Pune cyclists on NE tour arrived in Shillong

FROM A CORRESPONDENT

SHILLONG, March 22: A group of 20 persons, the eldest being a 57 year old and the youngest a 13 year old boy who launched their cycling tour from Imphal on March 13, arrived in Shillong today afternoon after traversing through Manipur and galand  and stopping over at Kaziranga tiol Park, Tezpur and Mangaldoi for the past nine days.

Organised by Sarhad and Swand, two Pune-based intertiolly acclaimed NGOs who have been working towards a proper representation of the Northeastern region in the tiol perspective through various programmes across the  country, the 11- day cycling expedition has been med “ Call of the Brahmaputra” and was flagged off in Imphal by Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobooi Singh on March 13.

It may be mentioned Swand is a Pune sed organization, constituted mostly of professiols who are patriotic Indians. Last year, they traversed from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, a distance of more than 4000 kilometers on bicycles.

Speaking to reporters Sanjeev Shah, group leader of the organisation today said that the motto of this rally is to connect heart to heart all the northeast people with the rest of the people and also acting as ambassador for the Northeast will see to it that northeast is connect to the heart with the rest of the country.

“We met people from different colorful ethnic groups who not only embraced us but gave us gifts which we will preserve forever” Shah said adding that in their journey they did not come across any negative thing about the region and the people and all they saw were greenery, tural beauty with mountains, rivers, trees birds and animals and also hard working peoples whether in the mountains of Manipur and galand or the plains of Assam.

He also said that even the music of northeast which is so melodic will try to promote it in Bollywood and also tell the rest of the people about its amazing scenic beauty and also to promote tourism in this area.

Shah also said the region place has huge scope and in his experience he found out Meghalaya is more beautiful than many places like Switzerland, Kashmir and will try to promote tourism. He suggested said that if tourism is to be increased here in Meghalaya signboards have to be put in proper places so that people can get the right idea where they wanted to go and also the food like south Indian food and also all types of foods are available since tourist comes for enjoying the area.

Shah also had a word of praise for the Nongpoh-Shillong road (four-lane NH 40) and felt like they were not in India and further said “It’s very important that more and more patriotic people from other states of the country visit the Northeastern  region and this will help remove a lot of misconceptions about the Northeast that exist across the country.”