It's our SHILLONG...

           

            In this post, I am going to tell you all about my current hometown. Well, to start with, let me tell you that i'm staying in a hill-station currently, known as SHILLONG! 
           Shillong is a nature's paradise, to be honest. It's the capital-city of state MEGHALAYA. I've been living here for last 5 years now, visited all the possible tourist-spots, but still I know that the nature's real beauty is somewhere hidden, maybe in the dense rain-forests, or maybe in the abandoned regions, or maybe somewhere else. Long time back in the past,in 20th century, this city was even inhabited by the BRITISH. But mainly this city is inhabited by KHASIs. Other local tribes of MEGHALAYA also reside here and so do the other tribes of INDIA, specifically the NORTH-EASTERN states. Maybe that's why people call it as - "MINI INDIA", since you can find a portion of most of the tribes of INDIA out here. When I had just shifted to this city, its weather was much more cold than it is today, something one may expect due to global-warming. The KHASI-hills, a part of the GREAT HIMALAYAS surround this city.

           Local-tribe of SHILLONG are known as KHASIs, as already named before above. They have their roots to the MONGOLOID-race, thereby it's obvious that they would have chinky-looks. Happy and cheerful people! That's enough to describe them. Their main occupation is agriculture, as it is for most INDIANS. But a part of them depend on coal-mining for their livelihood. There are large coal-mines in the state, most of the coal is of inferior type. But we must agree that coal-mining is the main industrial-business of the city. But a very interesting fact among the KHASIs is about their after-marriage rules. In most part of the world, including INDIA's most parts, brides shift to the groom's family after marriage and adopts the surname of her groom. But, as it is out here among KHASIs, the groom must shift to the bride's family after wedding! And he must adopt the surname of his bride. Moreover,all the property of the parents would pass to the daughter, and the sons would be practically empty-handed and dependent on their wives for most of their lives! But things have slowly started to change, although the real KHASI custom would remain the same. Maybe this custom makes the future of a woman more safe and secure. Moreover, you would mainly see the women selling vegetables, fishes, other commodities in the market while most of the men remain at home and do the household-works. But as I have already said, these customs are changing gradually because education is swiping through the local-tribes and these traditional-customs are becoming less important. For a long time, in the past, SHILLONG has remained the capital-city of ASSAM, when ASSAM included the entire of NORTH-EAST INDIA. So one can even find ASSAMESE-people in a large number out here. And one can even see the other local-tribes of the MEGHALAYA in this city, for example the GAROS, the JAINTIAS, etc. But interestingly, the people of SYLHET, a district(now in BANGLADESH) are also abundantly found here! It is because before the partition of INDIA, SYLHET was a part of ASSAM. So, during the partition, many HINDU-SYLHETIs(people of SYLHET) decided to move to SHILLONG as SHILLONG is very close to SYLHET, since SYLHET was going to become a ISLAMIC-state and became separated from INDIA. So, overall, SHILLONG provides shelter to all people, no matter where they originally belong to.

Ross Island

Hello friends .

The picture above shows the entrance-view of the Ross Island ,a small island located at a distance of few kilometres from Port Blair ,capital-city of Andaman-Island .

When we visited this island ,we had to make a 15-20 minutes-long ferry-travel from a Port Blair's jetty .
Our journey was quite smooth but there are strong sea-currents all along the route .

Anyways ,let me tell you all about this small-historical island ,which was once ruled by the British during the 1990s .As you will reach the Ross Island jetty ,you would feel that you would have travelled back to past .
It is known that this was the  residence of the families of all the British-officers who worked in the Andaman Island .Then ,it had all buildings one might expect a civilised island to have namely -bazaar, bakery, stores, workshop, water distillation plant, church, tennis court, printing press, secretariat, hospital, cemetery, open air theater,etc.

This is the ruins of the Presbytarian Church of the British who resided in the Ross Island .It has not been renovated in the recent years and this fact draws your imagination to the past .It is a peculiar feeling that one gets on imagining what this church actually looked like a few decades back .The stairs leading to the church-gate are left as they were and walking on those stairs ,one can actually imagine the times when the British-residents walked to this church .

This is the graveyard where the British-residents of Ross Island gor buried on their death .One is sure to get shivers and chills when he walks across this graveyard .This graveyard draws your mind to the past like no-other structure can in this island .It holds back the past-memories which would force your mind to imagine and imagine more .

This is a well-preserved picture of the Ross Island-bazaar ,which flourished with vegetables-and-fruits when the British resided in this island .Now ,only the ruins of the bazaar remain ,with the roots of huge-trees all over it .The ruins would force your mind to imagine as if you are still standing amidst the flourishing-bazaar of the 1990s !








There are many other structures whose only ruins remain there now .But these ruins attract tourists towards this island which was once a civilsed-island in the past .Let your mind flow to the past and imagine ,and you would find yourself in a British-township ,where peace thrived .

Welcome...to my INDIA

That's my india....our india!

It's my first post out here...the start of a long journey for me i reckon!
india's beauty is different from what we see in western-world - that's what pulls the  foreigners to visit india again and again.

The picture above isn't a tourist-spot of course, but it demonstrates the dynamic-beauty of our motherland...the beauty that was never created or built, but rather it descended from Heaven .