SYNTUNG: Roughly about 82 kms from Shillong via Smit, Jongksha, Jatah, Pashang, Syntung boasts of the spectacular Wahrashi or Rashi Falls. It has become an offbeat tourist destination since 2015 when it was promoted by the local communities and assisted by the Meghalaya Tourism Development Corporation.
Syntung jumped into the news when nine young men who went there for a picnic on Sunday, March 8, were attacked and one of them died on the spot. The place of occurrence of the crime is Pashang, a quiet village about 10 km from Syntung.
According to M Shadap, a tour guide in the village, the nine picnickers had arrived at Syntung at about 1 pm.
They were lazing around and swimming in the cool clear waters just under the waterfalls. Later they had their lunch and left Syntung at about 5 pm.
Shadap, who seemed to still be in a daze after his tourism dreams have collapsed said, “Those young men were the last of the tourists to leave and we bade them goodbye happily. It was after about two hours later that the Sordar of the village was called by the police from Madanrting asking him to go to Pashang as there was an incident involving tourists who had come from Syntung.”
Shadap says that the picnickers took a wrong turn towards Nohron and they perhaps started panicking. Some villagers saw them while they were re-routing towards Pashang.
They suspected that the nine people were up to no good. That’s when they were attacked by the villagers.
Ironically, the nearest police station is in Madanrting , 80 kms away, and by the time the police arrived, which was nearly three hours after the attack, things had gone completely awry. The villagers say that there should at least have been a police outpost at Mawkynrew. Then things would have been better sorted out.
Judging by the difference in the contours of the two villages – Syntung and Pashang — the recent killing could have been triggered by something else. Pashang is a quiet and nondescript village with no view except the large stretches of barren land while Syntung is a well developed tourist destination with lovely waterfalls and a mesmerising ambience.
According to the sordar, different government schemes from MGNREGA to other tourism related schemes have made tangible impacts.
This is evident from the orderly manner in which the steps leading to the Rashi falls have been constructed. Visitors are at once struck by the cleanliness and greenery and the well-maintained surroundings. Could it be that Pashang, the lesser known cousin, is unhappy that tourists should only pass through it while all the benefits accrue to Syntung.
On Saturday when this correspondent visited Syntung, the place wore a deserted look.
There was not a single tourist. Lurshai Nongrum, who takes tourists on boat rides on the Rashi river, says, “On Saturdays and Sundays we get a lot of tourists but after the unfortunate incident on Sunday, we have not had a single visitor. We have taken back all the life jackets and equipment. You are the first outsider to visit us. People are afraid of coming here now because they think we are killers.”
A visibly upset Nongrum says, “The killing did not happen in our village but how do we correct the misconception? We feel hurt that people have put up unkind memes on social media and warned tourists not to visit Syntung lest they get killed. We are called cannibals and hounds. This is the end of tourism for us. Many villagers who have set up shops selling tea and snacks have had to shut them since this has become a ghost village now. I don’t know if people will ever come to Syntung again.”
With a population of about 1,100 as informed by the Sordar of the village, Robert Pale, the main occupation of the people is farming. They grow betel nut, betel leaves, oranges and in recent years strawberries too which fetch a good price. The sordar informed that there are a few “maliks” in the village who buy all these products from the farmers and sell them in Shillong. The villagers are quite happy that someone is ready to market their produce. There are no bus services but only Tata Sumos which charge Rs 100 up to Iewduh in Shillong. Broomstick is another major produce and this being the broom harvesting season, you can see broomsticks being put out to dry in people’s homes.
Under the Mawkynrew Block, Syntung has a dilapidated government lower primary (LP) school and other LP schools run by churches and also some upper primary schools but no high school. The sordar informed that young people drop out of school at Class VIII or IX and get married.
A young lady of 24 years who runs a tea shop in the village says she has four children. Others of her age have five or six children but they look under-nourished. Both men and women have dark patches on their faces and don’t appear healthy. The sordar says there are not too many elderly people in the village. They all die early. At 45 years he says he is already an elder of the village. The common ailment is gastritis.
When asked how far the nearest primary health centre is, the sordar said it is about 42 kms away in the Block headquarter of Mawkynrew. There is a dispensary at Jatah which is about 25 kms away. He said that most women deliver at home because getting a vehicle to go to the health centre after labour pain is near impossible and the road after Jatah is in very poor condition. At the moment it is under major repair works.
Pale the sordar of Syntung, a soft-spoken man, seemed depressed that the picnickers pointed at him as being one of the instigators among the mob. “I was there to calm the mob, went there only because the Madanrting police asked me to help control the situation, otherwise I would have been in my village.”
Well for now Syntung will take some time to regain client confidence. But the moral of the story is that if tourism is developed in a single village while all around there is no sign of development, there are bound to be heartburns. And Pashang is an example of that heartburn!
