TRAVEL DIARY - # OBSERVATIONS AND REMARKS - CUSTOMES AND LANGUAGE - MEGHALAYA

 

KHRANGSURI waterfalls 

NOHKALIKAI FALLS

On your travel.You are so lucky if  you get a good English speaking driver as your travel companion , you can easily dig out as much unbiased, uncooked  local information as possible – no bullshits like some guides give. They speak the truth, and it is your capability  to extract the quality of information  from them  , it is rather to talk about the day to day  civilian life than  about the strong subjects; ,   they will be exited to share their perspectives  about their  marriages , functions, dowry, sex, boose, night life  etc than to economics and politics and they express it in  their own simple terms  and impressions. During my trip to Meghalaya, I got “Maradona” as my  driver - good , neat  , betel nut chewer **, well mannered and English speaking.

When I asked  about his name he said, everybody in Meghalaya are foot ball freaks and it is common to hear names like Ronaldo, Kaka and names like that , we had a very interesting conversation about naming , I was amused to listen to him when he said there are persons in the name of  countries ..... like Italy , Argentina, Sweden .... and also , Napoleans, Hitlers , and  Nehrus “

“so I can comfortable say that Hitler and Churchill were boozing yesterday” .....  , I laughed.

"Yeah! you can also say that “ Stalin’s daughter dated with  Neymar  .....Lol"

 

I tried to read a board in front of a Govt building  written in somewhat  like English, but I couldn’t  read,  Maradona pointed that  its  written in Khasi language, 

 “its very simple sir, its like our whatsapp or SMS language ,like the way you  write Tamil in English “

Later on I researched in Google and found that the Khasi language  didn’t have a script of its own . When the Christian missionary came here to propagate  their religion in the early 19^th century  , they wanted to communicate to the local people to pass on their propagation materials, so they formed a script with Latin Alphabetical system .They removed some alphabets from English and added some letters to that  to accommodate the local dialect and formed a mixture which gives the appearance of English but sounds differently , and that formed a good script .Khasi language  is spoken widely in Meghalaya, Assam and some of the far eastern countries as well . 

**Meghalaya is the place were ,  adolosend and  adults ,cannot live without chewing  bettle nuts and leaves, you can see people chewing it ,selling it every where,  it is  used in all occastions , for auspicious or inauspicious functions, for hospitality, for friendship, for  entertainment, for watching foot ball match etc; they spent a lot of money on it , they can live without food but not without a dose of bettleleaf and nut. I was Watching Maradona, he skipped his lunch , but cleared multiple doses of bettle nut, he even shared some to his fellow drivers , while I got down for site seeing.  

- OBSERVED ON 27TH MAY 2019 - Meghalaya