Travel Bug - Cherrapunjee alias Sohra

 I had been to Shillong in 1985, as part of the Under 22 South Zone team. We had to play matches in Guwahati and we ended up visiting Shillong on an off day. I enjoyed the bus ride, the sweet pineapple and fell in love with the sweeter pineapple vendor. Now when I got a chance to spend a couple of days in Shillong I decided to make the most of it.

Views

As capital of Meghalaya, you realise that Shillong, a hill town, offers many unique spots to visit. There are water falls, canyons, lakes, living root bridges, crystal clear waters. Cherrapunjee which was part of every youngster's geography book as the wettest place on earth is there too. With so much to see I was pretty excited.

Going down to the falls

At the falls - the other side

Pavan, Krishna, Ronnie, Santosh and DB

On Day one DB got us two cars which we used to drive to Cherrapunjee, now called Sohra. It was a nice road and we stopped at a couple of places. Once for tea and some pictures and then to see some waterfalls which were some distance below.Apparently there is a root bridge there too called the double decker but DB did not know anything about it so we made do with the tiny water fall. The climb back up was rather strenuous.

Cherrapunjee is now Sohra - and not as wet

Best dosa place

Seller of spices and fiery paans

Then we saw a board that said 'welcome to Sohra' and my childhood dream of visiting Cherrapunjee was fulfilled. It was not wet. In fact there are no rains except in the rainy season. The waterfalls are mere rocks with no water falling. But let's get to that later.

Seven sisters falls

No sister in view

Viewpoint

We stopped at a restaurant where I ate the best dosa in a long while. The waiters were all women and they were really courteous and good hosts. Outside I found a little kid selling paan and bought one - it was deadly - burnt my tongue and the insides of my mouth with whatever lime they put in it. Nothing like the soft sweet paans we are used to back in Hyderabad.

The Fire Department

From there we drove into the village where we saw NIT, Sohra at a faraway place, saw the seven sisters waterfall which had no water. I bought some pineapple from the lady who was selling pineapple and as I knew, the pineapples here are something else. We headed back to Shillong, stopping at a cute wine store on the way to stock our supplies up.

The Barrel Shop!

In Meghalaya the day starts early, and after 2 pm, there is a chance of cloud cover coming in pretty soon, so its not great for sight seeing. The day kind of ends by 430 and it gets quite dark. The day temperatures were about 14 degrees and the night temp was about 6 degrees.

A Street Puppy's Guide to Indian Religious Wisdom - Hari Haran with Iniya

 The book starts quite interestingly in the womb and the narrator is the unborn child, a wise soul dying to share its understanding of the ways of the universe. The wise soul discovers it has been reborn as a doggy swamiji abandoned in a garbage dump. How the dog Vasu is rescued and comes to get embroiled in the worldly drama with other characters, is what the story is about. 

The story revolves around an activist Durga who has her own issues to sort, her tenant Meghna and her daughter Saira, the gardener Manickam, and of course the protagonist, Vasu, the doggy swamiji. The story weaves through the abandonment of Vasu, being adopted by Manickam, loved by Meghna and Saira, detested by Durga, until it changes things. Meanwhile Vasu reveals his wisdom. The story ends on a sad note for those who are used to happy endings but the purpose of the book is to say that sad-happy is only maya.

The religious wisdom however is as such. 

It takes the path of Advaita and questions - what is your essence? Your real nature is not your changing ideals or your beliefs or the thoughts and emotions that arise from that. Your real nature is stillness, a restful awareness.

The one who has Shraddha attains Jnana.

The consciousness that is the foundation of the world is the same as that of your individual being.

Rather than coming from our mind, when we come from our silent awareness, we experience a profound oneness with the same awareness of other beings.

Only when the deeper still awareness is cultivated in you, only when you can relate to the world through your sensitivity can you be said to be fully above the reality.

Knowing that you shall see all beings in yourself.

The still awareness in nature is the persistent ever present reality. all the entities of the world are ephemeral and changing stuff.

The world is a field of expression, a canvas that consciousness created to paint itself.

Your life can bear meaning only when you make it the outward expression of your deepest truth,; an expression of the unique authentic being that you are.

As you abide in your core awareness more and more, your action becomes effortless and smooth.

We saw how self-realisation would transform your work in the world. to see how it transforms relationships - know that you shall see all thing in yourself 

...

