Asia's Cleanest Village

No, it’s not in China or Japan. Neither it’s in the Middle East nor in Indonesia or Philippines. It is in India. Asia's Cleanest Village is "Mawlynnong", located amidst of lush green forest of East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya, a state in the North East part of India. It is a tiny village, 600-odd person, 100 percent literacy, well-known for its cleanliness and natural attraction. Mawlynnong was awarded the prestigious tag of 'Cleanest Village in Asia' in 2003 by Discover India Magazine.

Meghalaya in itself is very beautiful. All the villages in Meghalaya are quite clean as compared to other parts of India. But Mawlynnong is a completely different story altogether. This is for the first time I visited such a village, so well maintained, such clean road. I was very curious how the villagers manage such cleanliness. Because of this curiosity Mawlynnong attracts so many tourists. I was simply mesmerized with the surrounding, colorful tress, hanging fruits and vegetables. I had the sweetest pineapples there that are grown abundantly in this region. 

I observed that the cleanliness is deep-rooted in their culture. I noticed many villagers with brooms in hand, the children cleaning the streets, sweeping up dead leaves and garbage. The locals are so humble and well-mannered. Whenever a visitor dropped something on the ground, they wouldn’t say anything to the visitor directly. But they would pick it up and throw it in the rubbish bins. Well, the garbage bins are also so beautiful, hand-made with bamboo, cone-shaped baskets. The traditional bamboo waste baskets are scattered all over the village, on the streets, outside each and every house.

The houses are mostly traditional thatched hut. The villagers plan to keep it that way, they simply want to keep their traditions alive. I had a talk with few of the locals. There were many tourists, both Indian and foreigners. I got to know from the villagers that cleanliness has been a practice from the time of their forefathers. Right from the beginning the kids are taught in schools about the importance of cleanliness in living a good life. As soon as the kids reach Grade 1 or Grade 2 they are given the task of keeping the area around the house clean. I was highly impressed with the system.

Another satisfying thing in Mawlynnong was the food. We enjoyed such a delightful lunch out there. The chicken curry, rice, vegetables, everything was delicious. And yes, the chutneys were so refreshing. The little eatery place was also magnificently clean. My tummy was full, but not my heart. After lunch, we just lazed there for a while. There were smoking areas. I was over cautious to flick the ash out of my hand. We had tea in a small stall. I looked at the kettle while the tea boiled. It was actually shining, so clean. I had a chat with some tourists, a group who were on a road trip all the way from Maharashtra. They liked the village so much that they stayed there for 10 days. Even though there’s a guest house at Mawlynnong, but some families also offer home-stay facilities to the visitors who want to stay long. Such decisions are not taken individually though, but the entire village collectively decide on that.

It was time to experience the Living Root Bridges. We enjoyed a wonderful trek, about 1 or 2 km to a neighboring village, Riwai. We reached the spectacular natural bridge that makes a pathway across a stream, making it easy for villagers to commute. 

Living root bridges are unique to Meghalaya. There are many such bridges all around Cherrapunji. This is an age old method used by villagers to cross the numerous streams in the area. According to Wikipedia the local Khasi people do not know when or how the tradition of living root bridges started. The earliest written record of Cherrapunji's living root bridges is by Lieutenant H Yule, who expressed astonishment about them in the 1844 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

Mawlynnong is a lovely experience, something to cherish forever.




Grab a copy of my debut book Story of Tublu from Amazon or Flipkart. It is a Contemporary Fiction novel, published by LiFi Publications Pvt Ltd. The book has its share of drama, that entertains; humor, that makes one reminisce; love, friendship and emotions that defines the amazing journey that is, life.

Titanic

Those days, watching movies was not less than any festival. I remember the Sunday evening movies aired on Doordarshan. After waiting for the entire week everyone just loved to watch the Sunday evening movie together along with friends and neighbors. On New Year’s Eve, during family and friend get-together, when lot of relatives used to visit home, and on few more similar gatherings people used to rent VCR and movie video cassettes. Even though after the introduction of cable TV things got changed, but the tradition of watching movies together like a festival continued for few more years. 

I remember "Titanic" movie was released during those days, in the late Nineties, the time when I passed out of school and was about to join Engineering college. Titanic was one of the biggest blockbuster till date. It's an epic romance-disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early morning of 15 April 1912, after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as members of different social classes who fall in love aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. The movie won hearts across the globe. Everything is so perfect about the movie, the emotions, romance, cinematography, special effects. It was the most expensive film made at that time. Titanic was nominated for, and won several Academy Awards, including the awards for Best Picture.

