The mad caper across East Khasi Hills
‘Its 4:35, its dark outside, its been raining for
about eleven years’, runs a popular British crib about the weather. The wettest
place in UK (Snowdonia, Wales) records annual precipitation of 3,000 mm. I am headed
to a place that reports four times the annual rainfall at Snowdonia, at
Meghalaya, in peak monsoon. I ascribe no reason for this madness.
******
Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya, has an airport
that’s an hour’s drive from the city. A solitary daily ATR flight reaches this
airport from Kolkata at an inconvenient hour. In contrast, Guwahati airport in bordering
Assam is a lovely three hour drive from Shillong. Fourteen daily flights
connect Kolkata and Guwahati. As a logical traveller, it is easy to be trapped
in the chase for that single flight to Shillong if you are not aware of the better
alternative.
******
A weekend arrival
ensures bumper-to-bumper traffic on GS Road; travellers from Guwahati and
Kolkata hoping to escape the heat in the plains. I apply a time-tested formula
to cover or avoid recommended tourist hot spots in the city. The presence of
shops offering egg rolls, chilly chicken with `fried-ice’ and phuchkas is a
sure-fire screamer to by-pass. Ward’s Lake and Lady Hydari Park are filtered
out through this test.
******
I need a drop at the
busy Police Bazar. The cab driver is a smart, young local. His affinity for
Arsenal FC is manifest in the bright red beanie on his crown. Born and brought
up in Shillong, he’s only visited Gangtok (Sikkim) and Palanpur (Gujarat)
outside his state. A school excursion took him to the former. An uninteresting
attempt at diamond polishing brought Palanpur in his map. He’s dismayed at the
slush and population overload that engulf Shillong now.
******
Crinoline Falls is
touted as a tourist attraction in Shillong. In their infinite wisdom, the
powers that be in the local administration built a modern swimming pool under
the falls. I reach the gates to find the place closed. A crisp notice at the
gate reads `Falls closed for repair of swimming pool’. Go figure!
******
The village of
Langkawet lies 57 kms south of Shillong. I have a scheduled home-stay at the
village. Google map advises that I should make it by road in an hour and forty
four minutes. I leave Shillong with a manageable cloud cover after breakfast.
By the time I take a left at the fork at Laitlyngkot, visibility is down to a
few metres as thick clouds move in. The only respite from poor visibility is in
the form of pelting rain. The lack of a road divider on NH 206 doesn’t help in
the drive. I reach Langkawet in a little over three and a half hours. Over the
next few days I realise that the area offers two forms of weather this time of
the year......near-zero visibility among thick cloud cover, and relentless
downpour when visibility improves. Add the wind chill, and each drop of rain is
a sharp spike that you grit and bear. The degree of wetness at Langkawet is
evidenced in all tree trunks around you bearing layers of slippery moss. The
toilet roll in the loo is irreparably soggy. A leech sways in the air in an
attempt to land on your wrist.
Lacking reading
material, the guest register at the home-stay is my only option. I have a hunch
that there would be few takers from Kolkata for this place. This does not
conform to ticking fourteen tourist hotspots in nine hours. A flip-through of
the latest 107 visitors throws up just three groups from Kolkata. The list
includes an actor-turned-director from Mumbai, who was a regular in the Basu
Chatterjee / Hrishikesh Mukherjee comedies in the 70s.
******
I brave the rains and hit
the road (NH 206 again) to Dawki at the Bangladesh border next morning. The
weather improves as I roll down the hills adjacent to the magnificent Umngot
river. Beyond the river lie the unending plains of Sylhet, where my forefathers
once lived. Almost all surrounding villages in the Khasi Hills provide
uninterrupted views of this vast plain. Heavy rains in this part of Meghalaya
drain out to these plains in Bangladesh, causing inevitable floods on the other
side of the boundary. The shop owners at Dawki are comfortable speaking
Bengali, albeit with a Sylheti diction that someone from Bengal would struggle
to decipher. Two incidents stand out at Dawki. My travel companion maintains
his mobile on auto-roaming mode. On reaching Dawki, his phone logs on to
RobiTel. His regular service provider in India informs him that INR 100 has
been debited to his account for `international roaming’. The second involves
the GPS tracker installed in our car. I keep receiving frantic messages on my
mobile from my car hire company: `We observe that you are approaching Bangladesh
border. Please note that you are not permitted to cross the border of India in
this car.’ I can visualise the concerned faces in the GPS tracking room, as
they imagine the car engine being promptly installed in an unregistered motor boat
in Bangladesh after I do the needful.
