A mushroom documentation project in the forests of Northeast India has revealed not only 600 varieties of fungi, but also led to a new discovery: a bioluminescent — or light emitting — variety of mushroom. The new species — named Roridomyces phyllostachydis — was first sighted on a wet August night near a stream in Meghalaya’s Mawlynnong in East Khasi Hills district and later at Krang Shuri in West Jaintia Hills district. It is now one among the 97 known species of bioluminescent fungi in the world.
Michele P. Verderane
How the scientists found it
During the monsoon season, a team of scientists from India and China embarked on a fungal foray in Assam. Over the course of two weeks, they were amazed by the vast diversity of fungi in the region: hundreds of species of fungi were spotted, some of which were new to science. After hearing reports from locals of “electric mushrooms”, they headed to West Jaintia Hills District in Meghalaya. It was a drizzly night and a local person guided the team to a bamboo forest, which is part of a community forest, and asked them to switch off their torches. A minute later, the group was awestruck by what they saw: in the midst of the darkness an eerie green glow emerged from dead bamboo sticks that were smothered in tiny mushrooms. The fungus emits its own light—a phenomenon known as bioluminescence.
Natural torches for residents
Interestingly, local residents used the glowing bamboo sticks as natural torches to navigate the forest at night. Steve Axford, a fungal photographer who accompanied the team, set up a small studio and took photos.
Upon closer observation, the team noticed that only the stipes (stalks) of the mushroom lit up and they suspected it could be a new species, said Gautam Baruah, who leads the Rural Futures initiative at the Balipara Foundation in Assam and is a co-author of the report. A detailed examination in the laboratory had confirmed their suspicion: it was a new species from the genus Roridomyces—and the first fungus in this genus to be discovered from India.
This mushroom was only found growing on dead bamboo (Phyllostachys mannii). Special elements could be present in the bamboo substrate that this fungus prefers, said Samantha Karunarathna, senior mycologist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and lead author of the report She added that more research is needed to understand why they grow on this bamboo species. So far this mushroom is known from Krang Shuri, West Jayantia Hills District and Mawlynnong, East Khasi Hills District in Meghalaya.
Michele P. Verderane
Lights serve a purpose
Only a few species of glowing fungi have been reported from India. Two have been reported from the Western Ghats, one in the Eastern Ghats, and one in the state of Kerala, among others. Glowing fungi have also been spotted in the forests of Maharashtra and Goa (part of the Western Ghats) but they have not been scientifically reported. Karunarathna believes the actual number of bioluminescent fungi in India should be higher.
Michele P. Verderane
A 2015 study showed that bioluminescence in Neonothopanus gardneri, a large, bright mushroom that grows at the base of young palm trees in Brazilian coconut forests, is under the control of a circadian clock. The activity of the enzymes involved in producing light peaks at night and this regulation implies that the lights serve a purpose.
Through his music, Skendrowell Syiemlieh spoke of forgotten myths, folktales, ethics and ways of life.
Born on March 1, 1945, Skendrowell Syiemlieh was the first son of Plentimai Syiemlieh and Romuel Ryntathiang. He grew up in his native village called Umthied Bynther in West Khasi Hills, Meghalaya.
Raiot
At the age of eight, he started to mesmerise the village with the melodious sound of his four-stringed duitara and his soulful singing. In 1967-’68, he was given an opportunity to sing on an All India Radio programme. After that, Syiemlieh became a regular artiste on All India Radio Shillong and his songs were loved by many.
Living old memories
Syiemlieh would begin many of his songs with the words “Ha sngap ho para ngan iathuh khana” (Listen o my brothers and sisters, I will tell you a story). Indeed, his songs were stories. But they were narrated not only to entertain, but more importantly to teach. Like a storyteller of old, he would sing his stories. The duitara, the guitar and the violin were accompaniments as he would retell tales about his people, the Khasis, and in particular, the rural folk.
The origin myths of the Khasis, ancient sacred tales, histories, tragic tales of fallible Khasi heroes and doomed romances were the subjects of his art. In his songs, he repeated the tale of Tirot Sing in prison (Iing Byndi), the awe-inspiring account of the ancestral father of his clan, U Lohryndi, the tragic tale of U Manik Raitong, and the story of Ka Suna.
For Syiemlieh, storytelling and singing were the same. The accompanying musical instruments – such as the duitara, guitar and violin – deepened the union between the stories and his music.
Though his musical creations are tales of yore, they present different perspectives. In Iing Byndi, for instance, he does not sing about the heroism of U Tirot Sing Syiemlieh (a native chief who led the Khasis in their fight against the British during the 1929-1933 Anglo- Khasi War). Rather, he chooses to sing about the anguish in Tirot Sing’s family after his arrest.
In U Lohryndi, he tells us about U Lohryndi the Thawlang (or ancestral father) of the Syiem Sutnga and Syiemlieh clan. While many have sung about the Iawbei (root-ancestress of the clan) Ka Lidohkha, Skendrowell shows us another perspective by making Lohryndi his song’s protagonist.
In Ka Mahadei (Syiem’s Wife), he talks about how the Syiem (traditional Khasi chief) had asked his myntri (nobles) to fetch a poor woman for a wife, especially someone who is a khun khatduh, the lastborn daughter in a poor family. The Syiem hopes to marry a humble and self-sacrificing woman who knows how to keep house and serve him and her family too. There is one such woman, but her elder sister is envious of her. She lies and gets married to the Syiem instead, claiming that she is the khun khatduh who takes care of her parents. The younger sister has no idea about this. She marries a baker. But as justice would have it, the Mahadei (Syiem’s wife) gives birth to deformed children who do not live long. The Syiem understands that there is something the Mahadei is hiding from him. She confesses and the Syiem imprisons her.
