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Trip to ASSAM AND MEGHALAYA
21st-28th DECEMBER, 2012
‘The North East through the eyes of a Pathwazian’, was indeed an eye-opener for the Pathways Contingent of 21 students and 02 leading teachers. The Geography and ESS students of PWS—Aravali started their venture into Assam and Meghalaya, the North Eastern States of India, on the 21st December 2012 for their IBDP fieldwork. We arrived in the ‘Scotland of the East’, Meghalaya after a day’s drive from the Guwahati Airport. We stayed at the North Eastern Hill University NEHU guesthouse, which was the perfect start to our beautiful stay in the North East of India. This trip has opened new frontiers in terms of learning exposures for our students in new settings and has also doubled up as a reconnaissance for looking at Assam [Kaziranga & Majuli] in the long run, for fieldwork in the IG & IB subjects of Geography and Environmental Studies and also generic travel itineraries which allow students to explore the North East of India in motley groups during their summer/winter vacation breaks.
We are grateful for all the care, safety and convenience which was offered to us, in each of the modules of Purvanchal 2012.. The visit to the Karbi-Anglong Tribal Village in Kaziranga made our students completely comfortable and safe in an alien setting where our ‘urbane’ students got to interact freely with ‘Scheduled Tribes of India’ in a pristine setting.
The walk on the Living Root Bridge in Sohra, Cherapunjee was our encounter with a Natural wonder of this world, which was incredible for our students who only understand concrete architecture, and had never dreamt of “living architecture”, whereby the roots of the fig tree where grown across the banks of a river and the knowledge was handed over from generation to generation to sustain the strength and longevity of this living root bridge..truly Incredible! The visit to the Nohkalikhai Falls in Cherapunjee was also a record that we established as the First NCR school to make it to the erstwhile rainiest place in the world, which now has tough competition with Maw Syn Ram, only a few kilometers away. The exuberant Grade 11 ESS students conducted their fieldwork, meticulously testing different soil samples for varying temperatures, while the others had fun jumping from one end of the bridge to the other.
For the record, we are the first school from the NCR to have visited this natural wonder, the Living Root Bridge. In the evening, we went to the Sacred Heart Cathedral, where we devoted some our time to prayer. Most of us thought about the Ancient Root Bridge and the matriarchal system prevalent in Meghalaya as unique features of Meghalaya, the Abode of Clouds! We also chuckled to see ‘Duck and Pigeon curry’ a delicacy of Assam, on the menu-card!
Our Majuli module will be forever etched in our memories for the ultimate stay on the Largest River Island in the world with the Mishing Tribals. The orientation with the Tribal Chief, Amiyo Chirang was rather effective, and we are still in touch, telephonically! Mr.Amiyo Chirang from the Mishing tribe told us the meaning of the word, MAJULI which is MA – Lakshmi and JULI - Treasurer. We discovered that the villagers live in “Chang Ghar” which is a raised house made of bamboo, literally on stilts! There are 300 villages in Majuli and 20 houses in eachvillage. We saw the houses equipped with solar panels, the only source of electricity for them. After this interaction with the tribals we watched two traditional dances named ‘Mishing Bihu’ and ‘Garmuk’. Our visit to three famous and important monasteries of Majuli Island; the family monastery, Shri Shri Uttara Kamalabari Satra where we were lucky to see a group of monks perform the ‘Kshhatriya dance’ (traditional dance involving drums and cymbals “Jhaptaal”) and then the largest and the oldest monastery in Assam which is 357 years old and is home to 400 monks will be forever etched in our memories.
We hope to work on more sustainable projects with these tribals which will engage our students in real life settings for life-long learning. The ride on the ferry from Nematighat to Kamalabari with the local people who travel to and fro Majuli island on a daily basis to lead their lives, was a defining one, in terms of our understanding of how people in remote parts of India live and work. The visit to the satras, and a peek into the lives of the monks and their Arts and Crafts have only reminded us that we are rather rich in our cultural legacy, and the least that we can do is to know more about these dying artforms.
Going to Kaziranga, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the encounter with the majestic one- horned Rhino at such close quarters, was unbelievable. Atop elephants, we moved leisurely across the Kaziranga National Park, which is home to the Big 5, Water Buffalo, Rhino, Elephant, Swamp Deer and Bison. Meeting CNN IBN Real Hero, Dhanidhar Boru was the icing on the cake, in terms of what we understood about the intricacies of conservation of Nature and the limitations of the real workers at the grass root level.The penultimate day of the fieldtrip took us to the Hollonga Par Hollock Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary in Moriani, the only Gibbon conservation park in the whole of Asia. We spotted the Giant Squirrel, the second largest squirrel in Asia, Hollock Gibbon, Slow Loris and a diverse range of wild spiders. And on the last day,interacting with the students of the Maria’s Public School was refreshing, as our students saw the fire and passion in their peers from this part of the world.
Words will not be enough, for all the care that you have taken of all of us, while we moved freely in Assam and Meghalaya. And am equally proud of our contingent, who conducted themselves with grace and confidence and represented Pathways, rather well in this part of India.
Thank you! Pathways [Dr Sarvesh Naidu, Arvind Chalasani, my students and Parents], Speedbird Travels, Nellie Ahmed of Maria Public School and a special thanks to Nivedita Hazarika, Director Tourism Government of Assam, India. Finally we would like to thank the accompanying teachers, Ms.Bhagirathy Jhingran, who envisioned this trip and Mr. Guru Charan Kumar who was a ‘live-wire’ throughout the trip.
