By Gregory Shullai
There is this extenuating circumstance in everyone’s life to do that which the inner being demands while one still has the energy of body and soul, and it is right that one should follow that inner calling, and that is why I was prepared to face whatever it takes to see for myself the social life of one of the Khasi races – the Langams that few have any knowledge of even to this day. Essentially that calling could not be settled due to the challenges of having to earn for family and self when I was younger. When one is caught up in one’s social agenda, personal agendas usually take second place these days, and it is only after retirement that one tends to understand that one has to start afresh, even being made to believe that one has made a failure of attending to the inner calling of the old life because the truth is that by the time one retires ones strength and determination is considerably extinguished thanks to the drastic change that comes from being an officer when young to becoming a “nobody” when old and retired.
To battle this “nobody” feeling a retiree must plan out life all over again and determine the secret goals to which to consecrate the remaining years, otherwise one must face the gruesome reality of not knowing how to use one’s mind to grow more perfectly. One has to be engaged in shaking off what does not belong to the individual, be it friend or foe, habits, privileges, and everything connected with being in civil service. Those who do not prepare for this eventuality discover too late that their self-estimation is severely hurt, almost as if to say they have already grown beyond what they had in mind of themselves. To escape from such circumstances, they resort to other activities, I took to writing and I can say with all confidence that writing has given me that self-appreciation and confidence which was always there but was never able to dominate my being for all these sixty years. One thing is certain, on retiring friendly voices seldom come our way. Personally, I was immediately alone, absurdly alone, and in my unrelenting battle against this loneliness I knew I needed to alter my idea of what was valuable and what was not. I had to rediscover myself and to be honest it wasn’t too difficult. I was never my complete self when I was in service for the simple reason that I had to follow service rules and not my own moral rules. Perhaps the things I wrote on the misdeeds in the Department I was working in influenced the way I thought so that now my writing abilities are more and more an expression of who I am with just a sprinkling of what others do or do not do. This is really my only explanation for the changes I feel towards my dealings with others, and perhaps also the only medicine that I have concocted to heal the frustrations of the past and the consequences of retirement.
Of one thing I am quite certain, the back stabbing at my work place was not against my work per se, but at my individuality. There were some close shaves with newspaper writers combining with my detractors in the Department to blacken my image and that I have been able to endure all this and more, I perhaps can say that I was my own salvation and have earned the right to claim that I alone am deserving of the blessings that the future might hold in store for me – it cannot be anything else. The only sensible advice I have to offer anyone after retirement is that everyone must do the best they can for themselves. Forget that you were a civil servant and create a new responsibility for yourself, a new interest in life, so that though one has no power to prevent the coming of retirement one can rectify whatever harm retirement can do to a person in body and mind and that way become deserving to live. Bodily health will most certainly diminish and one must treat oneself according to the diagnosis of one’s symptoms which no one knows except the individual alone. The damage done to body, mind and soul during one’s working days must be attended to if one is to be redeemed to what one originally was meant to be. We owe this to ourselves.
In every respect I am now, as I always was, ever intrigued with how people gain knowledge of what is good and bad from nature – especially those things that affect one’s mind and body. I try to be my own doctor, and as everything in me is the same as the outer core, I was obliged to treat the inner self personally – no “shrink” for me. The doctor may be the best person to treat the outer symptoms of weakness and pain but when one loses one’s self-estimation one loses the ability to communicate, and that’s the least of the problems, and for that very reason we must learn to discipline ourselves as individuals. It has often crossed my mind that treating others with the remedies I use on myself may bring about some gain for them and that is why I am so eager in warning people against doing nothing to revive one’s self estimation, though some of the things I have done to myself should act as a special danger signal to many, perhaps especially to my children! As an individual I constantly recreate myself so that an interest today becomes only a shadow tomorrow: I move on and another me is created to face the new settings…things change fast these days and with them we too must change…indoctrination is not an ideal any more, though it may remain as a sub stratum on which we judge whatever tests us, and no, I am convinced that what I was is not what I am and perhaps a month later I will not be who I am now. I think I know that. One final viewpoint, taking to a religious dogma and doctrine career after retirement is perhaps the worst option one can choose.
