What comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘tribals’? Long earrings? People who hunt and eat? Tattooed faces and almost naked people? Not to blame anyone, but we judge books by their covers. A visit to the Don Bosco Museum and Root Bridges in Meghalaya would change this perspective completely.
We visited the spectacular Single Root Bridge at Riwai today and I can only say that it’s one of the most ingenious bio-engineering project that I have ever seen! The Root Bridges are actual ‘living’ bridges man-made by connecting roots of living trees. In a place like Meghalaya, where monsoon is very heavy, bridges become very important to connect land that is separated by rivers. The root bridges are made by growing multiple trees (mainly fig and banyan) on either banks of the river. Over a period of 15 years, the roots of these trees are connected using various techniques which makes them intertwined thus making the bridge really strong and sturdy. So sturdy that it can even hold elephants if they walk on the bridges. And who makes all these bridges? Not the Govt., not engineers, but the tribals! The tribals have some really mind boggling systems to make these bridges. The root bridges do not disturb the ecosystem, rather they are one of the sustainable ways of solving real-life problems.
To make such an masterpiece, what kind of educational degree do the tribals possess? What would be the level of unification with nature that the tribals would be having to make something of this sort? And what kind of outlook would they be having towards their community and life in general that make them work on a project that will come to life only after 15 years? It’s a different world out there in the tribal community which we cannot gauge through our lens especially when we view from the standpoint of all-knowing educated citizens. The world of tribals evolved in their own ways. The Don Bosco museum displayed various types of beautiful houses designed to suit the terrains of the north east, fishing nets that use valves, amazing musical instruments like xylophones, flutes with 2-6 holes, stringed instruments, hollow tree trunks to produce melodious sounds and not to forget, amazing drums. All these just show that the way music developed in the rest of India, music did not shy away from the north east amongst the tribal regions. They found their own instruments to be one with music. They have been living a hard life and a different culture untouched by the ‘civilised man’. I truly felt ashamed that I don’t know even a bit about these indigenous cultures of the north east as much as I know of the other states of India.
When we saw the Riwai root bridge, I was reminded of the Hollywood movie – Avatar. Riwai was no less beautiful than the planet in Avatar and the geniuses in the tribes were no lesser than the natives of Pandora. While all the changes that are happening in this dynamic world, what we don’t realise is – there exists this world in the north east part of India that is filled with geniuses of a different kind.
PS: Places visited today:
Mawlynnong – Asia’s cleanest village
India-Bangladesh border
Riwai Single Root bridge
Vinay R.Nair's Blog 