By Toki Blah
If today’s viral news item flashed by so many social media messages is anything to go by, then one should not be overtly surprised if the reader should walk away with the impression that the Government of Meghalaya, or more to be more precise the Cabinet itself, has time hanging heavy on its hands. It would appear as if they have run out of work or issues to discuss and decide upon, for them to spend time on renaming more than 20 Shillong roads, footpaths and Institutions. By Jove! It might have been quite a taxing agenda item for the Cabinet and perhaps rounds of tea and hours of precious working time must have been spent on deliberating upon this weighty piece of statecraft, namely, restructuring names for the roads of this beautiful city, Shillong. I bet it must have been the result of a massive brainwave of some genius of the Urban Department. It must really have been a masterpiece of legislation to have impressed upon the entire Cabinet to spend time on approving such a weighty proposal or conversely it might just be that its importance lies not on its socio-economic importance but the impact a Mall-stricken VVIP wished to make upon his cabinet colleagues. Come to think of it anything for the absurd seems to be the forte of this MDA Government so don’t be surprised if the rumour above is true.
For most of us who now limp along life’s timeline, recalling the beautiful and romantic monikers that were once associated with roads, localities, footpaths and even shnongs of The Scotland of the East , has become a pastime that now sadly has been reduced to mere memories we regale our grand-children with as folktales of Once upon a Time. There was this dreamy cobbled stoned stairway of a footpath, lined on both sides with green droopy trees, that sighed and whispered in perfect rhythm with the passing breeze. The most ideal ambling stroll for moon struck couples, holding hands as they made their way back home to Laitumkhrah after a tryst with some romantic film at Kelvin cinema. And the indulgent citizens of those times aptly named this climbing footpath as Jacob’s Ladder and the name fitted the place to a Tee. It was a dreaming walkers paradise! There was no St Anthony’s College then at the start of Jacob’s Ladder. Instead, the hollow it began from was called “Wah pom dngiem” in Khasi, meaning “The rivulet where the bear was hacked”. A reference perhaps to some human encounter with this denizen of the wild on some long forgotten incident but the place was romantically identified as such for all future references. These were names of places that stuck to the mind because of the romance, the legend, the adventure and the sense of ‘Tribal’ identity it conveyed. It exemplified tribal folklore at its best. I really doubt that a Cabinet was needed to sit and deliberate on a name then. Perhaps we then had Dorbars of wise elders who deliberated on the value of principles and ethics in governance. Names of places perhaps just came by naturally in their recounts of tales of chivalry and adventure. We seem to have replaced this epitome of wisdom with a political system that ensures an incessant supply of businessmen turned politician whose only forte is to count votes and money. But then I also have a strong suspicion that our wise elders in their Dorbars had more important things to discuss and debate about, than on what names should be given to potholed roads and rutted byelanes.
And then the names of localities and shnongs that dot the Shillong landscape. There is Pynthor-Um–Khrah that now goes by the handle of Pynthorbah. Pynthorbah does not carry much of a meaning while on the other hand the mental image it recaptures is of an unplanned slum struggling to survive within another larger unplanned slum called Shillong. Pynthor-um-khrah on the other hand at once brings in a mental picture of pristine and green waving paddy fields serviced by a winding, gurgling, crystal clear streamlet called the Umkhrah; the symbol or miniaturised version of a larger entity of what would in 1972 be christened as Meghalaya, “the abode of clouds”. To be honest that was what the place once used to be during our childhood. Wahingdoh as a locality comes along with another historical backdrop. Way before Independence and perhaps in the early 1990’s or late 1890’s there was this Khasi family on the slopes of present Wahingdoh that were butchers by profession. They dealt with beef and to ease the cleaning and washing of the meat they had their butchery alongside the Wahumkhrah. People usually came to buy meat from there and so the locality got its name Wahingdoh because of “the -house -with –the- meat- situated – along- the –river”. How typically Khasi and wonderful such names were! So appropriate and so romantic.
Then there’s this place near my old locality Qualapatty. The locality is called “Wah –thap-bro” not “Wah –thap –bru” as non-Pnars are wont to call it now. Now don’t get confused as “bro” here has nothing with the colloquial Black American slang for another coloured person. In Pnar the meaning of the word ‘bro’ denotes a slave. ‘Wah’ means stream, rivulet or river and ‘thap’ means to place or forcefully shove into. The literal translation of the name from Pnar to English would come out as the ‘Rivulet where slaves are shoved into’. Now this is an old settlement of Pnars in Shillong and is situated just across Iewduh with the GS Road running between the two. In days gone by, I am given to understand, the Syiem of Mylliem had his own police force to look after the security of the Iew and he also had a stockade where convicted criminals of the Hima were locked up. These convicts were invariably sentenced to hard labour and the labour they performed was free, usually confined to cleaning up the Bazar and the areas nearby. They were not paid for their work; the working conditions were probably below standard and in the night everyone was chained and shoved back inside the stockade to be locked up for the night. Their work was not so dissimilar from that of slaves. Most probably the stockade was located in the area now known as Wahthapbro. It is more than probable as there was a small stream for the daily water needs plus a public latrine for prisoners to relieve themselves as hygienically possible as those times permitted. The point I’m driving at is localities were aptly named as per the work or profession they harboured. It was easy; apt and practical.
Let’s take Lumparing for instance. One of the oldest shnongs in Shillong and situated on the steep slopes that overlook Laban and Garrison Ground. It’s still famous for its steep steps though they are now in concrete and a blacktopped road now connects Lumparing with the rest of the world. Well in days gone by, its so steep and the climb uphill must have been so strenuous and tiring that at times, perhaps especially during the rainy season, travelers had to be literally dragged up the muddy and slippery pathway to make it. Lumparing in Khasi means “ The hill where one is hauled up”. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it.
Then there is the story of Sardar Khuswant Singh when he visited Shillong some times in the 1980’s. Government of Meghalaya deputed a senior SI of Police from the SB branch to escort him from Gauhati Airport to Shillong. They drove along the GS Road while the Sardar was full of praise of the greenery and landscape he was passing through. He reached Barapani and asked the driver to stop while he feasted his eyes on the beauty of the lake. He turned to his police guide and asked him what they called the place in the local language and the cop answered him without batting an eyelid, “We call it Damsite!”. What a letdown; an anticlimax to what could have ended up as an op-ed page in India’s then most read magazine The Illustrated Weekly of India. The stupid guy probably forgot the Khasis call the place “Ka Wah Umiam” or the River of tears. Why, no one knows but just imagine the human tragedy, pain and heartbreaks that must have taken place for the Khasis to come up with such a name. The name could even have inspired a fertile local mind to come up with literary works of art to equal that of Thomas Hardy whose works were influenced by the wild beauty of Dorset and Berkshire counties. What a romantic Tribal name for a water body instead of Damsite which sounds so trite, hackneyed and vulgar. Now to get to the point, with all these exquisite, legendary, indigenous and poetic names of places inherited from our ancestors, why does a cabinet of dim-witted businessmen have to spoil the aesthetic beauty of Shillong by renaming such quixotic places, roads and lanes with worthless words that only a blind, vote-hungry politician can find any aesthetic value in. Words fail me!