At the moment I am still dwelling on the opportunity that I have been presented with – a visit to the Lyngam region of the Khasi Hills. I had heard about the lifestyle of the people in these areas from my late uncle who loved hunting in the dense forests there and who visited the areas frequently as an Inspector in the Supply Department Govt of Assam in the 1950s and 60s. I listened to his stories with the keenest interest that virtually took me there in my mind and this gave birth to a deep-set longing to visit the areas and it has remained alive in my body, heart and soul to this very day. And now I was getting the opportunity to go there. Normally, I should be angry about being compelled to go to these hot, stuffy, regions in this wet season (mid July 2026) nevertheless I did not trouble myself for one moment on the matter, and only drew a moral from it: “be careful when you lightly talk about places you long to visit”. And so here I was, readying myself to make a dash to somewhere in the Lyngam and back on the same day.
Longings can never be extinguished unless one puts foot to ground and in all these seventy plus years the curiosity of anything Lyngam has only grown. Now at this late stage in life I was being given that opportunity to satisfy that longing. The task I had taken upon myself, at the present, required that I visit the village Jaiaw from where I would have to trek all the way to Mawlai – both villages in Lyngam and not in Shillong as many would immediately infer. Basically, I had some business in Mawlai or to be more precise the family needed me to attend to a certain matter there and I had to maintain an iron cool calm amidst the excitement that was growing within me knowing that trekking up steep hillslopes was to be kept under wraps from them – the family would have nothing to do with letting me trek uphill – I had dislocated my ankle about a year back. Only three months back my foot returned to almost normal, but how can anyone forget the eight months before that when I was literally an invalid, with pain at every twist of the foot, with depression at having to think twice before doing anything and with little hope that the future would be any better. I am fortunate to have overcome all that with only a single deep dark scar on the outer side of the right ankle bone, under which are the titanium plates screwed onto the bone. It is obvious that I cannot resume my long-distance jogging or walking anymore and must confine my brisk walks to distances that take less than an hour. But to continue with the day’s events, let me describe the journey that took me from Shillong to the warm Maharam region and finally to the Lyngam tracts.
To get to Jaiaw (Lyngam) one is mandatorily required to criss-cross the upper reaches of the Khasi Hills and descend to the lower slopes of the western districts of the State. As we drove along, there was everything beautiful and magnificent about these hills and the emptiness, the greenery they were covered in, even the piercing wind and the blistering rain that would normally test one’s resolve to the limits when we reached the Nongstoin Bye-pass aroused a friendly feeling and made me feel very much at home every minute of the way. This came about because of memories I had of the place.
You see, in the course of my working days as a Divisional Forest Officer I was posted in West Khasi Hills (1982). I realised then that these areas and the people were best suited to one like me – even my fellow officers shared a hearty intimacy with me. All this added up to the fact that I spent the most memorable years of my life at Nongstoin – nothing prior could compare with it; and nothing since. Meanwhile everything I was experiencing on this journey brought recollections of those bygone days. Nongstoin was basically a one street District HQ back then with a few link roads, clean, backward and with people that spoke a fascinating dialect. Everything about the air one breathed was clean and fresh and friendly. The people I was passing by at the moment, radiated the same friendliness. They appeared as they did in the 1980s – straightforward and ready to smile at a friendly face. Back then officers were not regarded as persons with a higher status or dignity and a man was befriended because of who he inherently was. The West Khasi Hills was truly a man’s place; it had a character of its own, unpolluted by other cultures – a genuine Khasi character if ever there was one and I loved every bit of that. Whether they are still the genuine friendly natured people they were then couldn’t be deciphered from what I was witnessing at the moment, but I hoped that they were. From then till now the years have rolled by and the things that brought me joy have become precious memories.
