Living Root bridges of Meghalaya

Context: A farmer takes forward the State’s traditional practice of building root bridges and connects two areas across Umkar river in Cherrapunji.

About Root bridges:

• Locally known as ‘ jingkieng jri ’ the living Root bridges are one of Meghalaya’s most beautiful tangible heritage sites.
• These sites have recently been added to the tentative UNESCO world heritage site list.
• Some of the most popular of these living root bridges are in Nongriat, Cherrapunji, Nongbareh and other nearby locations.
• These are naturally built bridges mainly built by firstly planting two rubber trees of the Ficus elastica on either side of a river.
• It is a type of simple suspension bridge formed by the method of tree shaping to form living plant roots across a stream or river.
• These are very common in the southern part of Meghalaya grown by the Khasi and Jaintia tribes
• These bridges can also be found in the state of Nagaland.
• The earliest written record of Cherrapunji’s bridges can be found in the 1844 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

Source:  The Hindu