Pyramids in India, and Mrs. Hume's pheasant | #114
Also, your guide to Hindustani classical music ➡️
Mitron,
The North East of India is often overlooked and forgotten. With the 75th anniversary of our independence nearing, we thought this would be the perfect time to highlight stories about the 8 states in this region.
This week’s XL-sized newsletter - a whistle stop trip of North East India.
Things we learnt this week 🤓
We first visit the Nathula Pass, and drive past the shrine of Baba Harbhajan Singh. It is believed that his spirit protects every soldier in the inhospitable high-altitude terrain of the Eastern Himalayas. The legend of Baba goes back 35 years when Sepoy Harbhajan Singh of the 23rd Punjab Regiment went missing. A manhunt was launched and it took the army three days to find his body. It is believed that he himself led the soldiers to the site. The enemy clearly got ghosted in this case.
On the way to Arunachal Pradesh we fondly remember the 1997 movie Koyla. This movie is popular with the residents of Tawang as the Sangestar Tao lake was prominently featured in the song ‘Tanhai Tanhai’ from the film and hence the lake is called ‘Madhuri Dixit lake’. It is such a beautiful lake, that your heart will go Dhak Dhak when you see it.
We then take a train to see the rain in Meghalaya. Residents of Meghalaya have grass covered roofs over their houses. It is the popular choice for noise and sound insulation from the rains. Meghalaya is among the wettest places on earth and the rains can get really loud. We’ll miss the rains down in
AfricaMeghalaya.
This has been a long journey and we need to stock up on some groceries. We head out to Ima Keithel or Mother’s market - the largest women-only run market in the world. Back in the 16th century, the men in Manipur would be sent to far off lands to serve the army. This meant that women had to take care of the fields and look out for their families. They started their own markets and now male shopkeepers and vendors are not allowed in Ima Keithel. Ima not gonna lie - this is very interesting.
Lets take a dekko at the Charaideo Maidams of Assam, also known as the 'Pyramids of Assam' houses the burial grounds of several Ahom kings and queens. Considered very holy, there are about 42 tombs at the hill top of Charaideo. So yeah the kings were literally on top of the pyramid.
How is the the founder of the Indian National Congress connected to Mizoram? The founder of the INC was this British civil servant named Allan Octavian Hume. He was also an ornithologist so much so that he is called ‘the father of Indian ornithology’. The state bird of Mizoram is called Mrs Hume’s pheasant after his wife Mary Hume. Their marriage must have been a pheasant experience.
We simply cannot miss seeing the grandeur of the Neer Mahal near Agartala? It is the largest floating palace in the world and it is said to be impossible to shoot the entire palace in one shot unless you are about a kilometre away. So Neer, yet so far.
And we end our long and wonderful journey of the North East by visiting Nagaland for some culinary delights. Nagaland used to be the home of the hottest chilli in the world - Bhut Jolokia. Its heat is so ferocious that Indian villagers use it to keep wild elephants away by smearing it across walls and fences. Though known as Ghost Pepper, the Bhut in Bhut Jolokia is supposed to mean Bhutan and not Bhoot as in Ghost. This chilly might go down well with Free Boos.
From IWTK, with love 💌
The Simbly awesome Narendra Shenoy, curated a “short” thread about Classical Music. Read it with a cup of coffee in hand.
Why is he Balasaheb Thackeray and not Thakre… Now you know.
Quiz Alert 🔎
This could be straight out of The Onion, but it's true - Chinmay M, from Mumbai, achieved a score of 99.956 percentile in the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main 2022's first session. But he is unhappy and wants to take the exam again to improve his score. These toppers I tell you..
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Stay hydrated!
❤️ IWTK