India, July 20 -- Recently, on my tour to Meghalaya, I travelled by road from Guwahati to Shillong. The road was wide and traffic flowed smoothly. This was once an old, winding road, perilously narrow and choked with traffic, where smoke-emitting lorries made travel miserable. My first stop was at the backwaters of the scenic Umiam lake in Ri Bhoi district. The waters of the rivers, Wah Umkhrah and Wah Umshyrpi, were dammed in the 1960s to harness their hydel power. Today, the man-made lake has also become a hub of water sports and adventure activities. Tourism has given a year-long livelihood opportunity to those in the lake's vicinity, emblematic of the government and citizens' approach to places with potential for tourism. A project transforming the lake into a world-class tourism hub with a crafts village, cultural pavilion and botanical gardens is being funded under the Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment (SASCI) scheme. We reached Shillong by evening to attend the first North-East Roundtable on the Prime Minister Internship Scheme (PMIS). This gathering brimmed with the energy and determination of young interns who seek to realise their dreams through opportunities created by the PMIS, piloted to connect the youth with top companies across India. Nito S Kiho, a 22-year-old from Dimapur, Nagaland spoke to me, with the cool air befitting a lead guitarist in a band, about how he wished to start a clothing brand with his friends after the internship. The strident ambition of another intern, Elisabeth Lalsim from Dima Hasao district of Assam shone as she explained how she has chosen to intern at the Power Grid Corporation in the East Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya in order to gain experience in electrical engineering. Her zeal echoed William Yeats's sentiment about education as not the filling of a pail but as the lighting of a fire. Speaking in Khasi, Khlainkupar Lynkhoi recounted how he is interning at the Rural Electrification Company Ltd. and is motivating households to register for the PM Suryaghar Muft Bijli Yojana. It was music to my ears when the interns listed common themes like team work, time management, goal-setting as skills they have picked up in the past few months. I saw the seeds of promising careers being sown and dreams taking shape. The youth of the North East are not thinking that their being far away is an impediment to their soaring aspirations. The next day, at the LARITI Convention Center in Shillong, the Meghalaya CM and I flagged-off a consignment of pineapples to Dubai - sourced from a farmer producers organisation (FPO) from Jirang village, Ri Bhoi district. Several FPOs and SHGs converged to showcase their products here - the unique Lakadong turmeric, ginger, bamboo shoot pickles, exquisite jams and traditional silk fabrics. Meghalaya displayed the various stages that their farmers are on the path to becoming entrepreneurs. The Budget FY20 announcement on the formation of 10,000 new FPOs together with work on the ground has helped several farmers earn greater value for their produce. This was a live demonstration of farmers who have become entrepreneurs. Later that evening, I met Mark Laitflang Stone, an award-winning entrepreneur, speaker and youth mentor at the serene Ward's Lake in Shillong. Mark's self-made journey is a story of overcoming adversity to achieve success with several successful ventures. One such venture named Avenues has trained over a lakh youth in the North East. The next day, on our way to a "vibrant" village on the border, a short visit was planned to the state-run Shitake Mushroom Development Centre in Upper Shillong. There, we witnessed the impact and promise of innovative agriculture. Meghalaya has leveraged its climatic advantage and is gaining expertise in niche products such as the shitake. For procuring the shitake, the state government has tied up with a firm in the Miyagi prefecture, Japan. The efforts taken to meet the productive and production standards to match the Japanese ideal are visible. It is no wonder that the Japanese source the Made in India shitake from here. We then travelled to Laitkynsiew, a village located in the lush green interiors of the East Khasi. We witnessed a lakhpati didi, Lahun Mary Blah, detail her journey from homemaker to owner of a garment store, a flower boutique and a tea stall. A young officer gushed about how funds flow seamlessly to the accounts of SHGs through direct benefit transfer without any delay. The promise and dreams of the women SHGs are undeterred by sun or rain - this is a new Aatmanirbhar Bharat that not only provides the conditions for growth but also derives confidence from the success of every Indian - as the PM says, sabka saath, sabka vikas. Later, we trekked downhill in the village of Siej where Bah Haly War, the village elder, explained about the root bridge he had built over decades to connect the village to their farmlands. After encouraging me to cross the living root bridge and amidst the reverberating sound of gushing water flowing under the bridge, the people of the village gathered to recount the incredible history of the bridge. Iora Dkhar, chairperson of the Syrwet U Barim Mariang Jingkieng Jri Cooperative Society Federation Ltd., walked up to me unassumingly and handed over a copy of the dossier being sent to the Unesco to recognise the living root bridges across Meghalaya as a world heritage site. Her team began the task of documenting living root bridges in Meghalaya through the various cooperatives and has been able to document 131 so far. It was also heartening to see a small sign board acknowledging that the 15th Finance Commission's untied grants have been used to fence and protect this living root bridge. The Khasi principle of "Mei Ranew- Ki Ryngkew ki Basa" (reverence for mother nature) is manifested in these bridges, their makers and caretakers. A lesson the world needs to put into practice urgently. In the last leg of the tour, we reached the village of Sohbar, perched beside the turquoise blue waters of the Wahrew river that flows down to the plains of Bangladesh. The chief secretary of Meghalaya, Donald Wahlang, who accompanied us to this village, recounted how in 2005, as the then deputy commissioner of East Khasi Hills, he had to swim across this river to reach the village of Nongjri. Today, across the Wahrew stands an arched-steel bridge, completed in 2021, that is symbolic of PM Modi's steely resolve to surmount the challenges that areas at the peripheries face. Sohbar is now one of 92 villages included in the Vibrant Village Programme, which reframes India's peripheries not as margins, but as proud thresholds to the nation. From Sohbar, we travelled to Cherrapunji, where we were to visit the Ramakrishna Ashram. As the dusk faded into night, with the foreground of the great gorge of Sohra that voraciously devoured the monsoon winds, the fenced international border with Bangladesh stood brightly lit. The original name of this town was Sohra (soh means fruit and rah means to carry in Khasi), which was mispronounced Cherra by the British. The Bengalis from nearby Sylhet who trailed the British added the word punji, a term to refer to a cluster of villages that was later suffixed to Cherra. Sohra, which is also the cultural capital of the Khasis, has now been given back its original name. The next day, Swami Anuraganandaji of the Ramakrishna Ashram spoke about the rich contribution of the ashram in educating the tribals for a century. That their alumni include two former chief ministers of Meghalaya, several civil servants, doctors and engineers is a testament to what an institution with seva (service) as its core can contribute to the society. Throughout this journey, I was moved by the determination, optimism, and harmony with nature that define the people of Meghalaya. With government support and community spirit aligned, Meghalaya today offers a blueprint for a vibrant, confident, and self-reliant India. Till next time, Khublei Shibun (thank you, very much) and Mithela Meghalaya!...