Most of my friends already watched Titanic by then, but I wanted to watch it on a bigger screen. Finally, I had the opportunity to experience the magic of James Cameron during a short Guwahati trip. Months later, I don’t exactly remember the occasion but our house was full with guests. Many relatives visited at the same time, cousins uncles, aunties, some elderly relatives as well. The situation was perfect for a movie festival. Some of us went to to rent VCR and movie cassettes. The majority, particularly my mother demanded to watch Titanic. It was a lovely afternoon. I remember an international cricket test match was going on between India vs West Indies. In between the movies, sometimes I paused for a while just to look at the score, and every time my mother and few other relatives shouted at me for the disturbance. 

So, we were watching Titanic. The TV room was completely packed, not enough space was left to accommodate another person. My father was also enjoying the movie. At a particular moment, when Kate requests Leonardo to sketch her picture, I was getting a bit uncomfortable. But I was quite grown-up then, I thought it wouldn’t be nice to step out of the room. I simply played a trick, I wanted to switch to the cricket match without pausing the movie for a while. Unlike other times, even after having a look at the score I didn’t switch back to the movie. The audience were getting impatient, and my mother turned furious.

"You don't let us watch even a single movie in peace," she screamed and then Kate Winslet reappeared on the TV screen, but this time without any clothing. Before my mother could realize she already returned to her seat. The room turned more silent as Kate and Leonardo got more closer. I tried to be cool as if nothing happened, tried to sustain the illusion that I was concentrating on the movie. With my third eye I wanted to have a look at everyone’s expression that moment. And then one elderly uncle suggested, "We can watch cricket for a while." But I remained a statue. Finally, after the painting session was over, everyone had a big sigh of relief.

Grab a copy of my debut book Story of Tublu from Amazon or Flipkart. It is a Contemporary Fiction novel, published by LiFi Publications Pvt Ltd. The book has its share of drama, that entertains; humor, that makes one reminisce; love, friendship and emotions that defines the amazing journey that is, life.

Love Sex And Bollywood

I grew up in the Eighties-Nineties, watching Bollywood movies like every other kids.  In those days Love-Sex-Bollywood was quite an amusing combination. Romance has always been an integral part of Bollywood, and sex and romance is something that can’t remain in isolation for long. But there’s a problem. Bollywood firmly believed that a woman, particularly the heroine must be a virgin till she gets married.  The romance between hero-heroine usually happened during songs at beautiful locations in the midst of greenery, hills, surrounding a lake or in a heavenly garden with flowers all around. But just when people expect their lips to meet the camera turns either focusing some beautiful flowers or the top of trees, and sometimes also at beautiful pair of birds doing similar act which our hero-heroine were expected to do.

I’m not a big fan of romantic movies to be very honest, but I’ve watched quite a few of them, and noticed the changes over the last few decades. Rajesh Khanna is considered as the initial king of romance. Rajesh Khanna had given many blockbusters including movies like Aradhana(1969) and Amar Prem(1972). I think romance those days were highly dramatized, far from reality. To cover up the lack of substance the director tried to put more sentiments and emotions in movies. In the seventies, rape scenes were in fact depicted more elaborately. I have no idea why rapes scenes were so common those days. Might be the director simply followed the pattern. Heroine getting raped by goons and hero saves her.  Heroine falls in love with the hero, they both sing and dance. The particular pattern dominated Bollywood for a long time. 

One thing that I found really funny those days was the depiction of sex in the Bollywood movies. Things were just fine as far as romance was concerned, Bollywood elegantly took care by showing flowers and birds.  But there are stories where sex is inevitable. There are stories based on premarital/extramarital sex, and portraying those on screen was a challenge. Hero-heroines those days were ideal, they couldn’t do anything wrong. Particularly our heroines, who were very cultured, always wore traditional cloths, could never indulge in such activities. But there are stories, serious and emotional scripts and presenting the same to the audience was always a challenge. Things turn extremely difficult when Bollywood had to portray love making in the ultimate form, the act that was capable enough to produce babies. Well, illegitimate child was required to give an emotional angle to the story. But then Bollywood wasn’t prepared enough to depict our hero-heroines involving in such illegitimate acts. Now, there came the innovation. There were many tricks that Bollywood adopted to tackle such sensitive situations. I remember one such movie and the concept applied puzzled me for quite sometime.

There’s a classic movie named ‘Aa Gale Lag Jaa’, staring  Shashi Kapoor, Sharmila Tagore.  On a holiday to Simla, Sharmila Tagore meets Shashi Kapoor, an amateur skater. He immediately starts to tease her, flirt with her. It seems Sharmila Tagore is a medical student. Taking advantage of the situation she and her friends make Shashi Kapoor to volunteer for a medical experiment the next day.

