By Philip Marwein
I do not claim that I know Honsen Lyngdoh inside out but I do know something about this many splendoured personality.
It was some 15-25 years ago that I came in contact with him not at very close quarters. I first knew him few years before he got the National Citizen Award for public services. I ought to say that he really deserved it and in fact, he deserved much more than this award.
God has bestowed upon him a big heart. Out of his generosity he had helped people in so many ways which cannot be described in words and which I cannot remember and many of which they do not come to my knowledge. Perhaps his wife and his children and friends will know better. He has made several playgrounds, levelling of schools and colleges’ playgrounds and foundations, construction of rural, sub-urban and urban roads and connectivity free of cost or at times at highly subsidised costs through his bulldozers and at later period through his JCBs. He was nicknamed ‘Earth Mover’ and later his fleet of bulldozers and JCBs were called Honsen Earth Movers.
One of the rural roads constructed by him was the 36 km from 5 km Shahlang to Langmar in Ri Lyngngam (Lyngngam area) bordering East and South Garo Hills of West Khasi Hills which provided communication accessibility in the forbidden and most neglected area of the westernmost Khasi Hills.
In Ri Lyngngam, he based his semi-permanent camp at Shahlang for several years till his passing away and the people of Ri Lyngngam, including Garos, living there considered him as their Godfather. This road and other feeder roads had served as the lifeline for many neglected Ri Lyngngam villages though its main aim was to facilitate trucks to carry coal from different mines in that coal-rich area.
Another aspect was his magnanimity in reaching out to people who were in need of help, financially or otherwise. God has richly blessed him and he paid back to God by generously donated his wealth to the needy, to individuals and various types of organisations. As he loved sports and sporting activities, he used to lavishly donate his money for promotion of sports in different ways.
He was fascinated by steel and iron materials and whenever he saw iron and steel machines in working conditions or as scraps he used to tell the drivers to stop for a while and enquire from people because he wanted to buy them for his different uses. He could convert useless scraps and abandoned machines into very useful materials serviceable for his purposes. He along with the ingenuity of his father had made scrap machines into tractors, jeeps, power tiller and other things. He and his father together made the most talented machinists’ team. They knew the functioning machines inside out because they themselves were skilful mechanics and machinists. They were excellent engineers though they did not have a degree from any engineering colleges of their time.
Lyngdoh possessed so many talents. He was gifted in road and bridges surveys and how to construct them with his own men and machines (bulldozers and JCBs) and for his own private projects he has built many roads and bridges. He built mini-hydro electric projects for his own purpose though he did not want to blow his own trumpet. He once had a zoo, which he built himself, on the hill slope of Sohpetbneng range where he kept few wild animals like deer and antelopes.
He was also a linguist and knew English, Hindi and Nepali, besides Khasi.
Lyngdoh was an excellent farmer. He could identify easily which land could be turned into a farmland, which was suitable for quarry, which could be cultivated with what. He could easily identify the different types of soil good for what purpose and could read the different types of minerals present in the soil strata and would explain their economic uses. He has identified the different types of soil some of which can be used for converting into source of different types of colours.
He had confessed more than once to me that he could not read and write because his parents were too poor to send him to school though he wanted very eagerly to go to school during his childhood.
Recalling his childhood and boyhood days he was literally moved to tears because of poverty and used to tell me that during the earlier years their family could hardly afford a square meal a day and sometimes he would go without food. During one of the school functions where he was invited as Chief Guest he had broken down when he recalled his boyhood days to the schoolchildren of Rangblang. He was driving home a message to them to work hard and study well to be leaders and rulers of society.
Another aspect lest I forget, Lyngdoh told me that the present generation, including of leaders, is easy-going and lazy and have no work culture. Hence they cannot grow and become rich. On the present leaders in the government and political parties, he was blunt by saying that there are none who was committed to the people and to the state and stated that he hated to see politicians, ministers and officers who were hell bent on self-aggrandisement.
(The author is a senior journalist)