It is a well-written book with a good dose of humour that I enjoyed, characters that are in conflict with themselves and the world around them, a dramatic ending. But what I loved most was the way the philosophy was doled out in such a simple way.

Loved read the book and picking up the philosophy. 

Maharani - Ruskin Bond

 Perhaps the raciest of Ruskin Bond's books yet from the ones I read, Maharani'' reads like a semi-autobiographical tale from the author's life. Most of his books are centred around places he lived in, people he knew, the surroundings and so on.

Maharani is someone the narrator meets as a school boy when she was a school girl and they danced and also stole a kiss. But she is a fiesty woman who ends up marrying a maharaja and inherits a lot of money which she spends on having a good time. She has a colourful life with many lovers, drinks, parties and she always has Ruskin, as her go to person and confidante. Her relationships do not work because of her abrasive nature and her health slowly takes a downturn and in the end she dies. The story ends there - rather simple and straightforward. The narrator has no great role to play but narrate, the Maharani is a worthy protagonist who has a strong will (mainly to have a good time). But the books starts off like a shot with Ruskin Bond describing sensually the narrators early feelings for the Maharani. However as their relationship turns out to be nothing more than an adolescent kiss, it ends there.

Definitely out of Ruskin Bond's normal stories and certainly worth a read. One does get a peek into the lonely and insecure lives of the royals or even the rich and one only feels sad for the Maharani (and glad that she has friends like the narrator who seems much like Mr Bond himself)

Worth a read surely.

Kohima, Lovely Hill Station Town

 We headed to Kohima next day in a cab. It was one and a half hour mainly because of the ghats but the ride was quite beautiful and the road in good shape. Our cab driver Ameisha was a pleasant, happy-go-lucky young fellow who knew quite a bit of the local history. The place is 90% Christian and everyone speaks English. Nagaland is the least populated state in India with a population of 20 lakh or so. 

Chatterjee at the War Cemetery

Kohima World War Cemetery

My misconceptions about Nagaland being anything close to the Naga sadhus or anything Hindu went for a toss when Ameisha said the origin was perhaps from South East Asia. Apparently half the Naga tribes are across the border in Myanmar. He was rather nonchalant about saying that he did not know if they had any history - at least he did not know it. He spoke of the tribes - Kuki, Angami and so on. Said some tribes ate snakes etc.

War Cemetery

Anyway our first stop was at the Kohima War Memorial where the British Army stopped the Japanese Army from taking control of the Kohima ridge from where they could have had access to the plains of India leaving it vulnerable. The battle between battle weary Japanese soldiers numbering 5000 or more and British and Indian soldiers numbering some 2500 was considered one of the bloodiest battles of World War II and in terms of strategic gains was considered next to Stalingrad. It was also called the Battle of the Tennis Court because the battle was fought on the tennis court of the District Magistrate.

The tennis court to the left

Me with Ameisha

Anyway the gates to the Memorial were not opened for a long time, it being a Sunday and people going to Church etc. But when it finally opened it was something else. Saw the stones of soldiers who died - young boys 20 years old, the tennis court, the epitaph - tell them we died today so you can have a better tomorrow. Quite poignant.

Interestingly I saw three young boys, very South Indian by looks, cannot be more than 18-20, with large backpacks at one corner of the cemetery. I asked them where they were headed. Turns out they were from Kerala (Trivandrum I think) and they have been hitchhiking all the way from there to here. He said they were going to Arunachal Pradesh and then head back to Guwahati from where they had a flight ticket back home. Trucks etc was their main transport and they said they spent about 500 bucks a day on food. Amazing! Loved their spirit. He told me to check out his stories on Instagram at sebastianchristojose...do check him out.

Been there (a month after)

At the Hornbill Festival place

Model of an Angami tribe hut

From there we went to the Nagaland Heritage Village which was about an hour away in the jungle and one wonders how the Hornbill festival must be with such bare facilities - but they say everything gets jammed, hotels booked, people living in tents and so on. Looks like something to see once.

Very interesting - Birds and Bees Talk to Educate the Youth

We walked around the place, clicked a few pics and made our way back to Dimapur because one of our colleagues had some work at 4.

