The seven solitary sisters

PERIPATETIC

It never failed to annoy me when my friend from Aizawl would announce, every time she flew from home to college in Mumbai, that she was returning to "India".

"How dare you," I'd retort, always a tad more aggressively than my sense of nationalism demanded, "why do all you North-east Indian wallahs have such separatist leanings?"

And if you're scrambling to find a map to locate Aizawl, consider yourself as having contributed to that growing sense of alienation that North-east Indians feel from the rest of India (the Mainland as some of them erroneously call it).

The region remains, even today, one of the most inaccessible parts of the country. Never did I realise this as much as this last week when the same friend struggled to make her way from Mizoram to New Zealand via Mumbai, and lived to tell the tale.

Airport routes, within and out of the North-east that are essential, are almost always deemed uneconomical and Kolkata remains their primary link to the rest of the country.

When that connection is obliterated owing to inclement weather (God knows their airports can't handle it) and other crises, you're officially wrecked. After a two-day trek on a variety of transportation modes through rural Assam and West Bengal, that could easily have rivalled the toughest leg on reality television series The Amazing Race, she made it to Mumbai.

Her travails put into perspective the recently announced multi-million dollar fund that Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said India could mobilise to upgrade infrastructure in India's North-east.

A large chunk of that will be directed towards improving road, rail and air links, so the region can become a gateway to South-east Asia, he said. Ill-concealed is the government's motive to make the resource-rich province an attractive investment option for South-east Asian nations like Thailand.

After all, on a recent visit to Shillong, the Thai commerce minister compared the region to Thailand, and Mani Shankar Aiyar promptly declared 2008 as the "Year of Thailand and North-east India". The underserved region is also expected to benefit from the civil aviation ministry proposal for a five-year exemption for regional airlines from airport and navigation charges.

Despite having the potential to be the most popular eco-destination in South Asia, the states of the North-east are among the least explored tourist destinations of India.

Tourism campaigns have always marginalised that region and the fact that it has been a minefield of ethno-political conflict hasn't helped in creating a reassuring environment for visitors either.

Thankfully, the ministry of tourism is waking up to the region's unique natural heritage and extensive bio-diversity and has recently sanctioned upwards of Rs 300 crore to develop various destinations around India as world class attractions, chief among them several projects for the North-east region.

Hopefully, this sudden fascination won't be the region's undoing "" till now far removed from the ravaging multitudes of tourist footfalls.

For now, it's still the intrepid traveller who heads there for the thrill of angling fish like the chocolate mahaseer and the common carp in the rivers of Meghalaya, or perhaps goes negotiating the remote and difficult terrain in mountainous Nagaland.

I, for one, having given up on seeing the tiger in its natural habitat, plan to go seek out some of Sikkim's native faunal species like the red panda, Himalayan black bear and barking deer. Before they disappear as well.