Natural and Cultural Feasts in the Capital of Meghalaya—Don Bosco Museum Of Indigenous Arts and Culture, Cherry Blossoms in Bloom at Ward’s Lake and Attending the Shillong Literary Festival

18 Nov, Mon:

Shillong:

Natural and Cultural Feasts in the Capital of Meghalaya—Don Bosco Museum Of Indigenous Arts and Culture, Cherry Blossoms in Bloom at Ward’s Lake and Attending the Shillong Literary Festival

Today turned out to another wonderfully fulfilling day and one that was the stuff of which really brilliant vacations are made. As usual, our day began with breakfast in the community dining room where we feasted on toast with onlettes, poha, toast with preserves for those who wanted it, fresh fruit and coffee. Fueled on this repast, we made our way to the junction point at Laithumkrah to board our bus for the first item on the schedule. It was a museum and I was, honestly, quite skeptical about how good it could be in remote Shillong. Well, I was truly blown away.

Visiting the Don Bosco Museum of Indigenous Arts and Culture:

This Museum is truly a masterpiece. Now, as a trained, certified Museum Docent with 27 years’ experience (I gave tours to international visitors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City), I have never met a museum I did not like. And I do view museums with a critical eye because I do know what to look for and how to make the most of a visit. So, it was with some reservations that I visited this museum. And, believe me, I could not have been more mistaken or astonished!

First off, we were met by a representative of the Museum who explained its layout and structure to us. The visit is self-guided—there are no docents. However, if you start at the bottom (the basement) and work your way up, you not only proceed chronologically (which is the logical way to do it), but you will not be tired despite covering seven floors (as there are only 7 steps separating each tier) as these are short tiers. They are quite brilliantly planned out and organized with alternative male and female restrooms on each floor. The galleries are vast and are superbly planned. We began at the bottom and made our way to the top. On the fourth floor, we stopped for refreshment in the little café. This museum was designed to showcase the culture and lifestyle of the tribal people who populate the Seven Sister States (and the one Little Brother): These are Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh with Sikkim being the Little Brother. A majority of the acreage of these states is covered by indigenous tribes who still maintain the traditional modes of living. Artifacts and heirlooms from their midst were assembled to be placed in this museum and then professionally curated so as to bring method and organization to their placement. The end result is a wonderful space that contains paintings, sculpture, decorative arts in the form of carpets, basketry work, metal items, ceramics, leather goods, embroidery and needlecraft, wooden carvings, farming implements, domestic objects, agricultural dioramas, weaving, spinning, fabric production, taxidermied animals and birds, plus interactive exhibits and installations that can be accessed very easily on the many computer screens on the floors. As this museum was built entirely through funding provided by the international Roman Catholic Salesian Order of Don Bosco (that has branches in every part of the world), and no governmental, federal or state funding whatsoever, there are exhibits that feature the ecumenical and evangelical work undertaken by the various Orders of religious priests and nuns attached to the endeavor. But it was all so perfectly explained and done in a spirit of secular philanthropy that one did not get the impression at all of it being merely an exercise in public relations. The only defect I found was that the pieces on display were not dated. Hence, one had no idea about their age: an absolutely indispensable part of any museum experience for a visitor, to my mind.

Be that as it may, this was truly a world-class museum and definitely worth visiting. As if this were not enough, at the very top, on the rooftop of the seven-storey building is a “Sky Walk’. You can step out on to the roof and walk alongside it and get amazing 360 degree views of the city of Shillong (from the church and school right at the base) to the far-flung hills and mountains in the distance. So, yes, overall, this was a novel experience for us and one that will stay with me for a long while. It helped to take a short breather at the café and get a drink and a snack to refuel before moving on. In the gift shop on the ground floor, we indulged in a bit of retail therapy and bought ground spices, jewelry and other knick-knacks—all of which fund the tribal programs. At the end of the visit, we piled back into our bus and headed to our next stop—a restaurant for lunch.

Lunch at City Hut Dhaba in Shillong:

Through the past few days, we have been in rather remote places for lunch as we spent most of the day outside, sight-seeing. So, it was something of a relief to be able to enter a really lovely restaurant called City Hut, which is one of the better known eateries in Shillong and one of the best-reputed for its food. We made our way to a private section inside past a small waterfall and an abundance of greenery. The place is famed for its Chicken Tikka Masala, so it made sense for us to tuck into that with nothing other than rotis and salad as a starter.

