This winter we journeyed through India to visit our extended family in Mizoram. This small Indian state with a meager population of under a million people occupies a unique position on the physical and cultural frontier of the Indian subcontinent. Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts and Burma’s Chin Hills surround two thirds of the state while Mizoram is linked to India through its border with Assam, Tripura & Manipur. The terrain is rugged and unforgiving to casual exploration. Ethnically Mizos share closer affinity with South East rather than South Asia. They are mostly Christian and literacy rates are the 2nd highest in India after Kerala. Perhaps most interestingly, there is virtually no class or caste difference amongst Mizos! Separatist movements mar the neighboring states but Mizoram is free of significant insurgency. Mizos enjoy autonomy and protection of their culture while still remaining comfortably within the Indian union. The state enjoys a sense of peace that is rare in this little-known region of India.
Haze over Bangladesh with Mizoram under clear skies. Published by NASA's Earth Observatory from the MODIS sattelite while we were in Aizawl.
Sunrise from the Chanmari neighborhood in Aizawl
Woman selling used clothes in Aizawal's market
Clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) at Aizawl Zoological Park.
Adult female Hoolock gibbon (Bunopithecus hoolock) at the Aizawl Zoological Park
Orchids lying discarded beside a fresh road cut near Hmuifang.
Red silk cotton tree (Bombax ceiba) north of Sirchip.
Looking east from Hmuifang at dawn, showing an idyllic home and a distant cloud bank in a valley (a phenomena known as romei in Mizo)
Winter light in degraded montane evergreen forest at Hmuifang.