The Second Phase
At
Guwahati railway station we were received by volunteers of SPIC-MACAY who took
us to the lush green campus of IIT, which was hosting the event, by bus as this
place was nearly 20 kms from railway station. From Chittorgarh there were nearly
15 delegates who had come by train to attend this meet. Before proceeding
further I would like to give introduction to SPIC-MACAY to those who are
ignorant about it so that the people who may come across my blog may come to
know about it. It is an acronym that stands for Society for Promotion of
Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth which was started in 1978 by Dr.
Kiran Seth, a Professor of IIT Delhi with a view to introduce classical culture
of India to the youth of the country by organizing concerts of classical music,
dance, Folk music and dance in the school , college and university campuses.
Today it has become an international movement with its chapters in London and New
York . This organization holds its international
convention annually. As it was an international convention so there were
delegates from other countries as well like Pakistan ,
Iran , Bhutan and even Zambia . After registration and
other formalities male members of our delegation were put in Barrack Hostel,
named not after the name of President of U.S.A but after the name of region of
Assam though I had misapprehension for atleast a couple of days that this
hostel was named after Mr. Barrack Obama, President of U.S.A. Female members
of our delegation was put up in
Subansiri Hostel and food was served to nearly 1200 delegates thrice a day in
Dhansiri, which was also a girl’s hostel. After placing the luggage in the room
allotted to me in Barrack hostel and wash and change we trooped towards
Dhansiri hostel for the lunch. After the lunch or rather holistic lunch we move
towards Bhupen Hazarika auditorium of IIT where the conceptual session was
being addressed by Dr. Kiran Seth. He was apprising of the audience about the
routine and activities that will take place in forthcoming five days of the
meet. Dr. Seth also called on the stage stalwarts and pillars of this movement
to inspire and motivate the audience. After Kiran Seth’s lecture the
international meet was formally inaugurate with the recital of flute maestro
Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia, and the distinguished audience was Mr. P.B. Acharya,
Hon’ble Governor of Assam and Nagaland who stayed spellbound for nearly two
hours during the performance of Panditji. Next day the routine that was handed
over to us was so strenuous that even on that day I felt that a few delegates
would be able to attend every activity of the meet. Day was to start at 4
a.m with Yoga upto 7 a.m, followed by
breakfast at 8.00 a.m and then Intensive Workshops from 9 a.m to 1 p.m,
followed by lunch and after lunch there were concerts and performances by
various artists which continued till 5.30 p.m after which dinner was served and
concerts were resumed after dinner and continued till 10 p.m followed by Night
nutrition. So it was nearly 11 p.m when we reached the room of our hostel. Every delegate was required to
opt one yoga exercise- Hat Yoga, Nada Yoga or other type of yogas and atleast
one intensive workshops like painting, dancing , calligraphy, creative writing.
and the like. This tough and strenuous routine appeared less palatable to the
young delegates as who were more interested in roaming around.
