Popagandhi

warning: excessively long, too many pictures, NSFW: may make you quit your job

A year ago, I found myself with the good fortune to kick off my professional career in ethnographic photojournalism (back story may be found in my ramblings here and here); the result of which was a tremendously good showing in a publication of some renown, far exceeding even my expectations when it made cover. First time lucky. I’m now well on my way to making this my career, so we’ll see how it goes when my last one, the Rath Yatra/Festival of Chariots story, comes out in the Asian Geo (Februrary 2008), when the Kuomintang/Mae Salong one comes out in a certain other Geo later on in the year, and when I get my professionalism truly whipped into shape in New York by the Columbia graduate school of journalism (provided they take me). What I count to be a greater fortune, other than all I could have ever asked for and more for my career, was that I got to do my first story in a truly amazing place, Cherrapunjee, a place that will always remain a special place in my heart. Cherrapunjee, the magical place in India’s northeastern state of Meghalaya — the state whose name literally translates to ‘abode in the clouds’. It is precisely that. I won’t repeat myself because you can read about it here; I’m only interested in showing a few aspects of Cherrapunjee which I had guarded quite jealously, until now.

Getting here is not easy. It requires an overnight train ride to the nearest railhead at Guwahati, in the state of Assam, usually an overnight train ride from Calcutta, or two nights’ from Delhi. Upon landing at Guwahati train station, casually stroll to the jeep stand outside. If you are yellow like me, you may be able to pretend to be Manipuri. I did a fairly convincing Arunachal Pradesh/Manipur impersonation, depending on what tribal accent I felt up to at that point. A seat in the jeep costs something like 150 rupees, and will take you as far as Shillong, the hill station that is the capital of Meghalaya; approximately 4 hours. Shillong is mad about music — possibly the music you listen to. Music, particularly of the rock variety, courses through the veins of the Khasis, the tribe that dominates in Meghalaya. Rock bands (in English and Khasi) in Shillong are of excellent quality, each year’s ‘battle of the bands’ is a treat; each year, on Bob Dylan’s birthday, Lou Majaw — something of a Khasi music hero himself — plays tributes to Bob Dylan in the annual Bob Dylan festival. When that jeep lands at Shillong’s police bazaar, you’ll most probably get into a cab, whose cabbie will likely be like mine: speeding through the Khasi Hills towards Cherrapunjee negotiating hairpin bends in the crashing rain (Cherrapunjee has a reputation for being rainy, very very very rainy) at astonishing pace, blasting Nirvana as he speeds.

You’ll think of “Lake of Fire” quite differently, after.

When he pulls in to Cherrapunjee, you’ll draw a deep breath of relief. Without a doubt, this is the sight that will greet you. The town square, and the largest shop in all of Cherrapunjee, Cherra Shopping Centre, which, for all intents and purposes, really just means “the largest provision shop”. It had the largest collection of raincoats and umbrellas that I have ever seen; practically several collections of them.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why the people in this town don’t look Indian.

That’s because they are Khasi, and to a smaller extent Jaintia or Garo, which are northeast Indian tribes near the Burmese border that are allegedly related to the Mon tribes found in Burma and Thailand (and on the Mons, another of my favourite places in all of Asia: Sangkhlaburi, which is another story for another day), possibly from Yunnan a long time ago.

There are many Christians among them, for the Welsh missionaries were active in the Khasi and Jaintia hills quite early on. For this reason, the Khasi language was romanized, and looks like the following words in red:

Fortunately, the language is alive and well — Khasi is spoken everywhere, along with English. There are Khasi newspapers and literature, the Khasi music industry seems to be doing fine too. A Khasi word of greeting would be “Khu blei”, or “God bless”. You may sit in a Khasi teahouse and ask for tea by saying, “Ai um sha”, or “Ai um seh” for water. You’d call the lady “khong”, or sister. An example of good grammar would be, “Khong, ai dohblang” (Sis, please give me some mutton), or “Khong, ai sha dut laitilli” (Sis, please give me three cups of tea). Speakers of tonal Southeast Asian languages, including Teochew (my mother tongue), would feel right at home. Khasi is an Austro-Asiatic language which, again, is related to the Mon-Khmer languages of Burma and Cambodia. Other tribal languages in the area, such as Garo and various Naga and other sub-Himalayan tribal languages, are Tibeto-Burman. The migration patterns of the tribes and their languages in these areas are until this day conjectural in nature, and remain the subject of much academic research fascination on my part. In another life when I wasn’t an aspiring photojournalist, I may have been an academic on this subject.

Khasi society is matrilineal. Family names are mothers’ names, and in most cases the maternal uncles have more say in decisions than the father does. Property and inheritance go to the women. The “king”, the syiem or Ka Syiem Sad is the administrative head of the state, and of rituals — his successor will be his sister’s son, not his. These days, he’s dressed in an old suit in his office.

It isn’t a palace of any kind.

Market day is the main event of Cherrapunjee, it takes place in the town square once a week (Monday this week, Tuesday the next, Wednesday two weeks later).

Khasi women wear the traditional Khasi checked costume. Most women wear this.

Being one of the world’s wettest places, annual rainfall 12000mm (London: 600mm), the town’s industry obviously isn’t agriculture. The government-run cement factory at Mawmluh is the primary employer. Meet one of their accountants.

Other than the cement factory, there are coal mines strewn all over the town and its vicinity. If you have an amazing job like mine, you may get to do some fun things. Like crawl in a coal mine and have a photo shoot in pitch darkness. From left: me, Mini Syiemlieh, Jailas Syiemleh, Bashalor Syiemlieh and my driver/alarm clock/translator/friend, Aoky Nadon.

Crawling on your belly in a mine, in mud and rainwater, can be quite fun. Especially if you crawl out to this view.

Perhaps a waterfall as a backdrop.

(Cellphone pictures henceforth) Or this.

Or that.

When you’re hungry, you may have dinner at a restaurant with these views.

You’ll go home to your 60 rupee room in a Victorian governor’s house, with fireplace intact along with 1800s feel, and roast the fish you bought on Market Day over your fireplace while drinking the finest Assam tea. Outside your door, “suspended between one thunderstorm and another the precise moment before the rain begins, how the clash of light dances across my front door and across my fireplace… How your conception of the basics: as basic as love, and what you feel about rain, can be changed by experiencing the wondrous rain in the monsoon in the world’s rainiest place” (back story).

You’ll wonder why anybody would ever imagine you want to do anything else but this, or why you’d ever leave.

(I cannot wait to go back to the Northeast. So good thing then that it’s Nagaland up next!)

More about Cherrapunjee
Cherrapunjee Holiday Resort — the best place to stay, tell Dennis I sent you
My article for the Geographical
Not Cities
Chasing the Monsoon
A Khasi song, Harud I Wahduid