The Syiem then orders his nobles to fetch him another wife. They come back with the Mahadei’s youngest sister whose husband, the baker, dies before fathering any children. They find her to be the best match for him.
Skendrowell sings:
Ko jingpihuin ko jingbishni phin lah shan slem oh katno sngi?
La phi leh bein ha sla pyrthei ia rangli ki juki,
Ka jinglanot kan wan ha phi,
Khatduh ym slem kan thad lyngkrang ia phi.
Oh envy, oh jealousy! For how long would you last?
You may have ill-treated the poor,
but suffering will come to you and in the end,
you will be shamed and laid bare.
Uniquely, in many songs, he would begin without singing and without music, instead imparting a moral lesson. Once the music started, so would the singing.
Romanticism in songs
Inspiring his songs were the natural beauty and serenity of rural areas. In one song after another he would sing about the four seasons (like in Saw Aiom Ki Por) and his village.
In Ah Moina – “Ah Moina! Ah Moina! Bu chong cha ri bujngei (Oh Mynah! Oh Mynah! That lives in a faraway land”) – and in U Sohkhia, the image of the mynah reappears. The bird is a recurring motif that symbolically suggests a love that is lost and has flown away. In several songs, plants and flowers – like U Tiewlyngksiar, U Tiewlyngskaw, U Tiewdohmaw (all wild orchids) – are nature’s symbolic suggestions of the manners and qualities of human beings.
In Khublei Khublei, Skendrowell uses the imagery of flowers to describe the difference in the way he is treated in his village and in a town. In his village, he is U Tiewlyngksiar (an orchid symbolising an honourable gentleman), but when in town, he is forced to apologise since to the urban elites, he is just U Tiewlyngskaw (a flower symbolising the rustic). Amidst this drama, he mentions how U Tiewdohmaw (a flower symbolising a wise person) would listen to the songs sung by U Tiewlyngksiar, who is but U Tiewlyngskaw to the urban elite.
The rural landscape inspired his singing. In Ah Moina, Skendrowell sings of a life lived in the soothing embrace of nature, a life filled with the simple joys of catching a bird or a mountain rat, when ploughing the field, when playing the duitara and when eating u sohphlang (a white edible tuberous root that has a sweet crunchy flavour).
Singing in the Mawiang dialect (one of the many Khasi dialects spoken in the West Khasi Hills), he begins with the words:
Chi bu duk bu toi
Set synduk ia ka loi loi
We who are poor,
we lock up the nothing we have in a box.
The empty box symbolises poverty as well as the meaninglessness of material possessions. This box, which is seemingly empty to the urban folk, is in fact a treasure box containing the most precious experiences of rural life. In Skendrowell’s eyes, these rural experiences are valuable. They must be carefully locked in a box, a box that the urban rich sees as having nothing or “loi loi”. This is proof of his unwavering belief in the serenity and freedom of rural life, even if it is sometimes hard or poverty-stricken.
Amid a difficult village life, his songs talk about 1. Ka Tip Kur Tip Kha; 2. Ka Tip Briew Tip Blei; and 3. Ka Kamai ia ka Hok (1. To know one’s maternal and paternal relations – the sacred principle that defines family relations; 2. To know man and know God – the sacrosanct value that defines human relations and our relationship with God; 3. To earn righteousness – the ideal and belief that one must work one’s righteousness out).
These are the Khasi ideals, ethics that were ingrained in him since childhood while he would sit around the hearth with his family and other villagers. His love for the rural and the natural, however, is unlike Wordsworth’s pantheistic ideology, unlike Keats’ worship of beauty and it indicates nothing of Shelley’s escapist desire. Like a true son of his village, he sang his songs – a villager singing his songs.
His songs are a magical description of the intoxicating, inspirational and soul-soothing rural life, of which he was a part. He did not wait for a Wordsworth to describe his life. Indeed, Skendrowell’s songs are not poems about a Yarrow Unvisited (a poem of Wordsworth’s) but he was part of his own Yarrow, meaning the Khasi rural landscape.
His love for his village is mirrored in Shnong ba nga ieij (The Village I Love). If WB Yeats could not help but go to Innisfree, where he hoped to find peace, Skendrowell gave in to the call of his village hut – a call made by Mother Nature (Ban khot noh ia nga, Ba phah ka Mei Mariang). Like a true Khasi, he saw nature as a Mother (Mei meaning mother – Mei Mariang or Mother Nature).
His songs, however, are not descriptions of a utopian Khasi world. He was not blind to the loss of values among Khasis and with an honest eye, he saw the moral decadence in his society. In Akor Khasi, he mourns the loss of Khasi manners and values. “Akor Khasi pat la ha niamra (Good Khasi manners and values are now in dark caves).
Raising questions
While entertaining, his songs were also meant to teach and reflect on human nature.
His search for meaning in life starts with questions that dig deep into the deepest pits and chaotic labyrinths of human nature. There are questions aplenty in his songs. Balei (why)?, he would ask. In Balei jinglong briew? (Why is human nature such?), Skendrowell sings,
Balei jinglong briew kum ka sla halor um kaba shu per?
Why is human nature like a leaf that floats on the water surface?
This suggests his understanding that humans are simply drifters – wavering like leaves on the water surface.
In the same song, he continues:
Balei jinglong briew ka shu lum Dorbar khlem nongbishar?
Why do humans gather a Dorbar when there’s no proper judge or righteousness?
This suggests corrupt practices in the traditional Khasi Dorbar.
Balei jinglong briew ba shu kwah ban her sha ka ri ki khlem kam tang shyntur suda?
Why do humans want to escape to a land where people don’t work but only talk?
This suggests tall talk but no action.
Balei jinglong briew ba shu kwah ban her shaba sting u ba met ba khia u stait?
Why do humans want to escape to where the edible part of the rice grain is light and the husk is heavy?