Next day was a bit hard for me,
though it was nice of the volunteers, who took all the trouble of waking us up
by coming to every door of the room of the hostel so that we could be well in
time to reach the yoga class. But unfortunately during the night a live
electric wire felon the road as a result of which security personnel of IIT
blocked the road and so we had to take longer route and secondly an elderly
gentleman met me who also had come to attend the meet, but as he was a heart
patient so he could not walk for a long time. He had to stop after a few steps
to regain his breath. And as I cold not leave him in the lurch so I accompanied
him as a result of which I was quite late on the first morning. So as to avoid
being more late so I entered the nearest room in the building which happened to
be of Nada Yoga. So though I had joined it as default but I attended it daily
without fail. First day Guruji with closed eyes was chanting the sargam and as
I was late so I stepped into the room quietly and spreading my sheet on the
floor, sat on it and started repeating whatever Guruji was uttering but with
full sincerity. It was not that I reached there exactly at 4.00 a.m in the
morning daily I was bit late on other days too but I attended this activity
each day. That day after yoga I went to take my breakfast and after wards to my
hostel for wash and change. The same thing happened with intensives too. In
order to avoid the route blocked by live wire, I tried to find some short route
but only succeeded in losing my way and by a much longer route I could reach my
destination. Again to avoid being more late I joined the nearest intensive that
was going on and that was of wood carving or calligraphy. I found my friend
from Islamabad (Pakistan) sitting there, so I decided to stay there as a
gentleman and a lady were teaching us the finery of this art and my knowledge
of urdu alphabets, that I had learnt some days ago , was getting revised so I
decided to stay there. But on the evening of the same day I heard a talk by
Gyanpeeth Awardee Marathi author Mr. Balachandran Nemade, who also taught
English in a college at Pune on the theme of Nativism. Though I like his speech
but still I did not have any intention to join his workshop on Creative
writing. But on the second day some gentleman pointed out to me that I was not
meant for that workshop and I should join something else as it was meant for
young children but when I insisted on staying
there he even point out to me that I was straining their resource. To avoid any
further dispute I quietly left that workshop after informing the lady. So on
the third day I joined the workshop on
creative writing which was being taken by Mr. Balchandran Nemade, as my room
mates of the hostel were in that workshop and they asked me also to join it. So
I accepted advise of my young companions and I joined it and enjoyed it for the
next three days.
In the evenings or rather after
lunch in the late afternoons there were some great concerts, talks, stage
shows, and the like, including Mr. Nemade’s talk. On the second day the stage
performance by Shekhar Sen on the life of Vivekananda was simply marvelous. The
performances of Purulia Chau of Mr. Tarapada Rajak group and Odissi dance
performance by Aruna Mohanty was also simply spell binding. Next day we
witnessed vocal performance by Smt. Girija devi and the Lion Dance of
Sikkim The performances of Naga Dance, Wangala Dance, Mizo choir were also
inspiring but the Kathak of Pt. Rajendra Gangani was simply wonderful. Next day
there was screening of Japanese classic movie Kaghamoushai and with that there
were concerts by Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt and T.V Sankarnarayana.. Next day was
entirely devoted to divine music of different faiths which included gurubani
recital, Warsi Brothers, Naga/Mizo choir of the church and music composed by
monks from Tawang Monastery.
Thus we came to the last day of the
meet whose special feature was overnight concert. So the routine of this day
was altered a bit, though it began with morning yoga followed by diverse
intensives but after lunch there were no concerts as delegates were allowed to
go to their hostel rooms and to take rest for a few hours till dinner as after
dinner the overnight concert will commence and nobody will be allowed to leave
the hall. I was so busy in the activities of the meet that I did not know that
we were sitting on the bank of great river Brahmputra. I got this news from my
wife who went to visit that place in the morning. So that day just before the
overnight concert we went to have a cup of coffee after dinner at Café Coffee
Day situated near the hall where the concert was to take place. Weather was
quite pleasant as it had rained quite well a day earlier. I was flattered when
a bearer of that place told me that my face resembled with Mr. Narendra
Modi, Prime Minister of India as I was
clad in Kurta and Payjama( Aligarhi) and
I had put on my spectacles. In the overnight concert there were spellbound
performances by Kottiyam artist, vocal performance by Ms. Ashwani Bhide and it
finally ended with the performance of Dagur brothers’ dhrupad. This concert
gave an endurance test to us as we had nearly been awake for nearly 36 hours,
except a few snatches of sleep between two performances during the overnight
concert. This concert was over by 7.30 a.m in the morning nearly ninety minutes
behind schedule. So directly from auditorium we went to have breakfast in the
mess and then proceeded to our hostel rooms to get ready for the sight seeing
in and around Guwahati. As the overnight concert ended late so the excursion to
sight seeing could only start at 1.30 p.m after lunch and it was also reduced
to just one place. As we had opted for Hajo temple, which was a temple of Lord Vishnu Pakistan , went to see it and we
remained content by seeing a smaller at the base of the hill known as Patnijama
Mosque. That due to scarcity of time we could not pay visit to the famous place
of Guwahati Kamakhaya temple. At this point of time the Fourth International
SPIC_MACAY meet ended amidst the heavy showers on the evening of that day.
