SHILLONG, Sept 8: The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India has selected Meghalaya’s whistling village, Kongthong for entry to the UNWTO “Best Tourism Villages” along with two other villages in the country.
The other two villages that have been selected are Pochampally of TElangana and Ladhpura Khas in Madhya Pradesh.
In Kongthong, every time a baby is born, the mother composes a lullaby that becomes a unique identity of the child for life. Moreover, the lullaby has no words and is just is a tune, a kind of hum that only the villagers are able to recognise and remember.
When a woman is pregnant in Kongthong, she thinks of a particular tune, which becomes the name of the newborn. After the birth of the child, adults around it constantly hum that tune so that it identifies with the sound. This is an age-old tradition in the village.