After a half-day trek down 1000 meters to see a living roots bridge, our friends wanted us to go see a famous waterfall, Nohkalikhai in Cherrapunjee. On Day 10 of our travels in the North East, Teja, Dhanno and I thought every where we look is beautiful, we don't want to get back into the car to see something beautiful elsewhere. Specially not if it involved the gruesome ride out of Cherra Resorts.
Teja said, "I don't want to miss the sunset."
Our friends said, "We'll reach the falls before then."
I was skeptical. Dhanno and I had spent a better part of our journey doing speed = distance/time sums. Which somehow had no bearing on the actual time it took us to reach some place.
The 10 of us squeezed into one car. Dhanno was cranky, Thoi was hungry and Namya uncharacteristically quiet. The sky had darkened and we were still 5 kms away. Which could mean 10 minutes or an hour. I removed my sunglasses. The sky lightened and held out some hope.
The kids refused to get out of the car to see the waterfall. We sent them some tea and biscuits, which they ate and slept. Teja, Bubu and Surjit took photos of the sky.
The next day, Bubu told me how the fall got its name. Nohkali loved a boy from her village. When her husband found out about their affair, he cut up her lover, cooked him and served her the meat. She found a finger in her food. She went mad with grief, ran and jumped into the valley. And the fall is named after her. I'm glad he didn't tell me the story while we were there, sipping our tea.
7 comments:
Ahhh, family vacations. I too was cranky when I was forced to go along to beautiful places with people I was related to. I spent one day in the Rocky Mountains watching tv in our motel room. My mom said "Do you need to be by yourself for a while?" and I said "YES." They came back talking about the beautiful scenery and I didn't care.
:-) Beautiful photos! I am dying to see North East India.
And here I am getting an overdose of Shahrukh. Kal ho na ho in the afternoon, dilwale dulhania at night.
I think the tv set will soon start shuddering hysterically.
Lovely sky.
I remember a trip to NE. It was very beautiful, green, and all that, but as soon we out of the plane at Calcutta airport, I felt, ah, civilization at last.
Beautiful photographs! Grim story.
Cute Dhanno:)
Banno, hi! Yeah, the photos take me places. Speaking of places, your vacation has nudged me to go to Brazil for the summer. I need a break and some inspiration, for which there's nothing like the source itself.
Is that your silhouette in the upper left photo? You have a lovely silhouette.
Thank you, Indie.
Sigh, beautiful pictures, lucky you
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