Who is a Khasi: A first person poser
By Dalariti Nongpiur
The year was 2004. The occasion – a copy test I was giving to get a copywriting job in one of the Advertising Agencies in New Delhi. As part of that test, I had to write a short paragraph telling the creative head of the agency about myself. This is what I wrote:
“In the wee hours of a cold January morning my mother bore me. Her daughter; my father’s daughter; their only daughter. To them I was Dalariti – a protector of culture; a protector of tradition. The family I was born into moulded me into the person I am today. My mother ever my guide; my father- my mentor and my brothers – my two best friends. Many years have passed since that cold January morning in 1983 and today at twenty-one, I stand here. A woman; A Khasi. And nature’s child.”
And this little piece of writing landed me my first job as junior-copywriter of a pretty well established advertising firm. And I, being the sentimental idiot that I’ve been trying to grow out of, saved this short paragraph as a reminder of my little beginning. I never thought that it would ever be of significance again until I saw Wanphrang Diengdoh’s, documentary, ‘Where the Clouds End.’ Well, what can I say about this 52 minute documentary that has not already been said? Nothing much! It’s informative; it shows Meghalaya (the Khasi community to be more specific) in a totally different light and it raises some very important questions such as who, or rather what is a Khasi?
Are there parameters with which to measure how “Khasi” a person really is? Is there a religious aspect? Or a linguistic one? Or a real estate one? Is it behaviour that separates the Khasis from the rest? Is it the clothes we wear? Is it a complete collection of all this? Is it a partial collection? How important is matrilineality to the community or is it high time that it is done away with so that the people (I mean the Khasi race or community or whatever the apt word is) are “free” to follow the rest (majority) of the world and start on a patrilineal system of tracing lineage and defining inheritance laws? Ought love and marital unions be subjected to racial and communal pressure? Is the outsider or non-tribal or dkhar really a threat? And, at the risk of sounding like a Hollywood movie, who is ‘The Outsider?’ Do we really need extra and extreme measure/s (in this case the Inner Line Permit) to keep these “outsiders” at bay? Who or rather what is an outsider and are there parameters to measure how much of an outsider the presumed outsider is? Are we losing out to this so called outsider? Is he or she (an attempt at a pronoun serving as collective) about to take whatever is Khasi and pure and mix it up with the filth and impurity that everything Non-Khasi apparently stands for? And most importantly, Are we our own downfall? The Khasis, I mean.
These are the questions that the documentary poses before the audience, or at least to me, as a member of the audience. It does not really make any attempt whatsoever at answering them, but I found these answers. They were already lurking around inside me. They just needed the right questions to smoke them out of hiding. Am I going to elucidate these answers to you? No. Although I have in rhetoric, but it’s kind of subtle and you have to put feelers out. And if curiosity is (at all) aroused, then I believe one should watch the film and find one’s own answers. To quote Wanphrang, “It is not black and white.” Like all profound arguments and conflicts, I found myself in a grey area. But grey does not necessarily mean vague. It just means a slightly unorthodox perspective.
‘Where the Clouds End’ is more than just about the questions and answers though. It makes a strong statement against land acquisition in the name of development. In the words of Wanphrang, “Whenever I hear the word “development”, I get a little suspicious.” It speaks of past relationships between this outsider and the Khasis. A relationship that has always been recognised in terms of trade and marital union, but despite it being traditionally and legally “allowed”, it is still something that apparently threatens the identity of the Khasi community.
Getting to the technicalities, for something with so much national acclaim, the camera work should have been flawless, but it’s not. It’s a little raw and newslike. While certain parts demanded that a little more technical attention would have added to the quality. Personally I feel the sound design (music and background sounds) is, to quote a popular television character, “Legendary”. There was this humming sound that took me back to nights when mosquitoes ensured that I got no sleep at all. This was the sound that got the mind churning ordinary milk into rich butter – the smoke that got the answers out of hiding. I have always felt that people pay too much attention to what the eyes see that they forget what they hear. And when it comes to “Where the Clouds End”, what you see is not much. It is the narrative and the sound design that is captivating. It is more about what the people have to say than what they look like. The narration sounds apprehensive and a little uncomfortable, but it adds a kind of raw edge and feel to it. While the film has its own charm I have to agree with those who have seen the documentary when they say that it was a little mechanical in terms of delivery. This is not to discredit the visuals altogether. What they lacked in technical perfection, they made up in content. This is where humour (the satirical kind) rears its clown-faced head – pointing to things that were out of place, but still a very relevant part of the narrative.
A loud speaker mplifying words of patriotism towards land and community and these same speakers supported by a base that bears the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes are an irony that is hard to miss. And there is more stuff like this along the length of the documentary. And I, being the jackass with no control over my emotions (or funny bone in this case), burst out laughing whenever I noticed these little peculiarities (intentional I suppose).
I called it inconclusive in the beginning for the sheer fact that it does not clearly spell out what the director’s stance is, but there was a certain line in the concluding chapter of ‘Where the Clouds End’ that I have accepted as my conclusion. “The love for life and the right to live do not recognise constitutions and international borders.”
And at the end of it all, the final question that arises is “Was it worth the 52 minutes of my life?” Yes, it was. Why? Well, because I am an ordinary person with ordinary dreams, but unfortunately, I have been given a brain. And a brain thinks. And as randomly as it has been churning up thoughts, ‘Where the Clouds End’ kind of gives these thoughts a chance to line themselves up in a certain order. And believe me when I say that these thoughts have always been there. These questions have always weighed upon every fibre of my rationality. Maybe even before the filmmaker conceived of “Where the Clouds End”. He just got there before I did. And why? Probably because he believed in his doubts more than I did in mine and the questions begged for answers within him with more passion than they did in me.
However, all competition aside and keeping in mind the cards that life has dealt me and now slightly fuelled by ‘Where the Clouds End’, if I had to take that copy test again (the one I took in 2004), this is what I would have written:
“In the wee hours of a cold January morning my mother bore me. Her daughter; my father’s daughter; their only daughter. To them I was Dalariti – a protector of culture; a protector of tradition. Little did they know that I would one day tell them that religion means nothing much to me; that I would question them on ways-of-life and tradition; that I would vouch for humanity more than for something extraordinary or super-ordinary. Who am I? I am a Khasi, but before that I am an Indian and before that I am human. What am I? You tell me.”