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The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has expressed gratitude to the people of Kongthong for a special tune in his honour and in appreciation of Government of India’s efforts in promoting the village as a prime tourism destination

Kongthong

• Kongthong village is located in the East Khasi Hills district, which is 60 km from Meghalaya's capital city Shillong.
• The villagers here call each other with a unique tune.
• People of this village have used whistling as a method of conveying their messages to their fellow villagers and that is why it is known as the ‘whistling village’.
• The villagers here call each other with a unique tune.
• Each of them has a unique tune for calling each other and this tradition has been going on for generations.
• The villagers have called this tune Jingrwai Lawbei which means mother's love song.
• The villagers have two names - one is a regular name and another is a song name.
• The song names are two versions - a long song and a short song and the short song is normally used at home.

Jingrwai Iawbei, the tune-name tradition

• The beautiful village is renowned for its natural bounty and for its unique tradition 'Jingrwai Iawbei'.
• Under this tradition, a mother gives a tune or lullaby to her child within a week of birth like Eeooow or Ooeeo, etc.
• This tune becomes the kid’s identity.
• Not only this, the mother has to think of a different tune than the already existing ones to make sure the child's identity remains his own.
• Another interesting thing here is that villagers are habituated to talking through tunes.