The river wild: A tryst with Arunachal's mighty, magnificent Siang

Here be monsters, if you're not wearing your glasses

I wake up in the middle of the night with my bladder bursting. Contact lenses out, blind as a bat. Crawl out of my tent, stick feet into damp sandals, stand up in the semi-circle of tents — and nearly have a heart attack. Barely twenty feet away, in the moonlight, is a dim hulking monster. 

Questions arise. Will society shun one if one goes ahead and pees in one’s tent? How long can one hold it before one’s kidneys explode? How lily-livered does one have to be to consider soiling oneself? I scuttle towards the toilet tent. An enormous shrub