By Gary Marbaniang
If some music enthusiast in the city would have said twelve years ago that the Shillong Chamber Choir would one day sing for the President of the USA, everyone would have ridiculed him and say he is out of his mind and living in a fool’s paradise. Today look how far the Choir has come! Credit must go to Mr Neil Nongkynrih for handpicking talented and dedicated singers from all around the city and the region creating a close knit group that seems to be enjoying every minute of the ride. The Choir has managed to break barriers and foster unity by singing in different languages. We should feel truly blessed to be living in the most diverse country in the world and kudos to the Choir for managing to grab hold of the golden opportunity to build a bridge between the people of Meghalaya and the rest of the Country and dispelling the negative image of the North Eastern Region as whole. The Choir has literally gone places and there is no boundary or limit to what they can achieve.
The valuable lesson that young people in the State can learn from their achievement is that there is no short cut to success. Hard work is the only way to success. Talent without hard work is meaningless. If one doesn’t polish one’s skills then the talent that one possesses will rust and lose its shine. That’s why it is important for young people to concentrate on the things they’re good at and refine it so that it becomes presentable to the whole world. And support, yes support, is very important if not the most important thing in the world. Most parents are good at throwing cold water and thwarting their children’s ambitions. Khasi parents should realize that the days of wanting all their children to be either government officers, doctors and engineers are long gone. Every person in this world possess some kind of God given talent but in today’s world if young people don’t put in any real effort to hone their skills and the talent they possess doesn’t reach acceptable standards then that talent will not be appreciated.
I don’t consider myself an exceptional writer but I kind of knew that I possess some writing skills way back when I was in Class 9.There was a history test on the Egyptian Civilization and I didn’t study at all for the test. I opened the history textbook at the eleventh hour but realized that my last ditch effort at saving face was too little too late. My last resort was to rely totally on my saving grace to save me from the impending crisis – a technique which students lovingly call in khasi, ”Thaw hi” meaning ‘Make up.’ Thaw hi has probably saved many students from humiliation and failure whenever they’re not able to study by rote. Rote learning sadly is still the right way or the only way to study in our country even today if students want to pass their exams with flying colours. So I decided to intelligently make up the answer and to my surprise our History teacher, Miss Palmer gave me the highest marks and asked everyone in the Class to read my answer script.
My University Professor, Sir Umdor also showered the same kind of praise on me when I reviewed a a book by Indian Economist , Gurcharan Das. But when a University friend asked me to express our collective outrage in The Shillong Times for publishing a front page news report about what a former local politician in our State said about U Tirot Sing, I simply couldn’t pick up the pen and come out with the words to express myself. I later won the first prize in an essay competition conducted at the University but it took me a few years to finally muster the courage and confidence to write my first article for “The Shillong Times.” I therefore encourage our young people to continue to hone their skills and perfect their craft and to never give up and lose hope because you never know where life is going to take you or who you’ll end up to be.
I’ve been saying really nice things about the Shillong Chamber Choir but if I do not support them in a way that will enable them to reap the rewards of their talent then my praises will only be empty words. If the Choir release a music album either in Khasi or English, I’ll be the first one to purchase it. When Desmond Rimaki Sunn, a leading musician in our city released his path breaking Khasi music album a few years ago, I had no second thoughts in spending a few hundred bucks to purchase that music album. If we really admire exceptional talent then we must support them financially. There is a term in Economics called, ”Free Rider” which means that a person enjoys the benefits of resources, mostly public goods, without spending money on it. If the world mostly consists of free riders even when it comes to the use of private resources then the whole modern economy will collapse. What sustained the barter system in olden times and the modern economy in a developed country today is the support system and the exchange of goods for goods. In the barter system, every good has some sort of imputed value and having a utility is the main quality that a particular good should possess in order to be accepted in exchange for another good. Likewise in a developed economy, every good that comes out of any of the three main sectors of the economy possesses some sort of monetary value. The moment people try to get something for free the economy suffers. This is how corruption destroys the economy too.
In the U.S.A, even a bicycle rider can make a living by becoming a bike stunt professional. People in the U.S.A usually pay good money to watch a bike stunt professional perform. India has grown by leaps and bounds since it liberalized its economy in 1991 and is on course to becoming a global superpower in the next decade or so. But it still has a long way to go in it’s quest of transforming itself into a sustainable fast growing economy. Small States like Meghalaya must do their bit to contribute to the growth story of the country. A big chunk of the population in the State is still engaged in agriculture and disguised unemployment is still prevalent. Specialisation remains a distant dream for many of our youths especially those employed in Agriculture.
The people of Meghalaya need to embrace Specialisation and our policy makers need to empower our youth by formulating and implementing skill development programmes on a large scale. We should also support our talented young people monetarily which will also be the best incentive to enable them to be independent minded and instil in them the belief that they can stand on their own two feet and support themselves financially. In this way the economy of an underdeveloped state like Meghalaya will grow in a sustainable way and reach new heights.