To wistfully in Shillong

The cosmopolitan and calm Shillong is something even the angry tribes of Meghalaya have nothing to complain about, and hence, paints an interesting picture of Northeast Indian politics.

A view of Shillong city centre | Commons

Every reporter pays his dues doing one beat, or story, in his lifetime. I paid mine covering the Northeast between 1981-83. Just as you can’t get that out-of-sight, out-of-mind region on our front pages these days, then you couldn’t keep it off. The ’80s were the most perilous of what the American South Asianist, Selig Harrison, described as India’s Dangerous Decades and the “Seven Sisters” of the Northeast had danger signs painted all over them. The Assam movement was at its peak with supplies of crude oil to the mainland blockaded, Naga, Mizo and Manipuri insurgencies were active, there were killings of “outsiders” in Tripura and even serene Meghalaya had had its first brush with riots in what was called the anti-dkhar (outsider) outbreak.

That eruption in Meghalaya was sharp, but short. By the time I pitched tent in Shillong, still the unofficial capital of the Northeast, peace had returned. You could walk on the street safely at night, even drive to the only “authentic” Chinese restaurant near Polo Ground where they served raw onions and green chillies with your greasy chopsuey. In nearly three years of living in Shillong in what’s been the most wonderful period of my life, personally and professionally, I wrote almost no story on Meghalaya. There was no trouble here, no massacres, no ambushes, insurgency, human rights abuses and secessionism. It was impossible to sell a Meghalaya story even to an Indian Express news desk run at night by a most benevolent and uncomplaining chief sub-editor, namely Radhika Roy (yes, now of NDTV).

The usual question from the desk was, but what is the story in Meghalaya? It was echoed in the question a Khasi civil servant once asked me: “So Shekhar, how many plains people do we have to kill so you can get a Meghalaya story on your page one?” So the only Meghalaya stories I wrote then were Sunday features, gleefully accepted by Dina Vakil, who then worked at The Indian Express like all great journalists do at some point. One on Dollymoore Wankhar who made mementos from real butterflies, on the local pastime of “tir” or mass archery where you got prizes for guessing a intriguingly calculated number of hits, rather than for backing the winner, on the quaint old winery of Mawphlang that made syrupy cherry brandy, and one even on tribal monoliths — in fact these were the only ones I had seen outside of Asterix comics.

The Khasis, the Jaintias and the Garos, the tribes of Meghalaya, had their complaints too. But a combination of factors had always made them less alienated or angry. One of these was their very cosmopolitan city of Shillong. The other, just better connection with the mainland. The tribes had their political elites too, probably because as the capital of undivided Assam, they had had a closer acquaintance with parliamentary politics. The Garos had their Sangmas (Captain Williamson and then Purno), the Khasis and Jaintias their B.B. Lyngdoh, P. Ripple Kyndiah (now cabinet minister).

 

The politics of the two regions was divided by geography and ethnicity. The Garos were predominantly pro-Congress and to get to their districts from Shillong, you still have to drive to Guwahati and then down the Brahmaputra valley, and hook back into the Garo Hills a good eight hours later. The Khasi-Jaintias preferred their own regional parties. One of the oldest among these is HSPDP (Hill States People’s Democratic Party) whose founder Hopingstone Lyngdoh is a key member in the present coalition cabinet, and the main opponent of the exploration of sizeable uranium resources in the Meghalaya Hills. And even Khasis and Jaintias, though similar, have many differences. There was a time somebody launched an ethnic unity movement of sorts called the Hynniewtrep (“seven huts”) movement, harking back to the old belief that both these tribes had been created from a common origin, namely the plumes from the tail of a very multi-coloured rooster — which still represents divinity in an intriguing sort of a way among these pre-dominantly Christian tribes. But it did not get very far.

Given the unfortunate criteria the media sets for news value, it was not such a bad idea for Meghalaya to have stayed out of the national headlines. But maybe it was also not so good to have stayed out of national (read New Delhi’s) focus altogether. Or it wouldn’t have been so easy for these half dozen monstrosities to offend your eyes and nostrils as you enter the bend into the green hills from Guwahati, hoping to catch the cool Meghalaya breeze — after nearly 25 years, last week, in my case. Instead of the untouched green hills, the skyline of the foothills town of Byrnihat is now dominated by a half dozen smoking chimneys of factories making, believe it or not, specialty bricks and ferro-alloys. Now, who the hell allowed these to come up in Meghalaya of all places? They contribute nothing to the state by way of revenue, jobs, or even consumer needs. So why base such polluting and CO2-spewing, power-guzzling factories in a hill state when Assam’s plains beckon just five miles downhill?

I am told these were permitted in the past (mostly by Congress governments) on the argument that Meghalaya had surplus power! And how much is the state’s total generation, almost all from its rain-fed lakes? Just 300 megawatts! It looked surplus mainly because of economic backwardness, so its two million plus people could not even use this much power (by comparison, last summer Delhi’s peak demand was 4030 MW). Now these factories vacuum-clean so much of its power that even Shillong has power cuts. New concrete buildings coming up all over Shillong have that shocking appendage to their terraces we have got so used to in Delhi — the diesel gen-sets. So you go out for a nightly stroll and smell diesel in the most brilliant, cool and moist breeze God created, the rustle of pines drowned in the hum of “silent” gen-sets.

