Friday 11 June 2010

Imagine Meghalaya

I don’t care much for Shillong, but the rest of Meghalaya is a nature lover’s delight. This post should have had photographic support for the above assertion, but I left for Delhi the day after I returned from Meghalaya, and here I don’t have access to photos from the Meghalaya trip. So until I get around to uploading the photos, why don’t you try and imagine Meghalaya?

Imagine green hillsides, bright red insects, wet roads, wildflowers by the highway. Oh, and imagine clouds, lots and lots of clouds.

Imagine now a sacred grove. Ki Law Adong, the Khasis call it: the prohibited forest. For centuries, no one has been allowed to fell a tree, pluck a flower or even remove a dead leaf. Imagine lianas, toadstools, orchids, moss carpets, incredible biodiversity, trees which shut out the sun. Imagine (and now perhaps I ask too much of you) no other tourists in sight.

Finally, imagine living bridges. Centuries ago, the war-Khasis discovered that they could train the secondary roots of ficus elastica, a species of rubber plant, to grow across a river. Imagine Avatar meets Frank Lloyd Wright meets Lord of the Rings in the north-east of India, in the wettest place on earth.

In my next post, there will be photos of all these and more. I can only hope that after the Meghalaya of your imagination, the photos will not come as a disappointment.

6 comments:

Shrabasti Banerjee said...

The pictures Myshkin uploaded are very, very, very beautiful. So is this post. I really should travel more often. :(

Pratiti said...

I don't know whether the photographs would be a letdown had I read your post first(probably not), but the post sure wasn't a letdown after the photographs.
:)
Travel posts are back, yaay. And more to come, I know!

Anindita said...

Im dying to read your posts on your leh trek now... and why didn't you like shillong? i loved the place. it has this really quiet understated cool vibe..

Rara Avis said...

Right. I hope you don't die before you get the pictures here. Pratiti said you might.

Sroyon said...

@Shrabasti: It's not like that's in your hands right now. Give it a few years.

@Pratiti: Strangely, I don't feel like posting about Ladakh.

@Anindita: Too much pollution and traffic congestion, a sorry excuse for a public transport system, drab houses that have overwhelmed what must once have been very fine architecture, a town centre with no real character, lots of other reasons.

@Ravis: I survived!

pangolin said...

This is something very beautiful..i mean, the place your post has made me imagine. I won't see the photographs, hence.