Of Floating Parks, Lakes and Origami Thoughts
- Nando Adventurer
- Apr 5, 2024
- 4 min read
Lunchtime starts at 10:00 AM in Manipur. I haven’t quite digested that people begin their day at 5 AM here. Two friends and I are pulling up in a surprisingly busy side street behind the old polo grounds in Imphal. There are records of polo being played in this once princely state two thousand years ago. Habits and histories hide in broad daylight amidst dusty foot traffic, buzzing scooters, vegetable sellers and ramshackle stores selling shiny-packed plastic snacks.
A face appears in the window. I jump a little. We’ll call him Ching, not just because it’s his name. It follows Cha, which goes with sudden pop-up sounds and happy realizations.
We’re being whisked off to a house, meeting parents, being inspected. Protocol, I assume, in a state where political unrest and kidnappings are not unheard of. We’re off again momentarily.
Ching turned 16 yesterday! He’s the household’s most precious possession. No wonder the pre-screening and instructions then. In a vehicle with only 2 working seatbelts and a driver who’s driving through a video game in a country where traffic rules are mere suggestion, I make sure he’s strapped in before discussions ensue.
Ching’s a talented photographer. It’s how I found him on Instagram. Perspective is important in all sorts of ways. Of religion, he says he celebrates every holiday. Of his future, he says he doesn’t want much as long as he can travel. Here’s a wise man with early realizations. But then he also says he wants my life. Digital diaries look so pretty when the stars in our eyes tint the world in diamond tones!
We’re at Keibul Lamjao National Park an hour south of Imphal. On this blue-sky day, our bubble is fringed by hills and the haze of far-off farms burning post-harvest stubble. Through the stand of pine trees, a sea of straw-coloured grass unfolds to the horizon under a vast sky.
We spot endangered Sangai deer with binoculared eyes, bucketlisting images, not knowing yet that this is also the world’s only floating national park, or how the intricacies of it’s ecosystem work.
Tumbling down to a shallow stream we board a narrow blue boat. Sitting single file, peering into the shallow murky water, I spy detritus and tiny floating plants and imagine myself an inch tall, swimming in a sepia world of disproportionate amphibians and imaginary fish.
The boatman steers us up the quiet channel. There’s no noise. Just the gentle, rustling breeze in the reeds, birdcalls and the quiet sploosh of the bargepole. The grass grows incredibly high bringing my tiny daydream to life, and a Beatles’ song plays soundtrack in my head.
January sunlight in India has the most beautiful photo quality — a longview over the edge of the boat, up the waterway, through blonde grass is picture perfect.
We disembark onto what we think is spongy land. Bubbles squeeze out of the water when we jump-test it’s firmness. The entire landmass is actually phumdis — floating vegetation on decaying matter in a ginormous lake. No one bothered to tell us about the cobras, vipers, pythons and kraits that live here. Ignorance creates shorter bucketlists.
After lunch, we’re at an open stretch of Loktak Lake — we now know it’s the only floating lake in the world. If lakes floated in air, I’d learn to fly. We take a boat with a single hand-held propeller engine, past phumdis made into circular athapum enclosures for aquaculture.
Stepping onto a fisherman’s tiny two-shack island, water seeps up from the ground, and sucks like boggy quicksand. We stand on wood planks and look into a one-room huts with a bed and a stove each. Dried fish are Manipuri diet staples. This lake is where they come from. Tiny solar panels on orange tarpaulin roofs charge cellphones. Otherwise life continues at a languid pace.
Out over the magic rippling lake, fishermen stand in oared boats and peaceful islets of vegetation are strung with fishing nets. A neon decked tourist ‘boat’ floats by on barrels of air — I’m thankful there aren’t many. Distant fields burn and the edges of the sky are turning smoke-white as the day starts to slowly fade.
On our way home, a vivid lozenge sun dips behind wooly hills beyond the snaking road. Sweet, saturated sunlight spills onto husky fields. Conversation continues. I’m asking Ching if he wishes he were younger or older. He wants to experience every age. Wise. I’ve always wanted to experience everything, but not get old. It’s something you can dream of when you always feel young. He doesn’t seem to have fallen into that trap. On the other hand, I’ve always been a dreamer.
His thought sticks with me though I’ve heard it before. It unfolds slowly from it’s origami avatar into a simpler form. This is what the paper reads: “Time is constantly lost to us, but what we do with it is not. Experiences are that part of the past that make it special. Time and physicality are simply the price we pay for a life of adventure”. Words are more poignant when discovered, not preached. Imagine staying young and preserved forever but not experiencing anything.
Maybe we don’t glorify getting older enough. Maybe the old just need to stop acting old and be experienced and youthful instead (I’m not saying “young”). Wouldn’t it be amazing if popular culture turned aging into an ambition?
There’s a meme that makes fun of the changing times — in 1999 we were told not to get in cars with strangers; 2009 told us not to meet people off the internet; in 2019 we’re purposefully doing both. It’s the establishment of a bolder world-wise age.
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