The part of the rice grain that is edible should have been described as being heavy since we toil and labour for our food.
But Skendrowell turns this upside down. The edible portion is light but the husk, which is unnecessary, is heavy. This suggests a chaotic and absurd world, where there is a total inversion of values as opposed to the world of his village, where the simple joys of life amidst nature are soul-soothing and where everything is in order.
However, like Pablo Neruda in The Book of Questions, Skendrowell does not provide solutions to the human predicament. He sees his people as being caught in a dilemma (Ka Dum Dngiem) and he firmly believes that it is the greed of man and the loss of the old Khasi value of “Ka Kamai ia ka Hok” that the Khasi world is now absurdly chaotic and seemingly irredeemable.
True to roots
His inability to sing in English meant he was never fully embraced by the urban elite. Even the Padma Shri bestowed posthumously in 2009 did not help raise his image among them. They continue to regard his art as a subaltern art belonging to a subaltern rural narrative. They fail to notice his brilliance.
However, he remains “the singing storyteller” for many in the villages and small Khasi towns considered Nongkyndong (a pejorative term used by the Khasi urban elite to paint village folks as village idiots). His courage to sing about himself as a son of the village brought him success when, without inhibition, he sang Ah Moina in the Mawiang dialect.
The Mawiang dialect is associated with the rustic life. Nobody imagined that a song sung in a dialect of West Khasi Hills would be appreciated. But it was. Till date, Ah Moina remains one of the most popular Khasi songs, bringing fame to him but also to West Khasi Hills.
Skendrowell is not purely a folk singer. Though much of his music is fusion music, yet it enhances folktales and it helps our generation – who are more attuned to the sounds of a Western drum or guitar – relate to them. In Skendrowell, the duitara found a companion who could take it to a new generation. With Skendrowell, the oral storytelling tradition became a singing tradition, making our generation connect with our roots. Ancient folktales were given a new life and they are now sung to our generation.
The old has given way to the new, but folktales are part of our cultural memory and Skendrowell’s songs have contributed much to their retelling. By immortalising memories, he has immortalised himself. Thanks to Skendrowell Syiemlieh, many Khasi folktales have become flesh and blood. Let us all tell our own stories in songs and maybe we too will live forever.
Curious whistles and chirrups echo through the jungle around Kongthong, a remote Indian village, but this is no birdsong. It's people calling out to each other in music -- an extraordinary tradition that may even be unique.
Here in the lush, rolling hills of the northeastern state of Meghalaya, mothers from Kongthong and a few other local villages compose a special melody for each child.
Everyone in the village, inhabited by the Khasi people, will then address the person with this individual little tune -- and for a lifetime. They have conventional "real" names too, but they are rarely used.
To walk along the main road in this village of wooden huts with corrugated tin roofs, perched on a ridge miles from anywhere, is to walk through a symphony of hoots and toots.
On one side a mother calls out to her son to come home for supper, elsewhere children play and at the other end friends mess about -- all in an unusual, musical language of their own.
"The composition of the melody comes from the bottom of my heart," mother-of-three Pyndaplin Shabong told AFP.
"It expresses my joy and love for my baby," the 31-year-old said, her youngest daughter, two and a half years old, on her knee.
"But if my son has done something wrong, if I'm angry with him, he broke my heart, at that moment I will call him by his actual name," rather than singing lovingly, said Rothell Khongsit, a community leader.
Harmony with nature
Kongthong has long been cut off from the rest of the world, several hours of tough trek from the nearest town. Electricity arrived only in 2000, and the dirt road in 2013.
Days are spent foraging in the jungle for broom grass -- the main source of revenue -- leaving the village all but deserted, except for a few kids.
To call out to each other while in the forest, the villagers would use a long version lasting around 30 seconds of each other's musical "name", inspired by the sounds of nature all around.
"We are living in far-flung villages, we are surrounded by the dense forest, by the hills. So we are in touch with nature, we are in touch with all the gracious living things that God has created," says Khongsit.
"Creatures have their own identity. The birds, so many animals, they have ways of calling each other."
The custom is known as "jingrwai lawbei", meaning "song of the clan's first woman", a reference to the Khasi people's mythical original mother.
And unusually for India, this is a matrilineal society. Property and land are passed down from mother to daughter, while a husband moves in with his wife and takes her name.
"We consider the mother the goddess of the family. A mother looks after a family, after the inheritance we get from our ancestors," Khongsit said. Modern world
But according to anthropologist Tiplut Nongbri, a professor at Jamia Millia Islamia university in Delhi, it is something of a "disguised patriarchy".
Women "don't have decision-making powers. Traditionally, they can't take part in politics, the rules are very clearly demarcated between male and female," she told AFP.
"Taking care of the children, that's the women's responsibility. Statecraft and all that is (a) male function."
The origin of "jingrwai lawbei" isn't known, but locals think it is as old as the village, which has existed for as long as five centuries.
The tradition's days may be numbered, though, as the modern world creeps into Kongthong in the shape of televisions and mobile phones.
Some of the newer melodic names are inspired by Bollywood songs.
And youngsters are increasingly going off singing out their friends' melodic names, preferring instead to phone them.
First stops – West Jaintia Hills and West Khasi Hills; Next stop – Shillong!
While some orate their way to popularity, few others by exhibiting their talents, lesser known individuals tread the steps of recognition, and manage to find appreciation in the hearts of the people by doing what they do best – Being Humble.
Leading by example, this IAS officer from Karnataka has earned quite a name for himself in Meghalaya and is widely known in the districts where he had served as — The ‘People’s Deputy Commissioner’.
Arunkumar Kembhavi has become a household name in Meghalaya. All thanks to his people-friendly, unique and out-of-the-box ideas and initiatives to facilitate change in the society and though, he no longer serves as the DC of either WKH or WJH, he is, however, still known to the people of those districts as The People’s DC.