True to its reputation, the Chicken Tikka Masala was outstanding. We had a very companionable meal around a large communal table—as we had all learned to get on with each other ,by this point, and knew our companions well enough to stick around with those who company we enjoyed. We also knew which sour pusses to avoid like the plague. So, lunch was lovely and we ate our fill and were ready to move on, when we were done. The advantage of nice eateries of this kind is that you also get to use a decent rest room—an occurrence that is still rather rare (shamefully) in India.

A Walking Tour of Ward’s Lake:

The next port of call for our little group was Ward’s Lake. This absolutely idyllic man-made lake is set around the most beautiful Victorian gardens—not surprising, considering that it was laid out and dug in 1842 when the British, who owned and farmed all the tea plantations in Assam, needed a space to take the air and decided to design it on the basis of their best-known country gardens back home in England. And so there is a kidney-shaped lake (in which you can do a spot of boating, if it takes your fancy), flower beds still filled with late summer blooms (cannas, in plenty), towering trees that form a canopy as you stroll down the well-demarcated pathways and, get this, of all plantings, an abundance of cherry trees! And what’s more, these cherry trees just happened to be in bloom at the time that we were there—although I am still nonplussed at the phenomenon. I mean, India is in the Northern Hemisphere (just north of the equator, yes, but still very much in the Northern Hemisphere) where it is Autumn at the moment. Now, cherry trees, all over the world, bloom in the spring in the Northern Hesmisphere (as in Japan, for instance—or in the UK or the USA). So, how on earth were these cherry trees blooming in the autumn? There is simply no explanation of which I can think.

Attending the Shillong Literary Festival:

So, anyway…the strange phenomenon of blossoming cherry trees in the Fall aside, we lingered beneath them and took a fair share of pictures under their soft pink boughs before we made our way to the Shillong Literary Festival which just, purely by coincidence, happened to be occurring in Shillong at the time of our visit. I was absolutely delighted as this trip meant that I completely missed the Tata Lit Live Literary Festival occurring at the NCPA in Bombay! So since Mohammed could not to go to the mountain, the mountain came to Mohammed! Certainly that was how I felt when I chanced to come upon the Schedule for Day One (the day we were there) and discovered that three really famous literary luminaries would be presenting in the evening: Vikram Seth (whose works I have actually taught in my courses at NYU), Jerry Pinto (who happens to be a friend) and Shobha De (a celebrity who is a no-fail, best-selling author in India—although barely known in the West).

I had announced in the bus, just before lunch that Llew and I would be attending the Festival (which was free of charge) and invited anyone interested in joining us to come along too. I was surprised when four of our participants immediately decided to join us as did Anita, our tour guide. And so, we entered the shamiana that was set up under the cherry trees and joined hundreds of other book-lovers to listen to contemporary writers from around the world talk about their writing. For the next four hours, we were rooted to our seats and heard all the writers above—some of whom (like Jerry) entertained and enthralled his audience and others like Seth maintaining their distance and coldness in the face of really stupid, embarrassing questions from the audience. After the festival, Llew and I went up to say Hello to Jerry and to pose for a picture with him, at which point, I noticed that Shobha De was also near at hand and managed to get a picture with her too. Overall, it was a thrilling experience to come to Shillong and hear authors with a global presence comment on their work while being interviewed about their creativity. I felt very privileged that we were able to get some worthwhile cultural pursuits into our travels in the north-east too. Truly, it is amazing what you will come upon when you travel and how important it is to grab opportunity by the horns to make these spontaneous possibilities a reality.

All that was left then was to round up with the rest of our group, who had wandered off to a restaurant to use restrooms (the worst restroom experience of our entire trip) in a place that asked you to pay to use a space so gross that the less said about it the better.

We managed to find two cabs to take the eight of us back to our hotel where we headed straight for dinner and feasted on rice, papads, chicken curry, vegetable and a salad with ice-cream for dessert.

Indeed, it had been a very happening day and we were really happy to have made the most of it.

Until tomorrow…cheerio.