Whistling village of Meghalaya "Kongthong" nominated as ‘ Best Tourism Village’ in India

SHILLONG: The ministry of tourism has nominated the Kongthong village of Meghalaya also known as the ‘Whistling village’ for the World Tourism Group’s “Greatest Tourism Villages” award together with two different villages within the nation.

Two other villages nominated UNWTO ‘Greatest Tourism Villages’ award are–Pochampally in Telangana and Ladhpura Khas in Madhya Pradesh.

In Meghalaya’s Whistling village a mother calls her child by a tune rather than a name, like Eeooow ,Ooeeo etc .

In Kongthong village generally, people have two names a regular name and a song name. In fact, the song names have two versions, a short song, and a long song.

The short song is used at home while the long songs are used in forests to keep away an evil spirit.

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The musical names are called ‘jingrwai Iawbei’ in the village.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman congratulated Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma for the achievement.

Minister Sitharaman informed too to the microblogging site Twitter and informed that in Kongthong village people compose a tune for calling a person instead of names.

“Congratulations Meghalaya on Kongthong being selected ‘Best Tourism Village”.

The village has a population of 700 people.

In 2019 Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha adopted the village.

Reacting to the news Rajya Sabha MP Rakesh Sinha said “Two years ago, my adopted whistling village Kongthong was not known even to the people of Meghalaya. Now, it is ready for the Best Tourism Village in the world,”

Moreover, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma has assured to release Rs 1 crore for developing tourism infrastructure at Kongthong.

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