Shashi Kapoor lay on ice, shivering with only one piece towel on his body. A senior doctor is giving a live demonstration, and some pretty looking doctors in their uniform are attentively listening to him. 

"Today's experiment is about freezing cold vs human body. If the patient is suffering from freezing cold and no medicine is available, then we can apply body head. Take the patient in your arm and transfer your body heat to the patient. This is the ultimate treatment by which patient can be saved without any medicine."  the doctor explained.

In their next encounter, Shashi Kapoor and Sharmila Tagore sing and dance together in the Shimla snow. Suddenly she falls, rolls down the mountain and falls into a stream. Shashi Kapoor saves her, and takes her to a nearby place of shelter. Sharmila shivering, freezing, senseless, high fever. Without any medicine Shashi Kapoor seems to be quite helpless. He’s desperate to save her life. But how? He remembers the body heat experiment. He starts to undress her, but without looking at her. He feels very guilty doing the act, but he needs to save her. He only plays the role of a doctor. 

Next scene, early morning. Shashi Kapoor says sorry to Sharmila Tagore for whatever happened. She understands the situation, falls in love and they both agree to marry each other.  The amazing part is, soon Sharmila Tagore becomes pregnant. I found the concept very innovative. Without any controversy, without getting  involved in any kind of sexual activity, the idea successfully able to produce an illegitimate child, which is the central point of the story.

During our schooldays Bollywood released two moves that changed the idea of romance as far as Bollywood is concerned. First "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak" was released (1988), followed by "Maine Pyar Kiya" (1989). Both the movies successfully created a pattern in Bollywood that continued for more than a decade. Hero-heroine fall in love,  but both the families are enemies to each other. Lovers elope, struggles to make a living, but they are very happy. Even though Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak is a good movie as a whole, but somehow the romance is very dramatized. Well, I’m a big fan of realistic movies, be it romance or in general. 

Then came the era of SRK. Movies like "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge"(1995) and "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" (1998) again changed the idea of romance. This time it is more of friendship and fun oriented. The art of cinema making had changed over the years along with the changing technology. One good thing is, rape scene in Bollywood movies had drastically reduced in the nineties, and by now it has almost become extinct. The societal mindset has changed now, particularly in the cities. Pre-marital sex is not considered evil these days. Couples openly engage into casual or a live-in relationship. With changing mindset, Bollywood’s depiction of romance has also changed. But right from the seventies till now, one thing remained the same in Bollywood, romantic movies can’t be a blockbuster with good music and dance. Directors still give much importance to songs and dance rather than the content. Depiction of romance still remains unrealistic. 

But in recent times there are some out of the box movies in the romance genre which I really liked. One such movie is “Inkaar” (2013). The movie revolves around the corporate world. Somehow I felt the depiction of love was kind of realistic. Then there’s “The Lunchbox”. My goodness, what an outstanding movie. Nice to see Bollywood maturing enough to make such realistic movie in the genre of romance. 

Well, as far as sex is concerned Bollywood matured from the seventies. Even though it cannot reach far enough like Hollywood in the depiction of love making, particularly for General Category movies, but still Bollywood has changed over the years. Kissing scenes have become pretty common, they openly talk about sex and condoms in the movies. Homosexuality is also being talked openly in Bollywood these days. Recently I’ve watched “Aligarh”, totally out of the box movie. It stars Manoj Bajpai and Rajkummar Rao in the lead roles. The movie is based on true events. Aligarh has broken the stereotype by depicting homosexuality so realistically, without being vulgar. One more movie which had broken the stereotype of depicting sex is ‘Vicky Donor’. Even though it’s a commercial movie but it was bold enough. The movie is about a fertility clinic, a sperm bank and a healthy sperm donor. The good thing about the movie is that it has depicted such a sensitive issue which people usually find embarrassing, in such a elegant and artistic way with good sense of humor. 

Recently the article got published in Uruli 2nd edition, in its Perspective section. Uruli is a biannual multilingual magazine published by Assam Association Bangalore. Actually, it is the uncut version, in the magazine some parts got eliminated by the editor.

Grab a copy of my debut book Story of Tublu from Amazon or Flipkart. It is a Contemporary Fiction novel, published by LiFi Publications Pvt Ltd. The book has its share of drama, that entertains; humor, that makes one reminisce; love, friendship and emotions that defines the amazing journey that is, life.