North East of India

A view of Mon town, Nagaland

Recently, a friend and I travelled to some parts of North East India. Apart from the natural beauty that is so completely overwhelming, it was interesting to note the variety of work done by hand. There were handmade wraps of leaves to hold vegetables, woven bamboo containers that held oranges, bamboo baskets of all shapes and sizes, the matting for walls of tribal houses, thatched roofs and of course the beautiful cloth the region is famous for. 

The North Eastern region of India is not about 'wild and forgotten' lands and peoples (forgotten might still hold true). Modern machinery and goods have made its inroads into the villages and towns but demand is greater than supply. Instead of waiting for weeks or months for material to come over the mountains, from the nearby state of Assam, they continue to live as they have from time immemorial - self sufficiently.

A few photographs from the trip:

Ziro town, District HQ, Arunachal Pradesh

Woven baskets of bamboo used for all sorts of purposes

Woven containers and leaf wraps to hold produce & even live creatures.
Bottom left: hanging baskets hold crabs at a roadside market stall

Left: Hanging bridge with bamboo footboards but steel ropes & netting, the newer version.
Right: Only bamboo hanging bridge built fully by hand, the older version

The weaves created in almost every home with a smaller back-strap loom
(pink threads) or on larger hand looms mostly in govt. run craft centres

In and around the house - vessels from gourd to carry liquids;
backpack made of closely woven bamboo; walls of a home made of
bamboo matting and a ladder with deep notches for steps to climb up to the loft

Times are changing though, in larger towns, thatched roofs and walls of bamboo matting are giving way to concrete and tin roofs. Satellite dishes pop out of the tops of most houses and in the evenings as we walked along the homes, we could hear the latest soap operas and Bollywood tunes blaring from the television sets.  One can only hope that a modern outlook to life doesn't erode the better aspects of the traditional living all that easily.