Meghalaya's Kongthong village, where everyone has their own tune

The hills are alive with the sound of music. In the hill state of Meghalaya lies a hamlet where every child born is bestowed with a tune.

In the Kongthong village also known simply as Meghalaya's 'Whistling Village', people refer to each other by their musical identity rather than a name.

Watch | Meghalaya: Kongthong called as 'Whistling Village' where people call each other by unique tune

In the village located about 60 kms away from the Meghalaya capital, the natives use whistling as a method to communicate with their fellow villagers, ANI reported. The tradition 'Jingrwai Lawbei' (which translates to mother's love song) has been passed down for generations.

As per tradition, everyone in the village has two names: a regular name and a 'song name'. A longer version of the 'song name' is composed within weeks of a child's birth by his mother and a shorter version is the one commonly used at home.

There are around 700 villagers in Kongthong and there are 700 different tunes.

This tune is composed by the mothers after childbirth, Phiwstar Khongsit, a man belonging to the Khasi tribe and an inhabitant of Kongthong village told ANI.

If any villager dies, then the tune of that person will also die along with him or her, he added.

"My tune was composed by my mother. This system is going on in our village from generation to generation. We don't know when it started. But, all villagers are very happy with this," Khongsit said.

In 2022, the Ministry of Tourism selected Kongthong village UNWTO's (The World Tourism Organisation) 'Best Tourism Villages' award along with two other villages in the country. In 2019, Rajya Sabha MP from Bihar Rakesh Sinha adopted the village and suggested a UNESCO tag for the village.