But back to the present – the road we were driving down left nothing more to be desired – a hundred times better than what I was accustomed to – congratulations to the NHIDCL (National Highway and Infrastructure Development Corporation) of the Govt of India. Everything about the Thar – that was the vehicle I had decided to place my trust in on this trip to these unfamiliar regions – served us in good stead under the circumstances. We reached the Nongstoin bye-pass in about two hours which was quite a surprise as I was accustomed to nothing less than a 3-hour drive to Nongstoin from Shillong. My calculations on time and distance were now to my advantage by at least an hour – which was a welcome feeling considering that I was going to an unknown place.
In my mind I was taken back to 1982 when as the first Divisional Forest Officer of the West Khasi Hills, I was confronted with challenging questions from the simple people who wanted to know why the West Khasi Hills needed a Forest Officer in the first place when the gods had blessed the land with more forests than they could clear. It was my job then to convince them that what they had now, was far less than what their predecessors had in their days, and that at this rate the time was not far when they or their children, would be blamed for the lack of forests and the bye products of forestry such as water, food and a good life. My favourite phrase in my response was, “Trees mean water. Water means bread. And bread is life.” I believe that the connection between trees and food and a good life caught the attention of their simple minds and I gained a host of friends in the years that I was posted there. In those days, starting from Shyrwang one was entering into what was commonly called the “Wild West” for the same reasons as the original Wild West of America – on a micro scale – I won’t go into that here.
By now it was way past my morning tea break and one does not disobey soulful orders. We strained our sight through the blurry haze of mist and rain for anything that looked like a tea shop and just before frustration set in, out of the mist and pouring rain the outline of a roadside tea shack emerged – actually two tea shacks on a diversion to the right. Only a lady, probably in her thirties was in attendance: we quickly debarked and placed our orders in the politest Khasi dialect – I remembered that unfamiliar faces in the West were only welcome if their talk was friendly and polite. She said she had not had any customers before us and that got me wondering. There were some long tail feathers from a rooster that had probably been served at dinner the night before hanging from the main wooden beam that held the truss and the rafters. I asked for coffee just as I got to the top of the 4 wooden steps at the entrance. She said she didn’t have any and that only hot red tea was available. One of the guys wanted milk, there was none. There were some fritters made from flour which she called “pu moida.” The girl who accompanied us on this trip recommended we have them in case we wanted to eat anything and we gladly took her advice. We ate, asked for a few more cups of tea and pu moida and were ready to be on our way. We didn’t know how long it would take to get to our destination under these wet conditions and so we hurriedly paid her a hundred rupees without bothering to ask about the cost, but were stopped by an “aap shuwa” (wait), in a friendly tone – the lady didn’t have change, neither did we, and one hundred rupees was more than what we had eaten and drank. She settled the matter by giving us a few more “pu moida” and off we went. We scarcely came across any traffic from the opposite direction and so were able to continue at a brisk 50-60 km per hour on those winding roads to Riangdo. We came across a number of roadside villages that had stacks of charcoal and eating places as we drove on. I was looking expectantly forward to the bridge that spans the source of the Wah Blei, and when we got there, it was such a pleasant surprise to see everything in as natural a state as it was in the 1980s. I hope it stays that way.
To cut a long story short I will not relate too much on what we came across on the journey from the tea shop to Riangdo, except that everything was cheerful and interesting. We arrived at Riangdo at about 1 pm, famished and somewhat bewildered that what I was seeing didn’t look much different from what it looked like before. Believe me, one understands what it means to be hungry and exhausted on a journey from a cooler to a warmer place. We were guided straight to a wayside eating house by the girl who was with us; she knew the shop owner…that’s an important matter. I have to admit the food was good – very much to my taste in the way it was prepared. One must not forget that in these country restaurants one gets what is on board and not what one wants. I became involved in a long discussion with the owner after lunch about how much further we had to go and whether there was any need for me to be concerned about the kind of people I would encounter. And from her responses, I could gather that she was concerned for my welfare in these surroundings where I was a total stranger in language and looks.
