The Village That Sings and Economies That Shrug with Resilience

From a whistling village in Meghalaya to the global economy’s resilience against tariffs, it’s all about improvisation in turbulent times.

Dawki, Meghalaya

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By Phynix

Phynix is a seasoned journalist who revels in playful, unconventional narration, blending quirky storytelling with measured, precise editing. Her work embodies a dual mastery of creative flair and steadfast rigor.

September 7, 2025 at 10:14 AM IST

Dear Insighter,

There is a village in Meghalaya where people don’t call your name. They sing it. In Kongthong, the “whistling village” in the East Khasi Hills, every child gets a tune instead of a name, composed by their mother. A short one for everyday use, a longer one for formality. And when someone dies, their tune goes with them. Seven hundred people, seven hundred melodies, and not a single overlap.

I thought about Kongthong, not just for its beauty but for its metaphor. We all have our own tune, our own frequency, and we’re all trying to hear each other through the static of modern life.

During the pandemic, I spent over a month in Shillong, not far from Kongthong. It remains the most unexpectedly grounding stretch of time. I ate food grown and plucked by my sister-in-law: chayote squash, herbs, beans pulled straight from her garden. I tasted fish that had been caught from a nearby stream. And, on a whim, I tried the blood sausages in Mylliem, spiced and earthy, eaten with rice and, I’ll admit, a grimace.

There was the four-kilometre traffic jam I sat through one evening. In any Indian city, it would’ve been a chorus of horns and curses. But in Shillong, not a sound. People waited patiently, listening to music in their cars, playing games on their phones, chatting lazily, never jumping out of their lane. I was astonished… and a little embarrassed at how restless I felt.

One morning, craving an iced mocha and a flaky croissant, I marched out at 9 a.m. Nothing. Cafes didn’t open before 11. I broke down, not dramatically but enough to be humbled, and it hit me: mornings weren’t for cafes. They were for tending gardens, buying meat at the local market, drinking tea with family. The city schedule I carried in my head had no power there.

Even misadventure in Meghalaya unfolded with laughter instead of panic. Once, returning from a picnic at Krang Suri Falls, one of our cars broke down. Seventeen of us stranded. In any other place, this would be a crisis. Instead, the cousins and their kids made it another picnic opportunity. Within minutes, they were dancing, sharing snacks, stories, and laughter. No complaints, no frustration. Just an unspoken agreement to stretch joy a little longer.

And then there was Dawki. The Umngot River at the Bangladesh border is so clear you can see the pebbles on the riverbed. At night, it becomes more surreal. We watched one drunk man wander dangerously close to crossing into Bangladesh, only to be pulled back by watchful guards who shouted just enough to sober him.

These moments added up to something more than travelogue material. They revealed a way of life tuned to resilience. A community that absorbs shocks without splintering, that flows around inconvenience, that doesn’t equate urgency with progress.

That sense of a place operating on its own resilient frequency, tuning out the global noise, is reminiscent of the current economic moment. As Michael Debabrata Patra notes, the global economy has simply shrugged off what was supposed to be a seismic shock. Trump’s tariffs, predicted to result in stagflation, have instead been met with a baffling resilience. Growth in the US ticked up; China expanded solidly. It seems households, businesses, and governments, scarred by pandemic and inflation, have learned to hedge, adapt, and hum a different tune while awaiting clarity. It’s as if Atlas didn’t just shrug; he did a little jig.

The shrugging isn't limited to global trade. Back home, India's institutional heads are slipping into cheerleader mode when they should remain referees, notes BasisPoint Groupthink. When a central bank issues formal growth projections based on models and scenarios, then an official voice casually speaks of far higher growth rates minutes later, the signal scrambles.

Speaking of mixed signals, India has managed to outlaw online real-money gaming while simultaneously taxing it at 40%. As Krishnadevan V observes, the GST Council has lumped banned gaming with legal activities like casinos and horse racing, creating a bizarre scenario. It’s prohibition with a profit motive, a moral stance that comes with an invoice attached.

Perhaps this is why there’s a desperate push to fine-tune the instrument itself. The grand GST 2.0 overhaul, which Krishnadevan V explains is a massive ₹480 billion bet on the consumer, aims to lower the pitch for millions. From toothpaste to motorcycles, tax cuts are designed to put money back into pockets, hoping to trigger a consumption boom. It’s a strategic pivot, as Madhavi Arora notes, from building highways to fueling homes. But as Srinath Sridharan rightly cautions, this is unfinished business. Simplifying a rate sheet is one thing; simplifying the Kafkaesque compliance that drains businesses is another.

This need for strategic harmony extends beyond our borders. With Trump’s tariffs exposing India’s vulnerable trade dependencies, as G. Chandrashekhar warns, the country is wisely learning to play more than one song. The SCO summit, as Rajesh Kumar and Srinath Sridharan outline, is no longer just a photo-op; it’s a strategic hedge. It’s about cheaper energy and new corridors. And amid Trump’s tantrums, Ajay Srivastava sets the record straight: the US actually runs a healthy surplus with India when you count all the digital, services, and intellectual property earnings.

Meanwhile, the bond market is struggling to hear the RBI’s monetary policy over the deafening glut of state government bonds, a distortion that Yield Scribe argues is breaking monetary transmission. At the same time, there’s a worrying hum about the very craft of supervision. R. Gurumurthy sounds a vital alarm against outsourcing the RBI’s nuanced judgement to consultants who might reduce it to a soulless checklist.

And everywhere, the old markers of certainty are fading. V Thiagarajan points out that sovereign ratings, once the universal language of risk, have lost their voice, becoming lagging echoes in a fast-moving world. This uncertainty is perhaps why the debate around the Tata Sons IPO, as explained by Mint Owl, is so charged. It’s a test of principle versus practicality. Yet, as Sanjay Mansabdar warns, there’s a thin line between prudent regulation and overzealous conduct that risks choking the market’s liquidity and innovative spirit entirely.

Which is why I keep returning to that village in the clouds. In Kongthong, every melody is unique, but together they harmonise. No one shouts to be heard in Meghalaya. The place works not because it’s efficient or hyper-productive, but because people carry an unspoken grace.

The world right now feels the opposite. It may sound like resilience, but most of it is improvisation for survival. The real test isn’t whether we can shrug off the next shock. It’s whether we can learn to hear each other’s tunes, to build a system that finds strength not in noise, but in quiet, unhurried, deeply human rhythm.

Until next time, listening for the right frequency.