Tenga Valley is a small, bow shaped, cozy little valley, close to the Indo-China Border, in Arunachal Pradesh. Not many people have heard of this place. My father was posted there in the year 1984 and we had the opportunity to experience ‘heaven on earth’!
We lived on ‘Chindit Top’ in Tenga Valley. Our ‘fairy tale’ home was ‘valley-facing’, with a 3-tier flower garden in front and a kitchen garden in the backyard. Just after the kitchen-garden was a huge open field, like a plateau, where ‘Ravana’ was burnt during ‘Dassera’ festival but rest of the year butterflies and kids would occupy the field. Beyond that one could see row of houses, where my friends lived and then the surrounding hills that protected us.
Our school, Kendriya Vidyalaya, was down below, in the valley. The Army jeep was available to drop us to school, but we preferred to walk down the hill, leisurely, with our not-so-heavy school bags. Our school was barely 2 kms away from home. We enjoyed chatting with the locals and learnt to chase the grazing cattle off the roads. The locals were friendly and the kids had reddish cheeks, since they ate a lot of plums, like my mother would say! The plum trees grew in abundance and we could simply pluck them and eat, whenever we wished to. We would wonder about after our PT classes were over and our Maths teacher used to be on leave as she was pregnant, for the second time. We were usually told to clean the playing ground of pebbles and autumn leaves during those free classes. That would give us the opportunity to roam around the school premises and beyond. Plum trees grew wild and we had our pockets full...We were strictly prohibited from eating any other wild 'red-fruit'. Pears & apples were available too, but I preferred the red-plums, so that someday my cheeks would turn red too.
My little sister shot in height just by running around with
Disky (our dog) in the duplex apartment. She was a riot those days.
Disky and she literally grew up together.
Disky was her playmate.
Disky would accompany her to school with our ‘bhaiya’, and then he would eagerly wait for her to get back home. She made sure
Disky was spoilt till the hilt, like herself! He would chase the rabbits in the kitchen garden and she would run after him, trying to grab his tail….And my mother would chase Tanya with a stick…
We watched snow-falling, from the 1st floor balcony of our house. Everyone was indoors...hopefully. Ma had pushed us inside thick blankets and the ‘bukhari’ was burning fast to keep us warm. Schools were shut for a fortnight at least. And it was a perfect Christmas. My parents worried about the rabbits and my Mom's dainty plants. But the Rabbits had already made burrows in the kitchen garden. Ma loved her plants very much. She had won the ‘Best Garden’ award for three consecutive years and didn’t want to lose that reputation. Though later she had to give away all her precious plants to the local nursery.
Summers were the best time for everyone. We had picnics almost every other weekend. Those were truly good times. “Dimdams” would bite us when we climbed the hills and we were taught to ooze out a little blood from that spot. Otherwise it would keep itching and turn blue. “Dimdams” (a name given by the locals) are a part of the Mosquito family. They breed during the rainy season, May – September. Hill-goats were a common site. They have huge horns but are harmless. We would nicely plug ourselves in the middle of the forestation and open our picnic baskets and share our sandwiches, only with our ‘best friends’!
Life was simple and enjoyable...
PS: Disky was buried in Tenga, after he died of Jaundice.