Less you forget, Kembhavi is known for his initiatives like Wall of Kindness (first in the region), building roads with shredded waste plastic technology, green office, online administrative system, deploying effective GPS tracking software for election monitoring (the 1st in the whole country) besides a chunk of other major initiatives.
After being transferred to Shillong as the Registrar of Cooperative Societies and Director of Community and Rural Development just last week, Kembhavi, is already making a ‘green-mark’, an approach which has got many officers and staffs of the Secretariat talking about.
Shillong is a pleasant city but not pleasant enough when you are commuting from one place to another in a vehicle. And Yes! Shillong traffic was exactly the same nightmare, Kembhavi faced when he arrived in the capital city.
It didn’t take long for the young and vibrant officer to come up with an alternate solution to beat Shillong traffic and reach office on time. And his first preference was cycling to work. “After I joined secretariat last week, the first thing I did was I bought myself a cycle because I don’t want to experience the problematic nature of traffic,” Kembhavi said.
Since the commuting distance from his residence to the Secretariat is only a few kms away, it seemed a little idiotic for him to take a vehicle, with a hope to reach office in a jiffy, but only to get stuck in a traffic for half an hour.
“Shillong city is slowly becoming unlivable now and there is a need to regain the past glory of this city; and traffic being the main problem, I think we can all emulate other countries’ way of dealing with the problem — cycle to work,” he smilingly said.
Owing to the fact that Shillong’s weather is conducive to cycle, the decision to pedal all the way to work didn’t seem to bother him at all. The only challenge was, of course, the roads and all that they encompasses. “The roads here in the city are not conducive to ride a bike. And since, this is more or less a new concept, there is always a fear of being hit by a rash driver,” he expressed.
However, it is encouraging to see the attitude of the traffic police towards cyclists as they would always give way and let them through amid the chaos, Kembhavi added.
“For me, cycling is not a mean of staying fit, rather, it is a functional necessity to beat traffic,” said the IAS officer adding that the amount of time he saved from patiently waiting and getting annoyed in the traffic, is spent on more resourceful things at work.
Stating that the reactions he received from his colleagues are quite encouraging, Kembhavi said that the intentions expressed by some officers to ‘maybe’ follow suit is encouraging but then again, there is a slight disadvantage and that is the city roads does not have a cycling track to protect and restrain the cyclists to a particular track/ tracks.
“Meghalaya has a good cycling club led by Abhishek Bhagotia (another IAS officer) called Cycling Shillong and I think through this club, we can encourage people to consider cycling as it is a more convenient mode of transportation within the periphery of the city,” he observed.
Stating that the number of cyclists in Shillong has increased, if not remarkably, Kembhavi said that youths are now getting into cycling, it is important to dedicate a lane for cycling in the roads of Shillong.
Though the perks attached with cycling is fitness and time-saving besides others, there is, however, a side-effect of cycling in the streets of Shillong and that is the pollution emitted from vehicles on a daily basis.
“The poisonous gas emitted by vehicles everyday is a bane for us and it deters us from achieving our objectives of staying healthy and fit. If only we can replace 100 cars with bicycles in the city, it would have proved beneficially not only physically but also environmentally. I don’t see any reason why people shouldn’t take up cycling,” he said.
It was the September of 2015. I was fresh out of my year-long probation as a new IAS officer, and was working in Delhi as an Assistant Secretary. I had recently been told that I was going to be posted to Sohra (aka Cherrapunjee) in Meghalaya as the Sub-Divisional Magistrate. I felt ready and prepared for the journey and had sent my luggage to a service provider to be couriered.
Almost at the last minute though, I got a call from Shillong saying that I wasn’t going to Sohra, but to Dadenggre in Garo Hills. Strange, I thought to myself when I first heard about it. Because even though I had spent two months training in Meghalaya during my probation, I hadn’t come across a place called Dadenggre!
Anyway, it meant that I had to change the delivery address for my luggage. But try as I might with variations of different spelling and keywords, even Google drew a blank for this mystery place. The closest it came was to asking me if I meant ‘Davangere’, a city in Karnataka. But no, that wasn’t it.
Ramkumar S
The journey
When I boarded that flight to Guwahati in December 2015, I still didn’t have much clue about where I was going. All I knew was that Dadenggre was a three-hour drive from the Guwahati airport.
Once the driver arrived to pick me up, I attempted to ask him in broken Hindi about the place. I asked if there were any restaurants around, any shopping centres, any big departmental stores. No, no, and no, he told me. Honestly, his answers were getting on my nerves, because according to him, the place didn’t even have a petrol pump.
Now, it was a winter evening that we arrived in Dadenggre, and the sun had set by 4pm. The winding roads leading to Dadenggre had no other vehicle, human or even animal movement. So, I went back to the internet, determined (despite the sketchy mobile network) to get some idea of the place I was venturing to. The first and only online reference I found after considerable research was that a kidnapping in Dadenggre a couple of years ago.
Meanwhile, my driver completely focused on the route so it was after a lot of hesitation that I brought up the topics of militancy in the area. I asked him if it was safe to drive down from here after dark. Although my vehicle had a beacon and he kept saying we should be fine, he didn’t sound very confident. Dadenggre
The winding roads were really starting to get to me when the driver suddenly announced, “We’re here!”
I sat up straighter, startled, and I asked, “Where?!”
“This. Right here.”
There were trees around, a few signs of habitation. But no lights on the road except a few dim ones I could see from a village. We went to the circuit house where I was supposed to stay temporarily before moving to my official quarters.
The place seemed so remote that the existence of the circuit house itself was a surprise to me. One of the first questions that came to my mind was, “Why so much darkness?” I had always seen streetlights in every place I grew up. Well lit streets were a big part of my social life. It was hard for me to digest that a place was completely helpless against the dark once the sun set.