Text: JhanviTiwari , Grade 11
21st-28th DECEMBER, 2012
‘The North East through the eyes of a Pathwazian’, was indeed an eye-opener for the Pathways Contingent of 21 students and 02 leading teachers. The Geography and ESS students of PWS—Aravali started their venture into Assam and Meghalaya, the North Eastern States of India, on the 21st December 2012 for their IBDP fieldwork. We arrived in the ‘Scotland of the East’, Meghalaya after a day’s drive from the Guwahati Airport. We stayed at the North Eastern Hill University NEHU guesthouse, which was the perfect start to our beautiful stay in the North East of India. This trip has opened new frontiers in terms of learning exposures for our students in new settings and has also doubled up as a reconnaissance for looking at Assam [Kaziranga & Majuli] in the long run, for fieldwork in the IG & IB subjects of Geography and Environmental Studies and also generic travel itineraries which allow students to explore the North East of India in motley groups during their summer/winter vacation breaks.
We are grateful for all the care, safety and convenience which was offered to us, in each of the modules of Purvanchal 2012.. The visit to the Karbi-Anglong Tribal Village in Kaziranga made our students completely comfortable and safe in an alien setting where our ‘urbane’ students got to interact freely with ‘Scheduled Tribes of India’ in a pristine setting.
The walk on the Living Root Bridge in Sohra, Cherapunjee was our encounter with a Natural wonder of this world, which was incredible for our students who only understand concrete architecture, and had never dreamt of “living architecture”, whereby the roots of the fig tree where grown across the banks of a river and the knowledge was handed over from generation to generation to sustain the strength and longevity of this living root bridge..truly Incredible! The visit to the Nohkalikhai Falls in Cherapunjee was also a record that we established as the First NCR school to make it to the erstwhile rainiest place in the world, which now has tough competition with Maw Syn Ram, only a few kilometers away. The exuberant Grade 11 ESS students conducted their fieldwork, meticulously testing different soil samples for varying temperatures, while the others had fun jumping from one end of the bridge to the other.
For the record, we are the first school from the NCR to have visited this natural wonder, the Living Root Bridge. In the evening, we went to the Sacred Heart Cathedral, where we devoted some our time to prayer. Most of us thought about the Ancient Root Bridge and the matriarchal system prevalent in Meghalaya as unique features of Meghalaya, the Abode of Clouds! We also chuckled to see ‘Duck and Pigeon curry’ a delicacy of Assam, on the menu-card!
Our Majuli module will be forever etched in our memories for the ultimate stay on the Largest River Island in the world with the Mishing Tribals. The orientation with the Tribal Chief, Amiyo Chirang was rather effective, and we are still in touch, telephonically! Mr.Amiyo Chirang from the Mishing tribe told us the meaning of the word, MAJULI which is MA – Lakshmi and JULI - Treasurer. We discovered that the villagers live in “Chang Ghar” which is a raised house made of bamboo, literally on stilts! There are 300 villages in Majuli and 20 houses in eachvillage. We saw the houses equipped with solar panels, the only source of electricity for them. After this interaction with the tribals we watched two traditional dances named ‘Mishing Bihu’ and ‘Garmuk’. Our visit to three famous and important monasteries of Majuli Island; the family monastery, Shri Shri Uttara Kamalabari Satra where we were lucky to see a group of monks perform the ‘Kshhatriya dance’ (traditional dance involving drums and cymbals “Jhaptaal”) and then the largest and the oldest monastery in Assam which is 357 years old and is home to 400 monks will be forever etched in our memories.
We hope to work on more sustainable projects with these tribals which will engage our students in real life settings for life-long learning. The ride on the ferry from Nematighat to Kamalabari with the local people who travel to and fro Majuli island on a daily basis to lead their lives, was a defining one, in terms of our understanding of how people in remote parts of India live and work. The visit to the satras, and a peek into the lives of the monks and their Arts and Crafts have only reminded us that we are rather rich in our cultural legacy, and the least that we can do is to know more about these dying artforms.
Going to Kaziranga, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the encounter with the majestic one- horned Rhino at such close quarters, was unbelievable. Atop elephants, we moved leisurely across the Kaziranga National Park, which is home to the Big 5, Water Buffalo, Rhino, Elephant, Swamp Deer and Bison. Meeting CNN IBN Real Hero, Dhanidhar Boru was the icing on the cake, in terms of what we understood about the intricacies of conservation of Nature and the limitations of the real workers at the grass root level.The penultimate day of the fieldtrip took us to the Hollonga Par Hollock Gibbon Wildlife Sanctuary in Moriani, the only Gibbon conservation park in the whole of Asia. We spotted the Giant Squirrel, the second largest squirrel in Asia, Hollock Gibbon, Slow Loris and a diverse range of wild spiders. And on the last day,interacting with the students of the Maria’s Public School was refreshing, as our students saw the fire and passion in their peers from this part of the world.
Words will not be enough, for all the care that you have taken of all of us, while we moved freely in Assam and Meghalaya. And am equally proud of our contingent, who conducted themselves with grace and confidence and represented Pathways, rather well in this part of India.
Thank you! Pathways [Dr Sarvesh Naidu, Arvind Chalasani, my students and Parents], Speedbird Travels, Nellie Ahmed of Maria Public School and a special thanks to Nivedita Hazarika, Director Tourism Government of Assam, India. Finally we would like to thank the accompanying teachers, Ms.Bhagirathy Jhingran, who envisioned this trip and Mr. Guru Charan Kumar who was a ‘live-wire’ throughout the trip.
Text: JhanviTiwari , Grade 11
