back to dumde. I had been having a series of tough weeks, when one random afternoon, a friend randomly burst out into how we should go line fishing! I dropped everything in office, got permission from ma’am, put a little jacket on my Beagle pup, and off we went to Tuipui. My puppy had the time of his little life and even almost drowned. He was much better disciplined after the Tuipui baptism but even so, his energy burst was such that I found out I never need to carry him anywhere because he had so much energy. Boundless. He dragged me along. Mavena was definitely wary of the river water later, even on the boat. He really does not learn. This was his 3rd time full immersion, but maybe his little puppy brain does not understand that the blue swimming pool and the brownish-yellow river in full swing in July both contain water that could drown him. Tiny idiot.

I didn’t lose him because he got dragged out – thankfully! – so I have amazing memories from the expedition. It is so hard to care about government machineries, land revenue and settlement exercises, and democratic processes of election, when the rain is beating down on your tiny balu-boat, your clothes are drenched your shoes are wet and there’s mud on your hair, but your heart is light, and there’s warm fire down your throat. I recommend. 

And, after the rain stopped and we got back to shore, there were fireflies along the river bank, dancing in their own flight plans, little bio-luminescent glows that light up your eyes, if not your road. 

Sometimes I think we stop defining "work" as only when you get literal mud on your clothes. Some of our best, meaningful, and tough works that move the economy along are done in the confines of AC rooms between people who are balding from the stress of it all. And burping up acid, not to mention. 

These people need mud on their clothes too every once in a while, from roaming the river bank, laughing into the empty air and the big sky above. Caught in a downpour. Happy mud. These are simply joys that village life offers you. I never want to be dependent on it for a living. I would starve. But every once in a while, when office gets to be too much, the sound of a mighty river, against the backdrop of majestic Green that is home to myriad lives, is the only thing that effectively calms you immediately.

Our fishing expedition? We got (I think) four tiny fishes the size of my fingers each. But like Pasalṭha Biaka says, it is the number that counts. No one ever comments on how tall or fat or ugly anyone is when they take Census. They just count heads. So yes, we caught four fishes. And I went home with memories of pretty dumde as night fell and my fat little Beagle, tired and content, fell asleep in my arms. Pretty decent haul!