It was my mentor in philosophy, the third Earl of Kingston Bertie Russell, who wrote the following lines: “… between Theology and Science there lies a No Man’s Land… that’s Philosophy. Almost all questions of most interest to the speculative mind are such as Science cannot answer, and the confident answers of theologians no longer sound convincing…” The only improvement I have made upon his words consists in capitalisation of initials of some important words that are carriers of significant concepts.
It was in December, and Kong Dolores, my dear friend, and I were lounging at Swish, Shillong’s ancient café, waiting for the dense Meghalaya fog to run its course. Inside, it was 4 in the evening, and outside, a dark freezing midnight. Bah Tito Syiem, the Café Manager, trotting back and forth, waited patiently for the fog and the two remaining occupants of the café to disperse. Dr Dolores Lapang, D.Phil, and I were sitting at our customary table, debating the longevity of Philosophy, the subject Kong taught at Shillong’s excellent University, NEHU.
Kong Dolores was lamenting the dwindling admissions to her Faculty. It was here that I dusted and delivered the quote that forms the substance of our first paragraph. Theology and its surrogate, religion, are in retreat, I averred. Simultaneously the canvas of science expands as she conquers territory after territory. A day may come when the sum of annual admissions in your departments all over the country will equate itself with the sum of retirements, leaving only replacement demand! Kong pinched me in fun, failing to relish such a prospect.
Abandoning, suddenly, his metronome movements, Bah Tito made a detour towards us. Do you mind if I joined you, asked Bah, and upon our nodding cordial assent, pulled a heavy teakwood chair.
“Khublei shibun,” said he, “Sorry, I was eavesdropping, an act of mine which deserves your indulgence, for the mention of the word Philosophy floods my mind with memories of my young sister, the delicate Lou, as I try to come to terms with her existence.”
Umm…, he said, Philosophy, which is perhaps a matter of theory for you, is for me an article or a contrivance of daily use, like a bed-spread or a fishing-rod… Nevertheless, Bah’s philosophy definition deals me a strange relief today, how and why, I shall presently explain…
Umm…well… reminisced Bah, I’ll begin with Lou’s eyes, which had a special sparkle that lent a peculiar glow to her beautiful face, which again, being a Khasi face, had a measure of strangeness in proportion that Poe would have commended. She was my youngest sister, 15 years in between, and when I went to fetch her, as a little girl, from the Lachaumiere bus drop, I would locate her easily in the packed Loreto school-van from a mischievous gleam of eyes sitting in a corner, brimming with joie de verve and an irrepressible curiosity about the world in general.
Well, Lou was the beloved of the household, the family’s khadduh, the youngest daughter, the inheritor of the family’s wealth. Ka khadduh, amongst Khasis, is the family darling, not for any motive, but it is a fact, simply stated, that ka khadduh is the recipient of much inquisitiveness and adoration.
She grew like the phases of the moon, blossoming into an exquisite beauty, tall, delicate. Bright at school, she was and the Shillong Choir would sound incomplete without her. In short, a girl to treasure, cynosure of all eyes wherever she went! A beautiful and fulfilling future awaited her…
She had just turned 18 when Nongkrem arrived, the Khasi thanksgiving festival celebrated at Smit in early winter, after the harvest, where Khasi girls and boys congregate, to dance in the steppe-like fields, scattering the golden hue of pure Khasi gold ornaments and crowns to the skies, to the entrancing accompaniment of drums and pipes…
Then it happened. We lost Lou. She disappeared… vanished from the face of earth as it were, leaving no token of existence! Her friends saw her last at the altar of Ka Pah Syntiew. Frantic messages went out to the headmen, near and afar… We combed the whole of Khasi Hills for her, from the heights of the Nohkalikai Falls, to the depths of Dawki, to the wilderness of Mawphlang, negotiating the arms of the castanopsis and the Pinus kasia swaying in the angry winds, side-stepping the poisonous cobra-lilies, ferns and pipers that inhabit Lou’s beloved sacred forest.
