Cherry Blossom Festival – The splendour of Mother Nature will rise to its highest potential and people will be witness.
Come November and Shillong will be hosting India’s first Cherry Blossom Festival taking a cue from Japan. Shillong is the capital of Meghalaya which is rolling up the sleeves to host Cherry Blossom Festival from 8th-11th November. The Festival is being arranged by the Meghalaya Government in collaboration with The Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development (IBSD) which is a national institute under the department of Biotechnology and the Indian Council of Cultural Relation (ICCR).
As per the report of The Shillong Times, Chief Minister Mukul M Sangma and Dinabandhu Sahoo, director of IBSD has briefed the media about the festival afoot.
Shillong is admired for its idyllic landscapes and jaw-dropping beauty and it boasts of having the Cherry Blossom trees whose flowers come into full bloom in that particular time of the year radiating a pink and white resplendence.
It was Japan who pioneered the plantation of Cherry Fruit and the Cherry Blossom Festival is called Sakura in Japanese. Dating back to third century, the Sakura festival came into existence and since then it has become one of the key tourist attractions in Japan.
It is a popular belief in Japan that Cherry Blossom festival or planting the Cherry fruit trees itself sends out a message of peace across varied countries of the World. Other 27 countries like US, New Zealand, Holland and South Korea organize Cherry Blossom Festival and India will be the 28th country to make its name figure in the milieu. However, the organizers are incorporating their own ideas to have a bigger draw with the tourists and there will be at least 5000 Cherry Blossom trees lined up on both sides of the road from Umiam Lake to Mawphlang.
Both Sangma and Sahoo had extended their invitation to join the Cherry Blossom Festival to the people of India and the world and we can’t wait.
