Meghalaya, September 11 Nongriat (Nikon)
Director: Anushka Meenakshi, Iswar Srikumar; Cinematographer: Anushka Meenakshi, Iswar Srikumar
Duration: 00:37:16; Aspect Ratio: 1.778:1; Hue: 85.324; Saturation: 0.110; Lightness: 0.494; Volume: 0.172; Cuts per Minute: 24.012
Summary: Nongriat – the flora and fauna
It’s
only upon leaving the city that we realised the variety of life that inhabits
the same space as us. The colours, shapes and sizes, the musical calls, the
focus with which these creatures work, all add up to create nothing short of a
performance. Walking from Mawshmok, a village near Cherrapunji, to Nongriat, we
lost our way, and ended up on a a rough, narrow and slippery path, surrounded
by this magical, dense, jungle –I’d imagine the Amazon to look something like
this – and we kept stumbling across amazing insect life, giant spiders, stick
insects, a green snake, all sorts of bugs and creepy crawlies, all these lovely
sights to a pretty intense background percussion score of an army of high
pitched cicadas.
Rakesh Khanna
Meet
Rakesh Khanna, mathematician, musician, publisher, maker-up of songs, lover of
creepy crawlies, and good friend. Rakesh has a predilection for creatures of
all sorts, and this funny bug was just one of the many that were drawn to him.
The first time we ever met Rakesh, he sang this song, his own composition, for
us. This was at a party where he accompanied other singers by blowing tunes
into a beer bottle. He wasn't very happy with the pitch of the bottle so he
kept taking small sips till the bottle was perfectly tuned. Since then we've
discovered that Rakesh can make funny sounds from a whole host of everyday
things and body parts.
The
living root bridges
One
of the things that people say you absolutely have to see in Meghalaya are the
living-root bridges that are found all over the Khasi hills. Getting to most of
these bridges – maybe all – requires some kind of a trek and we decided to go
see the one at Nongriat, which is a double-decker root bridge.
The
hanging roots of a ficus tree are
pulled and tied together to create a bridge across a gorge or river. After
about 15 odd years these roots fuse and become thick enough to take a good amount
of weight. The locals make and look after these living root bridges. We saw at least
five of these and the impressive double-decker living root bridge which is made
above a pool of water and a waterfall.
Meghalaya/September 11 Nongriat/Nikon/DSC_0015.MOV
Spider weaving web
Nongriat, Meghalaya
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Spider weaving web
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Spider weaving web
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Spider weaving web
Group walking
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Anushka walking downhill
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Spider at its web
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Spiderat its web
Leaf hanging off spider web
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Tree snake
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Tree snake
Living root bridge
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Walking across the living root bridge
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Walking across the living root bridge
Man sawing wood
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Beetle stuck in spider web
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Double decker living root bridge in Nongriat
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Iswar and Anushka walking across living root bridge
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Iswar and Anushka walking across living root bridge
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Never ending staircase
Crossing a metal wire bridge
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Crossing a metal wire bridge
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Crossing a metal wire bridge
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Never ending staircase
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Never ending staircase
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Never ending staircase
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Never ending staircase
Ants and ball worm
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Ants and ball worm
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Ball worm
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Curl up into a ball
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Flowers
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Kids sliding down slope
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