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Aizawl-I/Mizoram-Tripolia-Exploring India-Arun Gaur’s Indian Landscape Images

AIZAWL AND ITS SURROUNDINGS

I always wonder how remote but how rich an experience Mizoram is! How variegated! I also say it is much easier to go to the U.S.A. than to reach this place. First I took 55-hour train journey to Gauhati and then changing train for Lumding and then another train—this time narrow gauge—to Silchar through the Barak valley and jungles of bamboo and then hiring a Sumo shared jeep to Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram. It took me 90 hours in all. Crossing all the different terrains,I reached a place where curiously Christianity is practiced by majority of the masses. Sunday is a complete holiday and one hears the church bells ringing from all sides out of the valleys. Youth is the hub. The students are all important and their organizations too. Football is a passion here. They play football everywhere, in every nook, in the sun and in the rain. When I looked into the sky, there was no drop of  rain in this rain-drenched place, but a dark cloudlet scudded along with a crimson brother.  However, often it drenches, and drenches to the core. And then I sit in my balcony. What a lovely experience it was! From my rented flat I could daily see the play of clouds around the churches in the valley. Far sweeps and stretches of landscapes interwove with lush vegetation, clusters of houses emerge from the envelops of clouds. Aizawl has no airport. One has to go to the airport at Lengpui about 40 kilometers hill journey.

Aizawl-1: On a hill-slope near Mt. Mary School I found this relatively modern church with excellent stained-glass work.

Aizawl-3: Evidently, this young Mizo was engrossed so dedicatedly in the preparation for the M.Z.U. day.

Aizawl-4: In the ground on the McDonald Hill, the fooball players warmed up in the slanting rays.

Aizawl-5: When I climbed to the hill-top, where they were building a water-tank, I witnessed this night scene.

Aizawl-6:  When I looked into the sky, there was no rain, but a dark cloudlet scudded along with a crimson brother.

Aizawl-7: On a sunny day, near my room in Babutalang, the neighbours took out the Teddy Bears to dry.

Aizawl-9: Every Mizo knows how to play guitar and football. So dexterous they are! Footballs everywhere. Even lonely in the wet grounds.

Aizawl-11: He ran a car-repair garage and sipped the hot tea wearing a typical Mizo bamboo hat while it was raining outside.

Aizawl-12: After I climbed the road beyond the Rosiama Building ahead of Chandmari Square, this woman waited patiently for the bus.

Aizawl-13 At Lengpui, the white crosses and the arches reflected in the panes of a government school’s building with bamboo-walls.

Aizawl-14: It was very kind of a school teacher at Lengpui to take me to this local graveyard. Freshly painted blues and whites.

Aizawl-15: What a lovely experience it was! From my rented flat I could daily see the play of clouds around the churches in the valley.

Aizawl-16: From my flat, in P.Lal Chunga’s building, it was an interweaving of lush vegetation, nestling houses, swarms of clouds.

Aizawl-17: Every Sunday we came down from Babutalang to buy vegetables and fruits in the mart. Flower selling girls were fond of reading newspapers.

I boarded the Mizoram University bus at Tanhrill and saw the students caught in the showers but sheltered under banana leaves. They walked un-hurriedly.

Aizawl-19: When I went down to pick up the morning bread, I always saw the trainee nurses walking briskly to their centers. Mizoram has good training centers.

Aizawl-20: My friend, the Economics Professor, took me one day to the marriage of  the daughter of a senior Mizo officer. It was a grand sacred ceremony.