Turning barren land into graden: Visitors flock to Naamai Zho Cosmos Festival

Morung Express News
Naamai Zho | October 10

What emerged as an outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic is the Cosmos Festival at Naamai Zho in Koide village under Senapati district of Manipur. It was during that time that the Koide Women Society first developed Naamai Zho, which was once considered a barren land, by scattering cosmos seeds and subsequently organising the first one-day cosmos festival in the year 2021.

Last year, the festival attracted about 6000 visitors to witness the colourful blooms of cosmos. This year, it was held under the initiative of Naamai Eco Tourism Society (NETS), expanding the festival to a three-day affair from October 8 to10, and is projected to attract more visitors.

“Cosmos is very close to our heart. You find it in almost every village or paddy field,” the president of the Naamai Ecotourism Society, Mathew Nakhu puts it. The villagers have gone on to name it “leshi pah” in their local dialect that literally translates to “love flower.” The president also demonstrates this by plucking out each petal of the cosmos flower with each petal symbolising the following syllables—“I love you. (Zhi neye leshi re, in the local dialect).”

‘Naamai’, he further explains, means ‘residents of Koide’ while ‘Zho’ means ‘leisure place’. Located at the river bank of Barak River, Naamai Zho, blessed with scenic landscape has emerged as one of the most popular tourist destinations.

While cosmos seeds are collected in the month of November, they are sown during February. Currently, the cosmos flowers in hues of pink, orange, red, yellow, white, and maroon are in bloom spread across at least 5 acres of land. The terrible road condition leading to Naamai Zho has not stopped visitors from pouring in to witness the beauty of the flowering of cosmos.

Mathew Nakhu goes on to highlight that this year’s festival has attracted tourists not only from Nagaland and Manipur but tourists from other states of North East India as well as foreign tourists. Stating that the cosmos have started blooming in the last week of September, he also exudes hope that it will remain for a couple of more weeks.

As of now, he says, “we are getting many positive feedbacks, they are enjoying and we see that the visitors are happy.” Cosmos, he further highlights has 40 varieties and is said to have originated in Mexico.

The three-day festival also witnessed a live show on October 9 featuring various artists from Senapati including Rojohne Vemai, Gaigou, Hommey Slimmy Rez, Nyaveine Sharon and Alamle Heraang. This was held in collaboration with The Hills Cave Talents with the objective of promoting culture, music, talent and tourism of the state.

With the success of these two editions of the festival, the Naamai Eco Tourism Society is planning to have a weeklong Cosmos Festival next year. “Cosmos is only one part of the Naamai Biodiversity Park,” he puts across. To further develop the park, the society has also been collecting locally available trees.

The word “cosmos” is said to be a name given to the flower by Spanish priests who originally grew the flowers during their missions abroad. They were blown away by the flower’s petals, which are quite stately and evenly placed. As a result, they gave the flower the name “cosmos” to symbolize its order and harmony with the rest of the universe.