 

It is not, however, that the government is not trying. To feed the monsters the wonderful lake at Barapani is being emptied at express pace, its storage from last year’s terrific monsoon squeezed out into the turbines so feverishly it is nearly empty now. So empty you can even see the remnants of the old highway, which had been submerged when this reservoir was created. You can see that pain in the eyes of Prabhat De Sawian and his Mizo wife Parrtei. Prabhat is the scion one of the most prominent and cosmopolitan Khasi families. His father Lala De was the IG of police, a job his brother now holds in DG’s rank. His sister Bijoya was a top model in Delhi. One of his sons runs a rock band in New York, the other helps manage the chain of hotels he is setting up. The apple of his eye is Ri Kynjai (Khasi for serenity by the lake), a tiny resort he has built by the side of Barapani. Prabhat graduated from the Delhi School of Planning and Architecture, probably the first northeastern tribal to do so, and he has designed the resort himself, building it almost entirely with local pinewood, and his cottages in pure Khasi style. It really is a most wonderful gem, hidden so far away, and yet he is filling it up with guests. He now waits for just two things. The return of water in the lake with the monsoons next month, and the completion of the airport expansion work at nearby Umroi, so direct flights would link Shillong with Kolkata.

Incidentally, don’t be surprised if you find so many places named “Um” (Umroi, Umsning, Umdihar) and “Maw” (Mawphlang, Mawsynram, Mawlai) as you drive around the Khasi Hills. “Um” means water and “Maw” stone or rock. My favourite spot on the drive, and that of anybody who often does the 150 km journey from Guwahati to Shillong, however, is the highway stop of Nongpoh, where earnest young Khasi women still serve round the clock jingbam (snacks) and meals through the day. These shops are still decorated with hanging, locally grown, pineapples, papayas and bananas, and the prices are still from another, innocent era. A meal of rice, pork, fish, chicken and lai-patta, the delectable, local mustard leaf, for four, for a total of 86 rupees, and the offer of a tip is blushingly declined.

Some other things haven’t changed. On the three-hour Kingfisher flight direct from Mumbai to Guwahati, I chat with Sharon Pariat, a brilliant entrepreneur with a criminal psychology degree from NIMHANS in Bangalore, with experience of having worked with the UN in Bosnia and Eritrea and now building on an already flourishing business in Muga silk (unique to Assam, a gloriously golden thread) weaves and Meghalaya turmeric which, she tells me, has three-four times more of the magical medicinal ingredient, curcumin, than turmeric grown elsewhere in the country. And she is all of 33. Born to an Assamese tea planter father and a Jaintia mother, she obviously carries the mother’s second name, as is the local custom. Her business card says her home is called “Trillian House”. What is Trillian, I ask. It’s her grandmother’s name, she tells me, and asks, don’t you remember Shillong names? Million, Billion, Trillion?

Now how could I have forgotten that? When we first came here in 1981, a neighbour told us, if you want to get used to the place listen to the Western music programme every evening on AIR’s Yuvavani. At least you will get used to the local names. So we had the then local star radio jockey June Pariat (an aunt of Sharon’s, incidentally) playing out Boney M, Abba, Beatles and Bob Dylan to requests from Efficiency, Sufficiency, Proficiency, Firstborn or Themiddleone or Forgetfully, Forgetmenot and even a Wistfully. Everybody’s favourites, however, were Gearbox, Bonnet and Screwdriver, aptly named sons of a motor mechanic and there were any numbers of Queen Elizabeths and Queen Victorias. There was even a cabinet minister called Doctor Barristar Parkers. It was therefore that when I first read the Chennai Super Kings team had a Napoleon Einstein in its ranks, my first reaction was that a Shillong boy had finally made it to the big league of cricket. He, however, is from Tamil Nadu.

But things are changing too and not necessarily for the worse. On the thatched wall of my eating stop in Nongpoh is a pamphlet from the Khasi Students Union (KSU) wing from Umdihar, a village of just a few thousand, announcing a Twenty20 cricket tournament with Rs 10,000 for the winners and Rs 100 for the man of the match. Now if KSU, which for so long fought against all outside influences, organises cricket tournaments, it is change. The steep hill lane, on top of which my tiny pinewood-cottage home was built and where any vehicle had to switch into the first gear while beginning the climb, is now named after Lt Clifford Nongrum, a decorated war hero of Kargil, probably, the first from the Khasi Hills.

And yes, Western music is alive, and not just on Akashvani. Shillong now has more bands than most Indian metros, and Bob Dylan’s birthday is celebrated like a national festival. That is why it is so much a pity we in New Delhi or Mumbai or Chennai or Bangalore still know as little, or probably care as little, about this most wonderful place as we did a quarter century ago, when the cashier at The Indian Express asked me in which currency he should send my salary, and when the truck company bringing my household goods said they did not have a service to “Mongolia”. Sure enough, Purno Sangma tells me that after having been five-term MP, a cabinet minister for a decade, and speaker of Lok Sabha, the odd fellow MP still asks him, so, Purno, how is your Mizoram?

But Purno isn’t complaining. In fact, complaining is not a popular pastime in the Meghalaya Hills. From making music, catching butterflies and fish, to archery and now cricket — Sangma’s son heads the Meghalaya Cricket Association and expects an early recognition by the BCCI, thanks obviously to Sharad Pawar — the Meghalayans are a contented lot. But there are some complaints. Like the one of my old neighbours Lorris Myrthong, an economics professor, and his wife Edwina Wallang. Their cottage (named Leleys Cottage, each letter representing a member of his family: Lorris, Edwina and daughters Larina, Elina, Yerlina and Sabrina) is the only survivor in the now gentrified compound where we lived. He has now had to seek his Delhi-based airline stewardess daughter’s good offices to go fishing upstream of Rishikesh. Twenty-five years ago, he taught my brother fishing in streams just a short trek away. Now, he says remorsefully, “We have rivers but no life, with so much blasting and poisioning, mountains but no life.” India, after all, has caught up with Meghalaya. Or is it the other way round?