Mawsynram, Jul 30 : Deep in India's northeast, villagers use grass
to sound-proof their huts from deafening rain, clouds are a familiar
sight inside homes and a suitably rusted sign tells visitors they are in
the "wettest place on earth".
Oddly enough, lifelong residents
of Mawsynram, a small cluster of hamlets in Meghalaya state have little
idea that their scenic home holds a Guinness record for the highest
average annual rainfall of 11,873 millimetres (467 inches).
"Really,
this is the wettest place in the world? I didn't know that," Bini
Kynter, a great-grandmother who estimates she must be "nearly 100 years
old" tells AFP.
"The rain used to frighten me when I was a young girl, it used
to make our lives hell. Today people have it easy," she says, wrapping a
green tartan shawl tightly around her shoulders.
Meteorologists
say Mawsynram's location, close to Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal is
the reason the tiny cluster receives so much rain.
"What happens
is that whenever any moisture gathers over the Bay of Bengal, it causes
precipitation over Mawsynram, leading to a heavy, long monsoon season,"
Sunit Das of the Indian Meteorological Department told AFP.
While
annual monsoon rains lashed the national capital last week, causing
traffic chaos and flooding at the international airport, such problems
are mild for Mawsynram.
Just thirty years ago, Mawsynram had no
paved roads, no running water and no electricity, making its six-month
long monsoon an insufferable experience for its mostly impoverished
residents.
Landslides still occur regularly, blocking the only
paved road connecting the hillside hamlets. Rainwater still seeps into
the mud huts occupied by some villagers. And, while most homes now have
electricity, outages are commonplace.
Every winter the people of
Mawsynram spend months preparing for the wet season ahead, anticipating
nonstop rain and no sunshine for several days at a time.
They
repair their battered roofs. They cut and hoard firewood -- a source of
light and fuel for cooking. They buy and store foodgrains, since few
will venture out to shop during the wettest months between May and July.
The
women make rain covers known as "knups," using bamboo slivers, plastic
sheets and broom grass to create a rain shield that resembles a turtle
shell, meant to be worn on one's head while being large enough to keep
rain off one's knees.
The labour-intensive process of weaving a
knup - each one takes at least an hour to complete - occupies the women
of the village right through the rainy season, when they are cooped up
indoors for months at a time.
Bamboo and broom grass -- a
delicate, fragrant, olive-coloured grass used to make Indian brooms --
are among the chief plants grown in this rocky, hilly region.
Broom
grass is dipped in water, flattened using wooden blocks and finally
dried on rooftops across Mawsynram. According to Prelian Pdah, a
grandmother of nine, this makes the grass stronger and more likely to
survive a downpour.
Pdah, 70, spends part of the winter and all
of the monsoon season making bamboo baskets, brooms and knups which are
bought by visiting businessmen who sell them around the state.
"I don't like the heavy rainfall, it's boring to stay indoors all day. It's annoying," she tells AFP.
Although
few Mawsynram residents seemed to know or care about their
record-holder status, the right to the Guinness title has been hotly
disputed by a nearby town, Cherrapunji, which used to lay claim to that
honour.
In sleepy Mawsynram, many find the record-setting monsoon downright depressing.
"There's
no sun, so if you don't have electricity it's very dark indoors, even
during the day," Moonstar Marbaniang, the pyjama-clad headman of
Mawsynram says.
Those who have second homes elsewhere flee to
escape the season. Others catch up on their sleep, according to
Marbaniang, whose first name suggests one of the more striking legacies
of colonial rule in India's northeast.
Historians say the past
presence of British soldiers and missionaries in this region has seen
many people name their children after random English words or famous
historical figures, often with no knowledge of what they might mean.
State
capital Shillong's former nickname as the "Scotland of the East" also
goes some way to explain the popularity of tartan scarves and shawls,
even in the most far-flung and underdeveloped villages of Meghalaya.
Somewhat
fittingly for a state whose name means "the abode of the clouds" in the
ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, it is not unusual for clouds to
drift through people's homes in Mawsynram, leaving a wet film on their
furniture.
The grass-covered roofs are meant to muffle the
relentless drumming of the rain, but a heavy downpour will usually
dislodge the grass to deafening effect.
"We have to talk a little
louder to be heard during the monsoon!" 67-year-old Marbaniang tells
AFP, his mischievous eyes sparkling.
When the monsoon finally
ends, there are no parties to mark its exit. The rainy season simply
gives way to the repair season, Marbaniang says.
"We don't hold
any celebration or festival to mark the end of the rain. We just start
drying our clothes outside," he says, flashing a toothless grin.
Despite enduring record amounts of rain, sanguine villagers say there is no other place they would rather live.
Marbaniang, whose children all live in Shillong, says: "I'll never leave, this is my home, I was born here, I will die here."
"Sure, it rains a lot, but we are used to it. We just wait it out."