Lighting up
Try as I might, the question of darkness would not leave my psyche. So by February, I pulled up a proposal submitted by the then Secretary to Govt of India, Shri Upendra Tripathy. It allowed for an automatic approval route for 500kwp power plants or street lights for any officer of 2013 batch, which was also the year I graduated.
I was super enthused about it. I found some people who could educate me about solar power, making proposals, submitting necessary documents etc. The sanction was accorded very swiftly by the Centre.
There were a few complications along the way – like the fact that for street lights, the expenditure is cut 60-30-10 percent between the centre, beneficiaries, and the state. This meant that about Rs 40 lakh had to come from the 60,000 odd residents of Dadenggre.
Now, Dadenggre is poor, but not how we, as people living in tier-1 and tier-2 cities understand ‘poor’. It is poor because it’s backward. There is no ATM; just a bank where you can withdraw money using a withdrawal slip. The area was known for militant activity until 3-4 years ago. And the driver wasn’t lying that day, there really isn’t a petrol pump here. The nearest one is about 30 kilometres away.
These people are backward and the last time they had something new was probably over a decade ago. So when I told them that there was a proposal to have their streets light up after the dark, it took six months, but they turned up to deposit money.
We also had to figure out a way to provide power without causing serious ecological damage to this quaint place. The solution was simple: going solar. After multiple meetings with various stakeholders, we were fortunate to receive the beneficiaries’ financial share from them too.
And about two months ago, Dadenggre’s streets shone with the light of brand new street lights.
A total of 700 solar panels are spread across the sub-division and 250 kilowatts of solar energy power many public buildings, including our office, residential quarters, police station, and the Community Health Centre.
What’s more, the solar power has ensured that the power outages and fluctuations we faced in the monsoon are a thing of the past too!
Self-sustenance
There is always ‘who waters the plant’ mentality at work when it comes to government matters. It is not possible for us to do it every time. Hence, we roped in many village level committees and trained them in some basic maintenance so that they aren’t completely dependent on technical persons.
It’s not always been easy. I do miss Tamil Nadu, and my home. Evenings have been very lonely until recently – my wife, baby and in-laws came here last month. Things have been slightly better but I do fear if the time comes when they have to go back.
I take casual walks in the evening to see what changes the lights have brought to the life of people. People are not very expressive here but they show their warmth by offering handshakes, tea, poori… anything they have when I walk by these days. My walks often get delayed due to these stops but I’m not complaining at all.
I find many young boys and girls sitting under the light chatting into the evening. My only wish is that someone who looks up the streetlight and wonders what is the science behind it, may come to redefine how we use energy in future. (Source: TNM)
The thing with racism is it comes with very little shame associated with it. If you are at the receiving end of a racist attack, you are urged by people around you to laugh along because, 'joke hai yaar'.
Allow me to explain. I am from Assam and have been living in Delhi for the past ten years. A couple of days ago, I was visiting a friend. Upon finding that I was from Assam one of the people present in the gathering said, "Can I tell you something? Don't be offended." Now, I have come across enough people with no filter to realise where it was going, but even I wasn't prepared for this. "I have heard that you guys eat dog meat. Also that Assamese women are very good archers and that...uh... Assamese women pee standing," said the enlightened man.
While, thankfully, there we enraged gasps, I thanked by stars that I was at a place surrounded by friends. Usually, such comments get laughed off and if you are annoyed, you'd be asked to grow a sense of humour.
So I asked fellow Northeast Indian people the racist comments that they had to bear the brunt of. And most of these were masked as 'curiosity' or 'jokes'.
1. Trisha Bhuyan, 27, Assam: This was when I was interning with a reputed newspaper around 5 years back. The other intern and I were generally chatting, when I told her that I did my schooling in Assam. She said, "Assam?...er...there are schools there? Isn't it all jhopar pattis?"
2. Priyanjana Roy Das, 25, Assam: I was in Bengaluru a couple of years ago. Upon hearing that I am from a place called Guwahati, a very perplexed friend asked if it was in Kerala. But leave that, I have been asked if a passport is required to go to the Northeast. Till this day, I hope that she was actually talking about a permit and not a passport.
"Have you ever tried human meat?" I mean why, just because I am a Naga?
3. Precious Kamei, 30, Manipur: I am a Naga, from Manipur so I have heard a lot of ignorant remarks. I still get asked, "Have you ever tried human meat?" I mean why, just because I am a Naga? "Ise gussa mat dila, sab kuch khati hain...insaan ko bhi khati hain" (don't make her angry, she eats everything...even humans) -- this was supposed to be a joke. Our ancestors might have been head hunters, but mixing this up with cannibalism is just plain mean. I grew up knowing that I am an Indian. It was only after coming to Delhi that I was made aware that I am a Northeastern.
4. Abhilasha M*, 28, Meghalaya: I am an Assamese who have been brought up in Shillong. Although my Hindi has always been a butt of jokes, it is my looks that catches everyone's attention. "But you don't look Northeastern," I have been told over and over again, even a couple of days ago.
He then said that I don't look like I am from Northeast because apparently Northeastern people are supposed to be fair and I am dusky.
5. Richivandana Gogoi, 27, Assam: I was at my gym a couple of days ago, when the instructor decided to start chatting with me. "Aap kahaan se ho? Northeast? West Bengal? Kyunki aapke face se pata nahin chal raha," he said. (Where are you from? Northeast? West Bengal? Because I can't make out from your face) I replied I am from Assam. He then said that I don't look like I am from Northeast because apparently Northeastern people are supposed to be fair and I am dusky. He also said that the Northeast is a very dangerous place, which is why he has never been there.