Of course a Khasi will rarely, if ever, approach the police force over family matters unless he’s sure that an outsider was involved… interjected Kong.
And… continued Bah without allowing his narrative to flag… do you know how the tallest waterfall in the country got its name? Poor Ka Likai had jumped in grief from the Sohra hill when she saw the severed fingers of her child! I even checked the green plunge-pool half a mile below for our girl, to exclude the possibility of Likai having permeated Lou’s mind.
Mamma and Papa were of course disconsolate, waiting in vain all the time, watching from our terrace the winding roads that lead to our abode. Umm… Mamma hosted many a Khasi ritual, the chief being the Egg Oracle, where the priest invokes the Supreme God U Blei Nongthaw, breaks an egg, and from the way the shell crumbles tries to divine His command. Much as I wanted to share my parents’ plebeian hopes, I feared the worst, though I must confess I would see the likeness of Lou in every girl approaching from a distance. Why did you go away? Was it the handiwork of the vicious spirit ka tyrut?
“Strange are the ways of fate,” I mused absently.
Well well, strictly speaking, we Khasis don’t believe in the usual concept of Fate, said Bah. What we call ka kambhah kambynta defines the way Fate is supposed to operate. It has an element of volition. The unborn child in her mother’s womb is confronted by ka Lei Synshar, the Creator, with various kinds of fate and the embryo has to choose one, failing which she or he will remain still-born.
…Outside Swish the weather was worsening, as further reinforcements of fog arrived from the heights of Laitkor… Bah Tito’s mystery took on further lease of life.
Umm… about three years after the unfortunate events, I happened to be in Calcutta. I had taken a morning-walk in the Maidan and was crossing the main-road near Grand, when I saw a well-dressed girl emerge from the Hotel, and she was Lou…? I missed a thousand heart-beats, the same stiletto-balancing walk, the same profile and… “Lou,” I yelled, keeping my best manners under animated suspension. The girl froze, turned around, yes she was Lou indeed, the same shining eyes, the same tall forehead, same garden-fresh complexion… She exclaimed, to my surprise, “Dada”, which is how they address an elder brother in Bengal. She regarded me most cordially and with affection, and conscious of the explosive potential of the situation, hurriedly came across, held my hand, promising to explain everything once we reached her home in Behala.
We clambered onto a rumbling tram, found seating easily, moving as we were against the morning traffic… Calcutta was the only place in the world where such dénouement could have unfolded… I consoled myself.
Umm… Lou was shaking nervously. We alighted at Behala Chowrasta and reached her home on the second floor of a decorous building. It seemed she stayed alone. The ambience bore the stamp of style and affluence, to my great relief. Bah Tito, she asked, of course you have not given up smoking, let me get a pack of cigarettes for you from the pan-shop across the street, she picked up her purse and slid into the winding staircase.
I looked around the little flat, it was neatly kept, as could be expected of Lou. A guitar hung beside the dresser in her bedroom. Good, there was a picture of the Christ, which bore uncanny likeness to the one back in our Shillong home. I ventured into the little balcony. It overlooked the pan-shop Lou spoke of. I looked around but failed to spot our Lou wearing the red T-shirt with the number 10 I had noticed when I last saw her hurry down the stairs.
And that was also the last I had seen of her. She never came back with the promised pack of Four Square.
We sat in stunned silence, trying in our minds to apportion blame for the lost resurrection. I sighed, and just to relieve Bah Tito of the burden of misery that overtook his face, reminded him of his resolve to explain the relevance of our Quote here, how it could provide poetic relief to him.
Umm… said Bah Tito, you talked about the no-man’s-land between religion and science, did you not? Thankfully, the hand of dark-forces stands ruled out by the fact of Lou’s reappearance. The territory of the known expands thereby, and thence I derive peace and quiet…
But Philosophy will always be there for me… my bed-spread and fishing-rod!
(Contributed by Sanjiv Bokil, retired banker)