Shirui Lily Festival with Urmila Chanam

01/01/2023

Let us walk towards sunshine, let us chase the rainbow, let our hearts beat with hope, love, positivity and our body be alive with energy and enthusiasm. Happy new year 🍹🍁🍂

27/10/2022

A souvenir from Shirock 2019 where Nazareth and Extreme played live.

16/10/2022

Memories of driving down to Ukhrul from Imphal to attend the State Level Shirui Lily Festival (16-19 September 2019). I had flown in from Bengaluru. I fell in love with Ukhrul for its sheer beauty of place, people, weather and the culture for music, food, fashion and friendship. I did many stories on Ukhrul from that trip, thoroughly enjoyed myself even though it was a work trip and I know I will go back again because I am yet to tell many more stories to the world about Ukhrul.

03/12/2021

Stopping by to say " hello" and share few ideas which have been circulating in my head.

25/11/2021

The pandemic may have halted all the events and programs but may the objective and cause of protecting Shirui Lily continue.

15/08/2021

25/04/2021

From my trip to Ukhrul (Manipur), observations and love for the place, I hope someone in the position of decision making or in Ukhrul reads the recommendations to make it every traveller's choice. On The Morning Bell 25th April 2021.

Ps: PDF available on request.

19/04/2021

It has been a year and half since I visited Ukhrul, Manipur and attended the Shirui Lily Festival but the memories are strong as ever with a stronger pull to go as soon as the pandemic ends and the festival is organised again.

One thing which works against tourism and Ukhrul is the lack of good hotels and accomodation because even though the place is really beautiful and people really friendly and hospitable, if a visitor doesn't have a nice place to sleep, rest, eat or have a clean bathroom, the experience cannot be a memorable one.

All the hotels were already booked when I landed there and the homestays were not upto the mark- the toilets were not attached to the room, some toilets were outside the main building, there were no walls around the house with homestays and were located bang on the main road, like a thoroughfare with no safety and security for visitors, most expected visitors to cook for themselves (how can journalists and other professionals on work cook when they have to work the whole day and be in the field?) and some were in such remote locations far away from the main road or Ukhrul district headquarters which make it impossible for tourists to live there as they would want to go to the town and there are no public transportations available.

Number of hotels have to be increased, homestays have to be increased around the main town, fooding facility has to be mandatory in all homestays, bathrooms have to be attached, public transportation for visitors from homestays to town have to be arranged, all this information should be readily accessible on a digital platform along with phone numbers that pick up calls, maybe district administration website or FB page. I am sure with these measures, more people will visit and revisit Ukhrul.