Perhaps it was my schooling that gave me an inquisitive mind, the kind that seeks to understand what is and what is not of a place and its people. In the course of a person’s experience it is normal that everything different should arouse an interest; that’s how I see things, and in my case, knowing what and whom the Lyngam were and were not, and what they worshiped and how they came to discover talismans and things that influence outcomes, and how they used these objects to promote their interest in their dealings with others had earned my curiosity, again because of the influence of the stories my uncle narrated to me. I had also come to learn much about animalism from the “Songsarik” (the believers in the original Garo faith) during the years I was posted in the Garo Hills, and now I hoped that there would be something that would arouse a similar interest here – hopefully even grasp the knowledge of how to use these things to my advantage if that was possible.
I have often heard people talk in a very demeaning and condescending way about the Khasis that live in the interior regions detached from society in the cities and towns, and I have never failed to seriously counter the disrespect intended against them. In my way of thinking it is contrary to everything decent to disrespect a whole tribe in the way some people do, especially when they know that there are those among them who see things differently from them. It is another thing altogether to talk nonsense about one as an individual if they choose to do so, and they’re welcome to do so to their heart’s content, so long as there is truth in what they say…no one would complain about it. But in regard to a tribe like the Lyngams who are more akin to our origin than the Christian Khasi, demands decency and truthfulness. I’ve heard some that call them godless and I make it clear on these occasions that it is such a childish thing to say – simply stupid. Where a man can detect no meaningful connection to what others are, does not necessarily follow that there is nothing that connects us, but simply that being narrow minded disconnects them. They are the ones who describe Christianity as something superior to everything else because it offers forgiveness for one’s wrongdoings. Conscientious people find it difficult to have to believe in the forgiveness of sin according to the Christian precepts and the original Khasi does not see sin being absolved in that way. It would be reasonable and agreeable to admit that the feeling of sin dominates every Khasi in general and that is why Christian precepts were easily acceptable to the Khasis. “Ka pop ka sung” or “sin and blasphemy” as a rule, is something the Khasi admits as an inherent trait in their religion and that forgiveness from a blasphemy is a vital necessity, which is similar to what Christians believe. What is different between the two groups is that whereas Christians believe that salvation comes through the belief in the historical person of Jesus, the Khasi believes everyone attains salvation through the admission of the wrong they have done. There is nothing special about salvation or redemption – everyone has a right to it and the Khasi sets a very high value on ethics unpolluted by the muddling influence of a vested interpretation. It cannot be denied that in many religions a vested interest intentionally confuses our interpretation of things, and this is not the case in “ka Niam Khasi.” I have spoken to individuals who go to these remote areas to draw the people away from their ancestral beliefs and by questioning them on what they knew of the Khasi beliefs and ways, they knew pretty much nothing – not even as much as I knew. They had a vested reason to go and so they went, leaving me wondering on how they would convince these people. But I think I knew how they would. It is extremely irksome to try to convince such people that what they were doing was not in the interest of the Khasi endeavour.
And basically, that was what I was left contemplating on for the rest of the journey, which was not the best reflection on offer. The journey to Jaiaw took about half an hour through bamboo forests, and an endless landscape of green hills that replaced everything I was thinking about with a feeling of one hovering over the past as if seeing it from above. We parked the Thar on the mud track that leads to Mawlai and just a short distance uphill I realised that it was not in my interest to walk up the very steep slippery slope. Here nature was perfect and that gave me a sense of freedom from the pressures of life. There was nothing to contemplate on and my senses had found a calm that I hadn’t experienced in a long time…basically a mood above all others. I met the person I came to meet and thanked God when I realized that our interests were closely welded – he suggested I come in the dry season. Come January 2027 I will be there. We got back to Shillong by 9pm on the same day.
