A Goodly Woman for a Goodly Man

I received an interesting email today:

Hey. My name is Ekaterina :) I'm from Kirghizia and very goodly woman! and I'm trying to find goodly Man ;) If You are interested ;) reply me ;) I can send You my photo attached, good bye)

Unluckily for her, this goodly man has already found his goodly woman.

The Living Root Bridges of Cherrapunjee

We walked down the rough path leading to the river by the village of Mawlynnong. As we approached an jaw-dropping sight awaited - the living root bridges of Cherrapunjee. It takes a lot to impress me, considering what I see in the mirror each day, but I was truly in awe.

Before I could explore it further I was asked to partake in a Bollywood-style photo shoot, heroically posing with my driver’s girlfriend as he captured the magic on camera. After quite a few pictures had been taken, the couple wandered off and I made my way to the bridge to explore it in detail.

Often compared to something that came straight out of Tolkien’s Middle Earth, the fantastical living root bridges of Cherrapunjee are in fact a harmonious collaboration between the forces of nature and humanity.

The roots of living banyan trees on one side of the river banks are guided towards the other side using a tree shaping mechanism developed by the indigenous (and ingenious) Khasi people. Betel nut trunks that point in the desired direction that the banyan tree should grow provide a skeletal structure for the roots to wrap themselves around. When the roots reach the other side of the river they take take hold in the soil.

Ever strengthening, the roots grow thicker and thicker as the years pass. The suspension bridges can support up to 50 pedestrians. They have lifespans that can extend to over 500 years. There is even a double decker bridge with two trees stacked on top of each other. It is unknown when the first such bridge was constructed or whose brainchild it was, but the living roots remain one of the world’s most renewable and remarkable constructs.

*****

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

~ Aristotle

Asia's Cleanest Village

As it was Valentine’s Day, my driver asked for permission to bring his girlfriend along on our day trip to Mawlynnong, Asia’s ‘cleanest village’ and home of the spellbinding living root bridges. A true romantic, I acquiesced to his request. He picked me up outside my hotel early in the morning and we headed over to his aunt’s place for breakfast. He belonged to the Khasi tribe, a matrilineal clan that calls this region home. Thankfully the Khasis enjoy a meat-centric diet. I immediately dug into some tasty pork meatballs.

The driver’s girlfriend was taking a while to get ready, so he dropped me at the nearby Elephant Waterfalls while he went to pick her up. After wandering around three different waterfalls I met up with the couple at the exit of the popular tourist site, where we exchanged pleasantries and had some tea at a stall before starting our road trip in earnest. On the way we stopped at a roadside Khasi diner for more delicious delicacies consisting of animal flesh and internal organs.

Home to approximately 100 households, Mawlynnong was arbitrarily named "Asia’s Cleanest Village" by Discover India magazine several years back and the moniker stuck. All the waste generated by the households of Mawlynnong is collected in bamboo dustbins and composted, while littering is a fineable offense. The entire community is aware of the need to coexist with nature and boasts a 100% literacy rate too boot.

Tucked away in a remote part of northeast India 90 km from Shillong, the village is cleaner than the balance sheet of a firm audited by a Big 4 accounting firm. The forest cover around the village is not especially dense, but a canopy of trees provides sufficient shade to comfortably drape the entire village. Agriculture is the primary industry and betel leafs the main crop. Pathways wind around the homes and lead to a staircase down to a nearby river where the most magnificent site of Mawlynnong awaited.

*****

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean. 

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe