Meghalaya – An Empowered State

Meghalaya is the first state usually people choose to go to when they plan to do the North East India tourism. Its easy approach, connectivity, friendly people, tourism friendly infrastructure makes it an ideal destination.

And our Gangu made it even more easy as he specializes NE tourism for South Indians! He is my college friend. He packaged the entire tour for us. He visited us before, understood our requirement and planned based on that. Especially we visited places less crowded but pristine & natural. He specializes in unexplored places.

Meghalaya is south of Assam and comes before the mighty Brahmaputra. It may be a reason for easy access. However, it is hilly. Not all parts of the state is open for tourism. There is much to explore in the areas open for tourism itself. Many places we visited hardly had any crowd. Much details of tourism with album and video is given in this blog. But I was especially intrigued by the society, its structure, their culture & how they have protected it despite rampant faith conversions. It is a unique experience for me to be touring in a state in India yet no pilgrim centre, no connect to Hindu mythology, no mutt, no temple, yet the people are thoroughly Indian & I can easily connect with them culturally.

The Tour

The tour photos and albums are below:

Video showing how to get to the Double Decker Live Root Bridge; and why it is built	https://youtu.be/KocvDX1kZ7w
Video showing the engineering marvel of Living Root Bridge	https://youtu.be/kBA_S4GR7z4
Album of Photos	https://photos.app.goo.gl/njZVFfK5uLZEw9R48

Following was our brief 6 day itinerary:

Date	Tour Details
2-Oct	Landed in Guwahati, direct flight from BLR to GAU thanks to UDAN Scheme by Modi ji, now aam janata can fly to many tourist places easily in India. Covered Kamakya temple in Guwahati. It was well decked like a bride on the occasion of Navrathri. Then drove down to Shillong and rested there
3-Oct	Shillong to Chirrapunji driving down south. Following Covered: Mawphlang Sacred Forest - one of 100s of such sacred forest maintained by Khasi tribe as God Mawkdok Dympep view point with Khasi dressing - Amazing View of clouds, valleys, falls, pristine forest Nohkalikai Falls - India's Longest single drop falls; We can see clouds forming out of its droplets and floating away
4-Oct	Covered: 1. Arwah caves - Very deep and long; Kids had a lot to learn and get amazed. Fossils, streams running down, Unique formations, absolute darkness, complex diversions, low clearing, very high clearing; 2. Garden of Caves - Many falls and caves; Well maintained, tourist friendly, safe and fun 3. Wei Saw Dont Falls (3 tier falls) - Small trek down tough trail. Beautiful falls, mildly adventorous to reach; absolute fun to play in waters; no crowd 4. Dianthlen Falls - Milky waterfalls in the moon light. Beautiful view; We cross just over a pool that makes this falls to go to the view point. Then wonder how that small pool made such a magnificient falls
5-Oct	Jenailar Falls - View from far Lyngksiar Falls - Pristine blue waters, everyone played in waters, trek to the falls is through slush & grassland; Great adventure and fun; No crowd in the midst of forest Mawsmai Caves - Popular tourist spot. Lot of crowd. Amazing formations of Stalactite & stalagmite over many millenia.
6-Oct	We split as groups. One group went to treck down to the worlds only double decker live root bridge. It is about 3000 steps down and climb up. Not for the faint hearted Other group went to Bangla Boarder & covered Mawlynnong - asia's cleanest village; As such every village, town, hotels are clean; Locals there are extremely cleanliness conscious people
7-Oct	Headed back from Chirrapunji to Guwahati. Covered Umiam Lake in Shillong; Visited Umananda temple in river island of Brahmaputra. Touched the great waters and felt blessed. Caught flight back to BLR

The People – Empowered Administration

The people are very friendly and soft spoken. They are comfortable with English. When we visited the sacred forest the guide was a local Khasi Christian. He explained that the stone erects inside and outside of the forest are their ancestors memorials. Now they don’t follow that tradition. However, they protect the forests as gods. It is the duty of the community youth to protect it. They don’t allow anyone to take anything from these community protected forest areas. Even a fallen leaf is attractive for us to pick and bring home as souvenir but are disallowed by those ever vigilant young guardians of their GOD! Even those who are Christian converts follow that tradition.

In the administration, although they have embraced elections, MLA, MP, etc., they do have kings & kingdom concepts carried forward from their ancestry. But they are more complementary and not conflicting. The government helps in infrastructure viz., roads, schools, hospitals, administration etc.,

The businesses and industries however have to be cleared by the local chiefs. That way people are fully empowered. The local chief’s decisions are weighed upon by the people’s welfare and impact. That is why you don’t see too much nature exploitation, big industries, factories, large scale mining in the state. Hope it remains so. However small scale rat hole mining by locals can be seen ( may be supported by the local chief). Tourism is flourishing. Still has great potential to grow there. In every business set up the locals get preference. If a local wants to set up a business in a town or a tourist place, he will be cleared.  If a non-local wants to set up a business, he will be asked to get clearance from his locality, why is not able to set up business there. That way they keep a healthy competition to provide their youth opportunities locally. The kings are obligated to provide freedom & empowerment to youth. Else they have a king waiting in line to topple him in the same locality through peaceful ‘selection’.

One of our local guide was the last one of his 10 siblings. All of them & their spouses are locally employed in various ways. He was a non-converted Khasi. He said there would be inter marriages amongst their converted and non-converted khasi tribes. The mother of the bride decide what tradition to follow usually. In their society the mother is dominant and decides the lineage, property rights etc., I asked him if the converted Christians tell them to discard their rituals and god. He said, the general people are good and don’t bother much, but he particularly dislikes the pastors as they are overbearing upon them and their freedom.

The statistics say majority as Christians. I could see every other corner had a big church, but i hardly saw them open. People said they run away from pastors. There is a very big Ramakrishna mission school and is rated the best in that region. Few other Christian schools also running full. Nobody had any bearing of any religion on his or her appearance, be it Khasi, Christian or any others. They are just happy & content people who know their destiny is just to be there and enjoy the nature and its beauty. God bless them and let them have strength to withstand the outside world’s lure.