6. Annie L, 33, Nagaland: This was last year in Bengaluru. I was mansplained that Northeast was inherently wild, until someone civilised came and turned it better. What does that even mean?
7. Richa Barman, 39, Assam: This was during my college days, so it has been a while. I was asked if I was a member of the extremist outfit, ULFA or if any of my relatives were.
8. R. Konyak*, 30, Nagaland: Once a college friend asked me if my house in Nagaland is made of bamboos. I was patient and replied that we don't live in tree houses. She took a couple of minutes to take this new bit of information in and said, "But I thought you all live in bamboo houses."
"Oh you are from Nagaland? I thought you are from India".
9. E. Kharraswai*, 33, Meghalaya: For starters, I don't think people from the "mainland" can differentiate between a Manipuri or a Naga or a Mizo. They believe that all the tribes are same and that we are all Nagas. So, naturally, there have been a number of times I have heard ignorant stuff but there is this incident that I thought was the epitome of all things ignorant. A junior from college and I were sharing a rickshaw to college, when she asked me where I was from. I said Meghalaya. She replied, "Oh, that is in which state?"
10. N. Tzudir, 20, Nagaland: When I moved to Delhi for my undergraduate programme, in my first week at my hostel a girl said, "Oh you are from Nagaland? I thought you are from India". When I gave her a piece of my mind, she clarified, "I meant from Delhi, Punjab, MP, you know."
A municipal water tanker trundles into a neighbourhood that has not received water in its taps for days. Amid much jostling, a swarm of hassled residents promptly converge on it, carrying bottles, buckets, vessels, drums and basically anything that can store water. This is a familiar scene during the scorching summer months in many Indian cities.
Every year during summer, India appears to be on the verge of a water crisis once again despite witnessing bountiful rains the previous year. The fast-growing metropolis of Bengaluru, India’s IT capital, too is no exception to these water woes. Its elevation (the city is around 3,000 feet above sea level) and hard granite-gneiss terrain have also meant that sourcing water for household use has always been a challenge.
Cauvery, the closest perennial river, flows over 100 km away and at an altitude that is nearly 10,00 feet lower than Bengaluru’s, making it extremely expensive to pump water to the city’s residential areas. Also, with the city’s population swelling over the years, ground water levels have decreased sharply.
One man believes that this dire situation can be turned around. A R Shivakumar believes that a lot of water is being wasted due to mismanagement and that planned rainwater harvesting (RWH) can effectively sustain the city’s water supply.
A senior scientist at the Karnataka State Council of Science and Technology (KSCST) at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Shivakumar is not a new convert to the concept. A vociferous proponent of RWH, he does not have a Cauvery water connection in his home and he has been relying entirely on collected rainwater to serve all his family’s needs for over two decades.
Shivakumar has also invented tools that simplify RWH at home and has even worked with local authorities to popularise rainwater harvesting in Bengaluru!
In 1995, when Shivakumar started building his house, he did a lot of research to look for alternatives that would fulfill his family’s needs without harming the environment. His first step was to analyse the water bills of residents of the locality to map the water consumption of an average family.
Shivakumar’s house in Bengaluru, ‘ Sourabha’
He found that his findings matched the water consumption norms published by WHO – a family of four uses approximately 500 litres of water per day. Next, he sat and tabulated the rainfall data in the city over the last 100 years. He was surprised to discover that as per the data, there is more than enough rainfall in the city, even in the worst monsoon-deficient years.
The only catch was that while it rained for about 60-70 days in a year, the water had to last for 365 days.
“I did some calculations and realised that the gap between two good rains is seldom more than 90 to 100 days. So I built a series of RWH tanks that could store almost 45,000 litres of water to tide over these 100-odd days. Also, to ensure that a motor was not needed, I stored the water on the rooftop to avoid it being sent down and pumped up again,” explains Shivakumar.
Each tank has been fitted with an innovative filter device that has been built and patented by Shivakumar himself. Called Pop-Up Filter, the device uses a simple silver sheet to remove all impurities from the collected rainwater before channeling it around the house. It can be vertically installed on the walls of a small buildings (for bigger buildings, Shivakumar has designed a ‘First Flush Lock and Diverter’ that performs the same function).
Careful not to let even a drop of rain water go waste, Shivakumar has also dug percolation pits in the garden around his house that help in the direct recharge of the ground water table. (Incredibly, within one year of recharge, the groundwater table around Shivakumar’s house ‘Sourabha’ rose from 200 ft to around 40 ft!) This system is also a backup for the rare case in which it doesn’t rain in Bengaluru for more than 100 days – water drawn from a shallow tube well, recharged by the rainwater, helps meet the family’s requirement.
Other than RWH, Shivakumar is also judicious while using water at home. He has designed and installed an effective greywater recycling system at his home – the outlet water from his washing machine is stored in a separate tank and is used for flushing toilets in the house. In the same way, water from the kitchen is stored and used for gardening.
You may like: A Husband-Wife Duo Is Harvesting Rainwater & Solar Energy at the Same Time – Using an Umbrella!
Shivakumar has also tweaked his household devices to make them more eco-friendly. For instance, the containers used to store water from the solar water heaters have been lined with rice husk to ensure that the water stays hot throughout the day. The LED lights in the house are solar powered while the rooftop water tanks and surrounding garden help naturally air condition the house.
Over the years, Shivakumar has designed and implemented hundreds of rainwater harvesting projects in Bangalore, including at Vidhana Soudha, the Karnataka High Court, corporate offices (such as Arvind Mills and Intel India) and several housing societies in the city. He has also trained Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) plumbers, building contractors and architects in the integration of RWH in construction.
Shivakumar’s RWH systems are also being used in Africa as well in some European countries. The Norwegian government has also selected it for its joint project with the Indian government. He has been honoured with several awards like central government’s National Innovation Award, Karnataka government’s Ammulya award and Rotary International’s Citizen Extraordinary award.