******
In 2003 Discover India
magazine declared Mawlynnong as the cleanest village in Asia. Life for the 500
odd residents in this quaint village hasn’t been the same since. The eyes of
`civilisation’ are now firmly focused on Mawlynnong. Every day, carloads of
yelping tourists descend at the centre of Mawlynnong, their diesel vehicles
belching smoke and the honking in the narrow village lanes creating a ruckus. Only
a matter of time before the dreaded egg roll and fried-ice / chilly chicken
counters commence business here. Corporate intervention is evident. Solar
panelled streetlights (you can’t miss the large IDFC logo on each panel)
provide clean energy to the village. I wonder if a similar initiative has been
undertaken by IDFC in any other lesser known village in the state. Entry of motor
vehicles in the village must be stopped immediately. Visitors should be
required to cover Mawlynnong on foot or on bicycles; a practice that’s well established
in other fragile environments like Hoi An, Vietnam.
******
I don’t know what to
make of the hullabaloo in the press on the debate over beef ban in the hills. Pork
and chicken are default options for non-vegetarians in all the eateries. None
of them feature beef in the menus.
******
I usually maintain a
stock of emergency munchies on the road. This is not necessitated in Meghalaya.
At every other bend on the hills, you can stop at these shacks and have your fill
of fresh pineapples and plums; of quality and at prices that we only dream of
in the cities.
******
The cafe culture is in
overdrive and rocking at Shillong. The established pan-India names have their
presence, but are not high in the pecking order. Two standalone cafes are
exceptional.
The cantonment at
Shillong, just south of the city, is the Eastern Command headquarters of Indian
Air Force. Within this area lies the pristine ML05 Cafe. `ML 05’ is the popular
registration you will see on the number plates of vehicles here; the theme
of the cafe, therefore, has everything to do with driving. A Royal Enfield
Bullet hangs strategically at the centre. The hot chocolate with marshmallows is
perfect to wash down a thin crust pizza topped with a tonne of fresh mozzarella.
Within the city, Dylan’s
Cafe opened last year as a tribute to the 2016 Nobel winner. Robert Zimmerman
is strewn all over.....in posters, hanging vinyls, books, memorabilia and
background music. A closer look at some of the records show that there are
others included here apart from Dylan. Rare LPs of Purna Das Baul and Calcutta
Youth Choir / Salil Chowdhury also find place here. Lest I forget, the
Americano and the lamb spare ribs are delectable.
******
Nongpoh lies midway
between Shillong and Guwahati. I make a pit stop at a shack for a last fill of
pineapple. Rosalyn Wallang, prop. and of indeterminable age, offers the
needful. She sells pineapples, plums and potted plants that she grows in a
nursery across the highway. She’s the chatty type. We get conversing. She has
stuff for her nursery to be picked up at Paltan Bazar in Guwahati. Would I give
her a lift to the city? I agree. Over the next fifty kilometres, she expounds at
random on her life’s philosophy......
`I run the family
business. I have a husband (the only time
I find mention of a man in her life) and two sons. The sons go to the
village school. There’s no point aspiring for the sons’ admissions to a high
end institution at Shillong. Schools don’t matter. At the end of the day one
faces the same Board exam paper, irrespective of which school you attend. Money
is required for living, but cannot be the sole pursuit. I take time off to
educate my fellow villagers on financial literacy, the importance of savings
and how to open bank accounts. I encourage my young friends in the village to
undertake apprenticeship in my business and then help in setting up their own
enterprises. Last week, I sold a pineapple that weighed eight kilograms. It
fetched a premium! Some day, you should visit my mom’s village in West Khasi
Hills. Its more beautiful than where you’ve been. Let me know, and I can guide
you’.
Her words resonate as I
board the flight.
