When Bowen Island writer Kami Kanetsuka entered her submission into the Literary Writes competition, she knew that she had given an account of a fascinating adventure. Yet she says that it came as a surprise when she was selected as the winner in the non-fiction category. Kami will read excerpts from her story titled Strange Journey to Nagaland on September 30 on the main stage of the Word on the Street event between 11 and 11:45 a.m. with other authors selected by the BC Federation of Writers.
Kami has attended Word on the Street in the past but this is the first time she will read. "I usually go and attend the workshops," she says. "But this is the first time I won a competition like this." Kami's writing has been widely published and she says she has "been writing forever."
"I started in Bangkok where I wrote for the Bangkok Times," Kami says, adding that she contributed to the social page. She then moved on to write for the Rising Nepal in Kathmandu, a publication that included a daily quote by the king. This love for exotic locations and adventure has stayed with Kami whose contributions to the Undercurrent mostly consist of dispatches from interesting places or happenings. And it finds reflection in Strange Journey to Nagaland, the piece that won her the award.
"Nagaland was closed to foreigners from 1951," Kanetsuka says, adding that this was due to the long history of tribal warfare and struggle for independence. "It is part of India and located at the north east frontier area, the NEFA," she explains. Kami went to Nagaland in 2010 as one of the first foreigners to go solo into a region that had previously only opened its doors to groups.
Her trip provides the backdrop for her story but Kami's interest in Nagaland, and its people, started 35 years earlier.
"In 1975, I met a young man in Darjeeling," she says. She attended a dance, Kami recalls, in a long Mexican dress that was not exactly appropriate attire in India. "I danced the whole night at end of school event at Darjeeling's St. Joseph's College," she says. "Afterwards, I went out for tea with a few people."
Kami guessed that the striking young man was of Tibetan or Japanese ancestry. "He was this gorgeous man with long hair and high cheekbones," she says with a laugh. "He told me that he came from Nagaland. There was this immediate fascination, of course."
The fascination was not one-sided. Kami learned that tribal people kept their hair long and, if they were wealthy enough, sent their children abroad for their education. The young man learned that Kami came from England, had a daughter and was in Asia to work as a writer.
The two met the next day in the Tibetan guest-house Kami was staying in and continued seeing each other for the few days before they both had to leave. "Then we wrote letters for four years," Kami says. "They were beautiful letters, I used to keep them as well as the envelopes as they had incredible stamps." After four years of writing letters, they lost contact.
"In March of 2010, I was in Kolkata staying with friends when I heard that they are opening up Nagaland for tourism," Kami says, explaining that she went to Nagaland House to find out whether it was true. "I went into the office imagining it to be full of tourists but when I walked into room, there was nobody there," she says with a laugh. "There was this lovely young man very similar to my friend and I asked him if it was true that I can go to Nagaland." Kami hasn't forgotten the reply. The young official told her that, yes, she could go but that he thought she was very courageous. "I didn't know what he meant but when I got to Nagaland, I figured it out fairly quickly," Kami laughs. After many years of traveling and making her money from travel and cultural writing, Kami is used to venturing off the beaten track. But flying into Dimapur, the only tourist on the plane, she started having doubts. "There were no buses or taxis going into town," Kami says, adding that she resorted to calling a contact she had been given at the Kolkata Nagaland House to pick her up at the airport. While she waited for her ride, Kami struck up a conversation with another young native, a woman from Kohima, who offered to share a ride to her hometown the next day.
Kami thanked her and, after a harrowing experience of finding accommodation and an uncomfortable walk through the city to get a vegetarian meal, took her up on the offer.
Kami's relief of leaving Nagaland's largest city dissipated when she ran into similar problems of finding accommodation in Kohima but her traveling companion had a suggestion. "We got another taxi and drove to her mother's home that she rents out on a long-term basis. It's beautiful and has a flower garden and animals." Kami loved it and was glad to stay.
"The next day, they made arrangements for me to see the museum," Kami said. "It had a great collection of jewelry and woven fabrics.There were photos of tribal people with bones through their ears and then one with five heads on a tree. And then, when I was just about to leave, I found a display about the first doctor in Nagaland." Kami read that the doctor had been assassinated and remembered that he was her long-ago boyfriend's father.
Kami says she didn't have any intention to look for him but when she mentioned the connection to the woman running the guest house, she learned that they were part of the same tribe. The next day, Kami heard that the man she used to write letters to would call her the following day from Mokokchung where he lived.
"After dinner, I would sit with the father of the house and watch television," Kami laughs. "That evening, I was sitting there watching a game between Liverpool and Manchester United and waiting for a call from someone I haven't spoken to for 30-something years." She is not even a soccer fan, Kami says as she describes the strangeness of the situation. When the call came, she could barely understand him. "His voice had gone husky. He said he wanted to meet me in Dinapur where he had to go on business," Kami says. "But I had bought a ticket to Mokokchung."
It seemed as if they would not meet as the man headed to Dinapur at the same time as Kami headed to Mokokchung. But circumstances changed and she found that the only way to leave Nagaland was by returning to Dimapur.
"He was happy that I was coming to meet him," Kami says. "And, of course, he wasn't that gorgeous young man he once was. All his teeth are broken from chewing paan. His hair is shorn and dyed black. He is wearing glasses and moving very slowly." She adds that 35 years cover a long time and she surely has changed as well. Kami's friend insisted he cook dinner for her and put her up for the night. He even accompanied her to Assam as he felt that it wouldn't have been safe for her to travel alone.
"I think I'm addicted to adventure," Kami says. "This is how I've made my living: freelance writing about cultural travel and environmental things. It came as a surprise that I found myself in a place where I would rather not have been alone." At the same time as she prepares to read her story at Word on the Street, she is scouting the net for a cheap flight to Kathmandu.
