Kongthong, the village where every name is a tune

Stand on the ridge above Kongthong in the evening and you will hear what sounds like birdsong coming up from the fields. It is people, calling one another home for dinner.

On 9 September 2021, Meghalaya's Chief Minister announced that Kongthong had been chosen as one of India's three entries for the UN World Tourism Organization's Best Tourism Villages, alongside Pochampally in Telangana and Ladhpura Khas in Madhya Pradesh.

A song instead of a name

Kongthong sits between the Sohra and Pynursla ridges in the East Khasi Hills, about 65 km from Shillong. Around 600 people live here. Each of them has an ordinary name for school registers and government forms, and each of them also has a tune.

The tradition is called jingrwai iawbei, which roughly means the song of the clan's first mother. Within weeks of a birth the mother composes a melody for her baby. There is a short version for calling across the courtyard and a longer one that carries over the hills and forest. No two are alike, and when a person dies their tune is never given to anyone else.

Did it win?

Not that year. When the results came out in December 2021, Pochampally was the Indian village on the final list. Kongthong got something else out of it, though. The nomination put a remote village, which only got a proper road a few years earlier, on the map for travellers who want to listen more than look.

Visiting

Kongthong is a comfortable day trip from Shillong or Sohra, and there is a community-run place to stay if you want to hear the village at dusk and dawn, when the calling is at its best. Ask before you record anyone. A tune here is as personal as a name, because that is exactly what it is.