The RWH expert also played a key role in getting the Karnataka government to pass an amendment to the (BWSSB) Act that made rainwater harvesting compulsory for houses and offices with an area greater than 2,400 sq. ft. in the core of Bengaluru.
Shivakumar’s expertise and technical know-how is now being utilised by the government of Meghalaya to build a RWH infrastructure in the state. Home to Mawsynram and Cherrapunji (the wettest places in India), Meghalaya receives one of the highest rainfall in India, but still suffers from acute water scarcity when the precipitations drop sharply from November until March.
“Nature holds the answers to the problem of urban water scarcity. Contrary to popular belief, rainfall in Bengaluru has actually gone up in the last few years but much of it goes unharnessed. We must catch the rain wherever and whenever it falls. If even half of the houses in the city (that are similar to mine) are retrofitted with RWH systems, Bengaluru may never face water scarcity. And this goes for other Indian cities too,” concludes Shivakumar.
In today’s world, Gandhi’s words that India’s survival depends on the well-being of its villages seem even more pertinent.
Seventy percent of India’s population – roughly one-tenth of humanity – live in the countryside. This makes rural India a focal point for issues of national and global concern: the impact of high population and development on natural resources; lack of sanitation and its impact on health; water pollution from raw sewage and pesticide runoff; soil loss and desertification due to erosion, overgrazing and deforestation.
This is also why the ability of India’s villages to offer fulfilling lives to their inhabitants is germinal to India’s future as a great global power.
Over the years, a few of India’s resilient rural villages have been trying to remain relevant and adapt to change without losing their valued traditions and skills that have survived down the ages.
From renewable energy to organic farming, here are 15 Indian villages that have walked the talk and are shining examples of what a community can do when it comes together for a better tomorrow.
1. Dharnai, Bihar
Once struggling to get basic electricity like most villages in India, Dharnai has now changed its fate and become the first village in India to completely run on solar power. Residents of Dharnai had been using diesel-based generators and hazardous fuel like cow dung to meet the electricity requirement for decades, which were both costly and unhealthy. Since the launch of Greenpeace’s solar-powered 100 kilowatt micro-grid in 2014, quality electricity is being provided to more than 2,400 people living in this village in Jehanabad district.
2. Payvihir, Maharashtra
An obscure village in the foothills of Melghat region of Amravati district in Maharashtra, Payvihir, has set an example for the country by consistently showing how communities and NGOs can work together to conserve the environment and ensure sustainable livelihood for people.
In 2014, Payvihir bagged the Biodiversity Award from the United Nation’s Development Programme for turning a barren, 182-hectare land under community forest right, into a forest. Recently, the village also came up with an out-of-the-box idea of selling organic sitafals (custard apples) and mangoes in Mumbai under their brand Naturals Melghat!
3. Hiware Bazaar, Maharashtra
Amid the desperate denizens scrounging for water in the drought-affected parts of Maharashtra stands a village that has not felt the need to call a single water tanker – in fact, it hasn’t called for one since 1995. The village also has 60 millionaires and the highest per-capita income in India.
Facing a major water crisis each year because of the measly rainfall it gets, the village decided to shun water-intensive crops and opted for horticulture and dairy farming. Their consistent water conservation initiatives led to rising groundwater levels and the village started to prosper. Today, the village has 294 open wells, each brimming with water just as the village brims with prosperity.
4. Odanthurai, Tamil Nadu
Odanthurai, a panchayat situated in Mettupalayam taluk of Coimbatore district, has been a model village for the other villages for more than a decade. The panchayat has not only been generating electricity for their own use, but also selling power to Tamil Nadu Electricity Board.
Having already won international acclaim through its unique welfare schemes and energy self-sufficiency drives, Odanthurai near Mettupalayam has begun efforts to develop a corpus of Rs 5 crore to install wind and solar energy farms. This project will enable free supply of electricity to over 8,000 residents.
5. Chizami, Nagaland
A small village in Nagaland’s Phek district, Chizami has been scripting a quiet revolution in terms of socioeconomic reforms and environmental protection for almost a decade. A model village in the Naga society, Chizami is today visited by youth from Kohima and neighbouring villages for internships in the Chizami model of development.
What is unique in the Chizami model of development is that marginalised women have played an important role in bringing about this socio-economic and sustainable transformation that is rooted in traditional practices of the state.
6. Gangadevipalli, Andhra Pradesh
If India lives in its villages, then the model it perhaps must follow is Gangadevipalli, a hamlet in Andhra Pradesh’s Warangal district where every house has the bare necessities of life, and more. From regular power and water supply to a scientific water filtration plant, a community-owned cable TV service and concrete, well-lit roads, this model village has been steadily gaining in prosperity thanks to a disciplined and determined community that has also managed to work in harmony towards goals set collectively.
7. Kokrebellur, Karnataka
Kokrebellur, a small village in Maddur taluk of Karnataka, offers you an unusual and mesmerizing sight as you’ll find some of India’s rarest species of birds chirping in the backyards of these village homes. Named after the Painted Storks, which are called Kokkare in Kannada, this small village (which is not a reserved bird sanctuary) has set an example of how birds and humans can co-exist in complete harmony. The villagers treat these birds as a part of their family and have also created a small area for wounded birds to rest. Birds are so friendly here that they even allow you to go very close to them.
8. Khonoma, Nagaland
From being a cradle of resistance to the British colonial rule, Khonoma has come a long way to become India’s first green village. Home to a 700-year-old Angami settlement and perfectly terraced fields, this unique, self-sustaining village in Nagaland is a testament to the willpower of the tribal groups of Nagaland to protect and conserve their natural habitat. All hunting is banned in the village, which also practices its own ecofriendly version of jhum agriculture (instead of the traditional slash-and-burn method) that enriches the soil.
