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I am on the Air India flight from Kolkata to Shillong, holding hands with a stranger in a grey safari suit. Powerful air currents above Umroi airport are sending our plane into momentary but horrible periods of free fall. After decades of flying, I finally understand what seat belts in planes do - they anchor passengers to their seats when the plane suddenly loses altitude. Eventually, we land only to learn that the turbulence we've experienced isn't unusual at all - it's all in a day's work for the smiling airline staff. As we wobble out on the tarmac, a fellow flier says bracingly, "After an introduction like this one, Shillong can only improve with acquaintance, can't it?"
It does, but not in a way I've anticipated. Just beyond the airport, there's a traffic jam on the highway. But unlike Delhi, nobody here is particularly hassled. People are picnicking, truckers are playing rock (yes, rock) music and the only time they honk is when a particularly good song comes on. Like the turbulence, the traffic jam too is a near-daily occurrence, I hear, which is why locals are so well prepared for it. Shillong, when we finally reach, is a pretty town, crowded, of course, but charming with its picturesque churches, rose-trellised cottages and apple-cheeked children. They say that the rolling Khasi hills reminded European settlers of Scotland. Today, however, the Scotland of the East is a bustling Indian town with a twist.
In the evening, I meet some prominent ladies of the city for drinks. They bustle in from work, order their chhota pegs and tell me how good life is for women in Meghalaya. The three main tribes of Meghalaya - Khasi, Jaintia and Garo-are matrilineal, and ancestral property passes from mother to daughter. All the ladies work, or run successful businesses. In their mid-30s, none of them is married. "But we love to look around," says one amidst peals of laughter. "We're not fussy - any man will do, Indian or foreign, as long as he's not Khasi!" Unsurprisingly, some Khasi men have started Syngkhong-Rympei-Thymmai, Meghalaya's very own men's rights movement, widely reviled by the women.
Spelunking isn't something I've ever tried, so I'm all for it. We drive to Cherrapunjee, then hike to the mouth of the cave. The hills are pockmarked with 'rat holes' - shallow burrows dug by mostly illegal miners to extract coal, found very close to the surface here. After donning the thick canvas overalls, wellies and helmets the guide has provided, we lower ourselves into the cave opening, not much bigger than the rat holes we've just passed. All traces of natural light disappear; the walls close in. Boulders, moulded into weird shapes by centuries of erosion, shine in the meagre light of our headlamps as they lie alongside glorious, glittering heaps of limestone. Maybe this is what Alladin's cave looked like, I think. I espy a spidery insect on the rock. It is bleached of all colour, a ghostly pale creature of the ground. The going isn't for the faint-hearted, but the sights are spectacular.
Suddenly I find myself knee-deep in dark water. Just as some (very) deep breaths calm my jangling nerves, my guide ahead begins to sink rapidly. "It's only quicksand!" he says jollily. "It's very shallow!" I step forward to help, and my foot gets sucked in too. I pull hard and the quicksand finally lets go with a sucking noise that I'm betting will be the stuff of future nightmares. "I've had enough," I croak to the guide.
Unsurprisingly, the return journey takes a mere fraction of the time it took to reach the quicksand. My nerves settle only after I've had deep lungfulls of mountain air and a plate of momos in Cherrapunjee.
I experience no problems with air turbulence on the return flight to Kolkata from Shillong the next morning. Or maybe, after braving quicksand deep under the earth's surface, it just doesn't seem like a big deal any more…
| GETTING THERE |
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