By Gary Marbaniang
I’ve been contemplating about including my mother’s surname in my name for quite a while now. And the reason for my contemplation is not because I’m scared that you might snatch away my identity and erase my Khasiness but rather because I’ve realised that my mother always felt left out of my life even though she played as important a role as my father in my upbringing and made me who I am today. Word around town is that Khasis who follow the patrilineal system are part of the elite circle. But far from being elites, both my parents grew up in rural areas and they perfectly fit the bill when it comes to the derided Khasi term, ”nongkyndong” which in English simply means villager.
My mother’s village, Lawkhla is tucked away in the middle of nowhere. Before my mother met my father, she worked as a domestic help for two families in town for a few years but she returned to her village fully convinced that city life was not meant for her. But as the story goes, she came back to Shillong to attend a funeral and a twist of fate resulted in her meeting some people who later became my father’s relatives and they pleaded with her to fill in as a helper for a few weeks since they were in desperate need of a babysitter at that time. My mother reluctantly agreed and that’s how she met my father and as the saying goes, “The rest is history.”
My father came to Shillong to study and carry out the family’s business activities at the same time. Since my father’s maternal uncle was already staying in Shillong he found it convenient to stay close to him. All was well when my father married my mother. Even though my father’s family was one of the most reputed family in the village of Mawsynram, his entire immediate family overlooked my mother’s impoverished background and accepted her with open arms. As years went by, the size of our family increased and when I was born, our family was complete. By the time I was born, my father was already one of the top Chess players in the state of Meghalaya and my two elder brothers had started playing the game competitively. As for me, I picked up the game at a very young age and at the tender age of seven, I had the opportunity to represent the State in a national chess competition in Calicut, Kerala. That’s when the spotlight fell on me.
When I returned home having done quite well in the tournament, I was the toast of my locality and everyone was awestruck by my sporting prowess since I was equally proficient in a host of other sports, one of them being badminton, a game which was cherished by both young and old alike in our locality in those days. My other two brothers were also inclined to sports and they also excelled in all kind of sporting activities. So naturally it became known to the whole world through our sporting achievements that we as a family had taken the road less traveled and abandoned our cherished tradition. When our family decided to follow the patrilineal system, everyone was in a state of shock and disbelief. The general opinion among our relatives especially from my mother’s side was that my father bulldozed my mother into accepting the patrilineal system and ignored her opinion on this matter. My father had to face some harsh criticisms from our relatives but I must say that he did take the heat rather well. I remember vividly one Sunday afternoon after attending a church service at Mawkhar Presbyterian church, my maternal cousins came rushing to our house armed with the pastor’s sermon that Jesus followed the matrilineal system. It was some sort of vindication for them about the ill-conceived judgement of my father’s decision. One of the richest men in Shillong in years gone by even reprimanded my father’s maternal uncle during a clan gathering for allowing my father to supposedly go haywire. My mother was the one who was caught in the crossfire in the war of words that ensued after my father chose to abandon our cherished tradition.
Even though my father had explained his ideological inclination thoroughly to my mother, yet I have to admit that it might have been really difficult for my mother to come to terms with his decision to stray away from accepted societal norms. To be fair to my father, I’ve got to grant it to him for being one of the fairest and most reasonable persons that I’ve ever met in my entire life. My eldest sister reverted back to taking our mother’s surname when she was in Class 10 and my father didn’t raise an eyebrow over it. But unfortunately, as we grew up, my mother increasingly felt left out of our lives. Almost every one of my siblings had a much closer connection with our father than our mother. Our father’s soft spoken nature was the main factor that tilted our affection more towards him and the fact that he never ever raised his hand against any one of us did make him more endearing to all of us during our growing up years. Our mother on the other hand was the one who gave us tough love and did all the beating when needed.
Fast forward to 2018, I am now a grown man and looking back at my childhood days, I’ve realised that the deep love and affection that I had for my father prompted me to ignore the warmth, love and affection that my mother had for me. I’ve recently discovered a few things about my mother that I’ve never known before. For one, I was absolutely sure that we inherited our chess playing skills from our father but last year after playing a game of chess with my mother, I realized that she has a sharp mind if not a sharper mind than my father’s. And the one thing that impressed me to this day is the level of general awareness that she possesses and the ease at which she is able to read, write and calculate. For a woman who had only basic elementary schooling in a village in the middle of nowhere, it is nothing short of extraordinary. Every little intelligence that I possess, I owe to her.
For now, easing the uneasiness of my immediate relatives is something which is long overdue. They have become extremely worried in recent years about my intentions; they think that I’m doing everything that I can to steal my sister’s birthright. My two elders brothers have already got married and left home and they have been integrated again into our matrilineal system, so they don’t pose a threat anymore. My father from time to time, does flirt with the idea of me staying at home even after I got married. But I want to reassure them and the whole world that it will not happen in a million years. I know that deep down in my father’s heart, he stills feel a strong pull towards matriliny and he still has that deep yearning of wanting my sisters to take care of him and my mother in their old age.
I really do admire our MDC’s (Members of District Council’s) undying love for matriliny but they must respect and accept the fact that there are Khasis who genuinely feel that the patrilineal system is best suited for their family. I would also like to remind our respected MDC’s if they have already forgotten(it’s human nature to forget),that there was an eminent politician in the not so distant past who left an indelible mark on the Indian political system. I guess the name Rev JJM Nichols Roy rings a bell in the ears of our MDCs. Without Rev JJM Nichols Roy there would have been no Sixth Schedule and without the Sixth Schedule there would have certainly been no KHADC. So before our respected MDC’s pass any legislation, they should have kept him in mind since he and his family followed patriliny, because passing any legislation that contravenes his cherished ideals is a classic case of “BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU”.