9. Punsari, Gujarat
Punsari village, barely 100 km from Ahmedabad, could be a textbook case of development. Closed-circuit cameras, water purifying plants, biogas plants, air-conditioned schools, Wi-Fi, biometric machines – the village has it all. And all of it was done in a matter of eight years, at a cost of Rs. 16 crore. The man behind the transformation is its young tech-savvy sarpanch – 33-year-old Himanshu Patel – who proudly states that his village offers “the amenities of a city but the spirit of a village.”
10. Ramchandrapur, Telangana
The first village in Telangana region to win the Nirmal Puraskar in 2004-05, Ramchandrapur came into focus a decade ago when the villagers pledged to donate their eyes for the visually challenged. Among its many achievements, all the houses in the village have smokeless chullahs and toilets with tap-water facilities. It is the first village in the state to construct a sub-surface dyke on the nearby river and solve drinking water problems by constructing two over-head tanks in each house. The village does not have drainage system and all the water generated from each house is diverted to the gardens, which are planted by the villagers in each house.
11. Mawlynnong, Meghalaya
In the tiny hamlet of Mawlynnong, plastic is banned, spotless paths are lined with flowers, bamboo dustbins stand at every corner, volunteers sweep the streets at regular intervals and large signboards warn visitors against littering. Here, tidying up is a ritual that everyone – from tiny toddlers to toothless grannies – takes very seriously. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the village community, this small, 600-odd-person hamlet in Meghalaya is today renowned as the cleanest village in India and Asia.
12. Piplantri, Rajasthan
For the last several years, the Piplantri village panchayat has been saving girl children and increasing the green cover in and around it at the same time. Here, villagers plant 111 trees every time a girl is born and the community ensures these trees survive, attaining fruition as the girls grow up. They also set up a fixed deposit for the girls and make their parents sign an affidavit that ensures their education.
Over the last nine years, people here have managed to plant over a quarter million trees on the village’s grazing commons. To prevent these trees from being infested with termite, the residents planted over 2.5 million aloe vera plants around them. Now, these trees, especially the aloe vera, are a source of livelihood for several residents.
13. Eraviperoor, Kerala
At a time when the country is abuzz with talks about Digital India, and how technology can be taken to the remotest corners of the country, the Eraviperoor gram panchayat in Pathanamthitta district of Kerala is leading way. It is the first gram panchayat in Kerala to have free Wi-Fi for the general public.
The village has also launched a free palliative care scheme for the poor and is the first panchayat in the state to get ISO-9001 certification for its Primary Health Centre. It has also been recognised as a Model Hi-tech Green Village, by the Horticulture Department, for its green initiatives.
14. Baghuvar, Madhya Pradesh
A small village in Madhya Pradesh, Baghuvar is the only village in India that has functioned without a sarpanch since independence, and that too efficiently. Every house in the village has its own lavatories and there is a common toilet complex that is used for social functions. The village has underground sewage lines as well as the highest number of biogas plants in the state. The gas produced is used as cooking fuel and to light up the village. Thanks to its unique way of water conservation, this village also has enough water to survive drought-like conditions for years.
15. Shikdamakha, Assam
Way before Swacch Bharat, in 2010, a remote Assam village had set cleanliness goals for itself. Shikdamakha, near Guwahati, runs cleanliness drives and competitions, and wants to surpass Mawlynnong in Meghalaya as Asia’s cleanest village. A plastic-free village that earned the maximum points in the cleanliness sub-index of Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Shikdamakha has also earned the coveted Open Defecation Free status recently.
In 2013 Bina Lakshmi Nepram was featured in the list of the top 100 most influential people in the world on armed violence reduction.
The national media immediately had their eyes set on this young woman from the north eastern state of Manipur. With every word she spoke, she surfaced the ground realities of Manipur and the other North Eastern States. It was possibly the conviction in her words that encouraged me to finally indulge in an understanding of the culture and social organization of the North Eastern States of India.
Positive Facts From The Seven Sisters
Cases of violence against females slowly making to national news in India leading to a growing awareness and intolerance against such incidents. At the same time when we reevaluate the situation in the Seven States of the North Eastern India, there are some positive statistics to look at.
Why Northeast Is A Safe Haven For Solo Female Travelers
We owe it to the strong women of these seven states who have asserted themselves well in the social space and have earned a position of respect and goodwill. You will see women in local shops as breadwinners for the family, as public actors, as activists and as entrepreneurs exercising their rights, duties and choices. Wherever you walk, you can sense the power of female presence all around you.
For a solo female traveler in the Northeast, their sisters guard the territory.
Northeast gives you an evident picture of how women share social space in these states with a lot more confidence and comfort than we see elsewhere in India. The Khasi community in Meghalaya is the world's largest matrilineal society. Women have the right to seek divorce and the youngest daughter of the family inherits the property.
In Assam the women working in the tea gardens are considered the best tea pluckers and these women are mostly also the sole bread winners of their families. The social status of women in general makes public spaces more comfortable for women.
Khwairamband Bazar, The Mother's Market of Imphal
Since more than 100 years women at Khwairamband Bazar run the Mother's Market in Imphal. In Manipuri, 'Ima' means mother and 'keithel' means market. More than 3500 women vendors sell food items, utensils, clothes and handicrafts irrespective of their community. This market is a powerful assertion of strong female presence in the region and says a thousand words about the status women have earned for themselves in the region.
Among The Seven Sisters, Nagaland Stands As The Safest For Women
The positive statistics on female literacy and rights indicate the strong awareness of women's rights which are mostly traditionally enforced. Nagaland tops the charts in being the safest state for women where the the number of reported cases of crime against women is as low as 110. In the same list, Uttar Pradesh and West bengal are table toppers.