As our train from Guwahati was on
18-5-2016, so we decided to utilize these two days to visit Shillong and
surrounding areas. We were about 13 persons who hired two Tata Sumo vehicle to
visit these places. After passing
through the town of Shillong
we reached our destination known as Elephanta falls, which was a natural
waterfall in three stages and it was discovered by some Englishman who named it
as Elephanta Fall on the basis of rocks, surrounding it, resembling to the
shape of an elephant though now these rocks have been destroyed in an
earthquake. Here we were busy in taking snaps and moving around amidst the lush green enchanting environment.
After that out next stop was at the view point but as it had started to drizzle
and clouds started gathering in enchanting valley., so most members of our
group did not get down from their vehicle but I and my wife got down from it
and took snap in the local attire of Garo tribe known a King and Queen with me
as a King and my wife as a queen.. We took a number of snaps in this local get
up that we had hired for Rs. 50 each. After that our next stop was at RK
mission started by Swami Vivekananda in honour of his spiritual guru
Ramakrishna Paramhans. Then we stopped at Mosemogram where we went to see natural
Mosemow caves. Before we entered the
caves we decided to have lunch at a local hotel and we demanded chappatis, but
as they were more familiar with serving rice so they were not able to meet our
demands. Afterlunch we entered these ancient rocky caves. This place was full
of hanging rocks dripping in water but these rocks were not slippery but they
were hanging from the roof and placed at
such an angle that we had to bend our body to squeeze through these rocks.
Though in the beginning it was a fearful experience but on the whole it was a
worthy adventurous experience. The clouds had come so low that there was a
haziness in the environment which made us feel as if we were walking through
the clouds. Due to rain and dense clouds
we could not see anything at Seven sisters fall though we could hear the sound
of falling water beyond which lay Bangladesh . As there was dense fog
so we decided to turn back to Shillong and checked in a hotel at the prime
place in Shillong known as Centre Point. Earlier Shillong was capital of Assam and after the new state of Meghalaya –
abode of the clouds- was created it served as capital of both Assam and Meghalaya for some time after which Assam decided
to shift its capital to Dispur- a place near Guwahati. After the dinner we
slept in our rooms of the hotel and during the night discussion I came to know
that nearly 80% of residents of Meghalya are Christians though they belong to
different tribes of which Garo, Khasi and Janitia were the prominent ones. I
also came to know that since these tribes did not have a written language so
missionaries of this area prepared a Roman script for this tribal language and
newspapers are published both in English as well as in tribal language but in
roman script.
As I and my wife were early risers
so we went for morning walk while our friends were still sleeping. We took the
walk down the main street that housed the library of legislative assembly of
Meghalaya and a Pentecostal church where we had snap with a small white
pomerian and with a dwarf barely four feet tall. In the morning we realized
that we were staying at a premier place in Shillong known as the Centre Point. After
the breakfast at a south Indian restaurant we went to see zoo and park though
it did not contain any animal except abear, some parrots, monkeys and
antelopes. After that we went to see Shillong peak which also housed Air-Force
Station. As this peak was situated in Air-Force area so we were let in only
after a thorough security check up. From the tower on the peak we saw a bird’s
eye view of Shillong town from a powerful telescope. We decided to skip the
lunch and preferred to take only bananas and pineapple pieces. Banana was very
might in size so after taking it we did not feel any need of meals. After the
visit to this peak we decided to turn back to Guwahati and on our way back we
saw breathtaking panoramic view of Umiam lake which appeared like a bird. On
the way back we also visited Kamakhaya
Devi Temple
Next day was our last
day in Guwahati but still new experiences awaited us. It was a mere coincidence
that I came across one gentleman whom my father had taught at Sainik School
Chittorgarh way back in sixties. This fellow named Mr. Ranjeet Hazarika came to
meet us at Chittorgarh in 2013 A.D. So I had his phone number with me and I
could contact him easily and he came to meet us by tracking down me to my
hostel on the third day of the meet. Mr. Hazarika invited us to his house and
he promised us to leave at the Guwahati station. He lived in Ganesh guri which
formed the part of 
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