Title : Mountain Mist & Meghalaya
Authors : Hanisha Raghunath & Urvesh Bhatt
Genre : Fiction ; Travelogue
Pages : 309
I received this Review Copy from Half Baked Beans in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you Half Baked Beans and Book Marketing Consultant Richa Saxena!!
BLURB
As the protagonist touched the precincts of Meghalaya, unaware of the creepy & spine chilling occurrence he was running into, the veils of unknown unfolded, and made their appearance. But a journey ought to have such glitches. This travelogue is a tapestry sewed with threads heartening friendships, magical locations, stimulating folklores and invigorating encounters. Amidst this, someone special crosses his path unexpectedly, and in the end, he is left befuddled with the game destiny plays.
REVIEW
Mountain Mist & Meghalaya is a tremendous travelogue written by author duo Hanisha Raghunath and Urvesh Bhatt. This books travels along the journey of the unnamed protagonist to his trip to the exquisite Meghalaya from highly packed and fast pacing Mumbai.
This travelogue deliberately focuses on the protagonist’s entire stay and wanderings around the beautiful places of Meghalaya. Each and every location which has been depicted on this book will attract the readers to an extend where right after finishing the book, the readers will make a mental note to visit Meghalaya one day. All the places has been beautifully and picture perfectly described by the authors that anyone who is reading this book will not be able to see the places through their mind’s eye but also can feel the breeze of Meghalaya on their skin, smell the soil of the land and taste the ethnic food of the region.
What makes this book and Meghalaya special is, it is filled with so much of interesting folklores which has so many lessons, values and morals to instill in the hearts of the people. There were so many good characters in this book which will give us an assurance that humanity is after all not lost. Through this book the writers have conveyed that Meghalaya is not only filled with rich vegetation, forest and traditions but also with good-natured and heart of gold people. People of Meghalaya were the sweetest, they were innocent, has higher helping tendency and of course their love and respect for mother nature cannot be accounted to any other kind of love that is prevalent in this world right now. And the other interesting thing about Meghalaya was all its people were great storytellers. They know how to deliver a story in an interesting way. They have reasons and a big story behind everything that they do in their day to day life.
There were lot of selfless and interesting characters with whom you will fall in love with because of their personalities. An unknown driver who helps the protagonist at an unlikely hours. Kennedy who was the tourist guide as well as driver of the protagonist and Hotel in-charge Prince and Prosidh. All the three of them, Kennedy, Prince and Prosidh treated the protagonist like a brother and invited him into their cocoon. The gestures these people shows towards the protagonist was heart-warming and extremely lovely to read. All these things will make it very heart breaking for the protagonist as well as the readers to leave behind Meghalaya and its people. And there was this traveler mother and kid who makes their appearances every now and then, it was inspiring to see the mom and son duo travelling to wonderful places. Guess, there will be sequel to this book.
The writing style was exceptional, there was a poetic undertone to everything that has been written on the pages of this book. Certain lines will make you want to read it again and again so as it experience it once more. And the comparisons the writers of this book has done through their writing was very interesting. This book will wake up the sleeping traveler inside everyone including the people who aren’t a big fan of travelling and touring. And this book also emphasized on the difference between a Tourist and a Traveler. Through this story you will understand the thirst, feelings and happiness of a traveler.
In this lockdown, if you feel like you’re trapped inside your home and you feel like you wanna take a vacation but you can’t rather what you can do is pick up this book and read it. You can go on a vacation even without leaving the confinements and the safety of your home and the best thing is this trip will feel more real than the vacations you’ve taken before in you real life. That wonderfully it has been written and Meghalaya is a great place to be in.
MY VIEWS
I never call myself as someone who is enchanted by travels but every time I read something about North East India, I wanted to visit it so very badly. And Meghalaya is one of the major states I wanted to visit in North East. This book actually increased my urge to visit Meghalaya at least once in my life but the authors of this book consistently says visiting Meghalaya just once is next to impossible because there is so much more to explore and it has lots of stories to share with us. Each and every place the protagonist visited was so unique, I did not know that the cleanest village in Asia is located in India, until I read this book. Okay, I don’t want to reveal anything any further, everything about this book was super amazing. And that’s all I can say.
Initially I wanted to visited Meghalaya because of the living root bridge which is something that attracts me so much but this book made me realize the people of Meghalaya is lot more better than the place itself.
I personally liked the way in which the protagonist travel. His travel agenda was very spontaneous and adventures. He was enchanted by the unknowns of every place he visits. He was truly interested in knowing the background of this place and the stories intertwined with them. This book was like a window to look into the mind of a traveler and their thought process.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book to bits and pieces. I was completely fulfilled and happy about this book. It felt better than going on a trip that too particularly during this current Pandemic situation.
My rating for this book would be 5 out of 5 stars
I would like to recommend this book to each and everyone who loves to travel. If you are someone who wants to become a traveler or write travel blog or travelogue, then this book would be a great inspiration. If you are someone who isn’t much into travelling or hate travelling around, read this book to know what you are missing out. In the end you will fall in love with travelling, even if you still hate travelling at least you would have mentally visited this amazing place that everyone has to visit in their life time.
I really hope there will be a sequel to this travelogue, it was utterly enchanting!
Read this book without any excuses and do let me know how you felt about it!!
Happy Reading Folks!!
~ Meenu
