Poverty, desperation and a fatal first job
SHILLONG, July 13: About 24 kilometres from Shillong lies Thangsning village, home to two of the three men who lost their lives in the Lapalang tragedy — 35-year-old Rapborlang Nongspung and 22-year-old Pynskhemlang Mawthoh. Both lived with their families in the village and were laid to rest on Sunday.
Rapborlang leaves behind five children, the eldest a girl in Class 5 and the youngest just two years old. Pynskhemlang is survived by a 10-month-old baby. His mother told this correspondent that her son had never left the village for work before. He had asked his parents to buy a cow, which he looked after.
That fateful Friday marked the first time he was taken outside the village for a job. “Perhaps he was destined to leave that way. God knows best,” she said quietly.
The third victim, Elka Shadap, lived in Umiew Maw-U-Sam village near Smit with his wife, who has been unwell. His mother remained in deep shock and did not speak a word when this correspondent visited. In all three homes — which spoke of stark poverty — several women had gathered to comfort the grieving families.
The three men had been hired by someone named Marshall to help service a water pump at Lapalang. Neither Rapborlang nor Pynskhemlang had any prior experience in repairing underground water pumps, and it remains unclear what exactly they were expected to do. Work beckoned, so they went. Tragically, only their lifeless bodies returned home.
The other members of the victims’ families are engaged in farming. Miles of cabbage plantations stretch across the landscape. Yet villagers say the farm-gate price of cabbage is a mere Rs 2 or Rs 3 per kilogram, rendering the hard work barely viable. When asked, one family at Thangsning said they farmed on their own land, while the other cultivated on leased land.
Every second adolescent in and around these villages has dropped out of school, expected instead to earn a livelihood.Elka’s sister, barely 16 or 17 years old, works as a housemaid in Jaintia Hills and earns Rs 5,500 a month. For most families here, school or college remains a distant dream.
This raises a pressing question: how does the government plan to arrest the dropout rate and improve enrolment, especially in such villages?
The parents of the deceased were in no state to discuss the ex gratia payment declined by the government.
Still reeling from shock and unfamiliar with official procedures, they will likely have to depend on their MLA, Banteidor Lyngdoh, to take up their case with the government.
