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I get home, my brothers arrive and after a quick wash we all sit down again in the low dining table in the warmth of the kitchen for the third time waiting for grandma to serve us dinner. Dinner is as early as half past six or seven. This time it’s rice and pork cooked with bamboo shoots. It’s my favourite, so I ate to my satisfaction. A course of kwai and tympew and it’s in the television room to watch the daily local news at half past eight.
Half past nine and I am at uncle John’s house busy carrying kettle after kettle of steaming red tea, served to all those who have come to share the grief of the bereaved family. People usually come to pay their respects at night, a time many are free from their day’s work. There were ladies cutting beetle nuts, ladies shaping the beetle leaves into neat designs. There were others making wreaths of all shapes and sizes with real flowers and paper ones too. There were men talking politics, discussing religion and business. There were young boys playing carom and chess. The young girls carried beetle nuts in plates, passing them around for all to munch. A death for the Khasis is a get-together of friends and families, a time of knowing and meeting each other.
I went with my brothers and a few other friends in the locality to the community hall for a meeting planning out the next day’s routine. This involved digging a grave for Uncle John within the churchyard, making the coffin, and plans towards the annual cleaning drive in the locality. The young men of the locality are entrusted with this task. The local headman has a tool shed for residents within the locality and tools bought off the common fund are kept here for these particular jobs. The meeting ends and we all finish one final task for that evening. It is tradition on the incident of a death that the local headman rounds up a few young people and walks around the locality making a proclamation out into the lanes and streets. It is an appeal to everyone to be with the bereaved family to offer help and to contribute towards the funeral fund. The funeral fund is a contribution made by all residents no matter whether the family is rich or poor. The beating of the traditional drums and shouts of “Hoi Kiw!” (A phrase to attract attention only, having no real meaning) accompany this proclamation.
Eleven o’clock, I am back at Uncle John’s place to pick up mum. I dread tomorrow and the day after, for I will have to complete my social obligations again. Uncle John will keep for another two days. The Khasi keeps the dead for at least three days in full honour inside the house, that is, only if the dead did not die in an accident. If one died in an accident, the body is kept outside the house in a specially made tent house, a belief to prevent the evil spirits from entering the home. For three days we are to keep watch, the windows and doors open, for we believe that the dead still roam the house. Food is served to the dead along with kwai and tympew for all the three days. Prayers are said accompanied by certain rites in order to cleanse those alive from “Ka Tyrut ”, the Evil One. Though a majority of us the Khasis have been converted to Christianity yet these traditions still survive and are practiced every time.
I go back home at around a quarter to midnight and clamber straight into bed. It has started raining and the sound of raindrops on the tin roof act as a soft lullaby that nursed me to a sound sleep. Once again ends a day in Shillong - a place exotic and beautiful, deep rooted in tradition - a heaven on Earth for me, a place home to my heart.
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Frank Bamon
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Iahunlang Diengdoh | Aug 24th, 2011
I really enjoyed the story... Can relate to it yet it's refreshing.
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