Lots of interesting stuff - their clothes - they look like they are out of some fashion magazine, their general friendly demeanour, their food - lots of pork and near the Hornbill place I did see a sign that said 'we sell dog meat here'. I wanted to try that dish Axone which I heard of first when I saw a movie of that name. Watch it, its really nice.

Dimapur - Quiet, Laidback Town

 Our first Ranji match was at Dimapur, Nagaland and I decided to go. Chatterjee came from HCAE with his local expertise of having coached Nagaland for three years. We took off early since our flight to Kolkata was at 6 am - 330 am to the airport, the prebooked cab chap didn't show up, a new guy came when I booked but he was so sleepy he kept veering off until we veered into the airport. Realised that digiyatra does not offer more benefits because the queues were equally long but then the process is faster. One uncle got stuck and he squeezed into the gate when his wife's was cleared!

View of the match from the top

Anyway we met our captain Tilak on the flight. Caught some sleep. Chatterjee knew exactly what to do once we get off at Kolkata and we followed him. The flight to Dimapur was a hour and we finally hit ground at a small airport which they say was built by the British at about 11. Contrary to our expectations, it was quite warm. We were put up at Zone Niathu, a resort owned by the CM someone said. Quite decent.

The dining area

This entire piece is one block of solid wood

Some interesting murals

Match the next day. The ground was quite nice and Chatterjee and me sat on the hill and watched Rahul Singh get a double hundred and Tilak get a hundred before we declared and got a wicket as well.

Mornings were about walks - Chattu is rather military about these things with timings etc and I would get a call at 545

and we would out at 6 am. Walking around the resort was good enough - again surprisingly not too cold. This day Hyd bowled Nagaland out twice during the day so we had to full days to spare.

The match referee announced Rahul as the man of the match and we were all offered beautiful scarves of Nagaland and took a nice group picture. Good souveneir.

Lovely gesture by the NCA

At lunch Chattu took me to a few spots around on a Scooty he borrowed from one of his old students. Hilly, green.

At the ground we met a few interesting people including a selector Keviso. We chatted about the Hornbill Festival and he generously offered to host me when I come, he spoke about the time he was studying Law in Pune, asked about my books, checked out the IMDB score on Golconda High School and so on.

Good start to the campaign. Thought we would head to Kohima for a day. 

The Rise of Superman - Steven Kotler

RT shared this book with me saying that this was something I may like. I read it and found that it had many ideas already explained very well by earlier writers - ideas such as the Mindset, Flow, 10000 hour rule to expertise and so on. Mainly however the author tries to differentiate between extreme and mainstreams states of flow. He seems to have researched extreme sports such as skate boarding, surf boarding, freehold climbing, BASE work, gymnastics etc and comes up with many examples of people jumping the Great Wall, performing stunts with great danger and grave injuries and pulling them off (or in some cases dying).

The flow state he describes as one that Csikzentmihalyi says has the following components - clear goals, concentration, a loss of feeling of self-consciousness, a distorted sense of time, direct and immediate feedback, balance between ability and challenge, a sense of personal control over the situation, a lack of awareness of bodily needs and complete absorption into the activity where awareness narrows to the activity itself. So there's Danny Way, Dean Potter, Mike Swanson, Shane McConkey, Alex Honnold. But what caught my eye was the story of Kerry Strug, Olympic gymnast who, despite an injury, scored enough to take her team to gold!

The way to achieve group flow is discussed as well. They are - serious concentration, clear goals, good communication, equal participation, element of risk, familiarity, blending egos, a sense of control, close listening and always say yes. 

"Creativity is just connecting things,'- Steve Jobs. 'Find patterns you haven't seen before.'

It's a book that to me had many examples of extreme sports but not enough material to say how and why its different and how any of the concepts discussed above could help us understand them. Overall a disappointment for me because it left me no wiser about the process though I did learn of a few sporting incidents which I did not know of earlier.

Body Surfing - Anita Shreve

 This was lying on my shelf for ages and I picked it up and read it. A once divorced, once widowed thirty year old lady (daughter of a white mother and a Malayali father) takes up a job of helping out the young daughter of a family. She gets caught between the family currents, almost ends up marrying one brother and finally perhaps marries the other.

Turned out to be an ok read in the end. Interesting characters, a dysfunctional family that has two brothers who seem to hate each other, a young daughter who needs help, a controlling mother. And a messed up protagonist.

But like I said, good only.