AFOVA New Letter 2 of Year 2021

Section 6 - Memoirs CV 2 No. 02 / 2021 Page 119 of 332 terrain in early June and the wet weather continued for months till September and the Annual average rainfall would be 2500mm! The North-East Monsoon followed in November! The lush greenery and the verdant hills bore testimony to the fact. The rivulets became rivers, roads were swept away replaced by heavy slush of mud that trapped the Army convoys rather haphazardly! Convoys were strictly short ones in this riverine environment. More rugged vehicles were being designed elsewhere ''in house'' by the EME, with modifications and fabrications to the body with additional steel plates to the inner side to accommodate larger numbers in the Nissan, as also shifting the angles to 60 degrees from 50-metres to 100-metre ranges. This was to ensure Convoy protection to the soldiers. The Major’s workshop concentrated on repairs and maintenance. There was always time to explore the environment. Each day the Major tried new unbeaten paths to explore and thus cemented a friendly rapport with the residents of the village nearby whose hutments were built on terraces a total of about 30 in all; housing around 150 Apatanis. There were typical Long Houses with more than 12 hearths accommodating close to 45 people which the Major never got to see in person, as the longhouse involved their curious coming of age practices. The tribal societies of Arunachal Pradesh have their distinctive self-governing councils that ensure peace and harmony in their society. These village councils are known by different names in different communities. The Council of the Apatani community of Arunachal Pradesh is called the ’Buliang’. They were a community that lived in isolation as it was on the northern tract of the Brahmaputra at the foothills of the Indo-Tibet border and extended eastwards in the Subansiri region. They were unaffected by Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam and stuck to their primitive rituals and belief. Distanced from other tribes, theirs was a culture nurtured in seclusion. One of the major ethnic groups of eastern Himalayas, with a distinct civilization, armed Apatani Hutments