TRANSLATION: KYNPHAM SING NONGKYNRIH
Quietly in the woods,
It grows among the weeds;
An uncommon blossom, u tiew dohmaw,
A thing of lofty thoughts.
Quietly by shadowy streams,
To be fragrant when faded,
The joy-giving fern
Remains green for twelve moons.
Tell me, Twilight, beloved of the gods,
And you, the motley clouds;
Tell me where that star is
That first speckles the sky.
Quietly he lives, quietly he dies,
Amidst the wilderness;
Quietly in the grave let him rest,
Beneath the green, green grass.
U tiew dohmaw: a wild flower, symbol of great wisdom.
I will go to ri Sohra to be among the hills,
The land of u tiew sohkhah
and u tiew pawang lum,
The land of ka sim pieng, the land of u kaitor,
The land of valour, the land of culture.
Listen, in ri Sohra, that Ïewbah has arrived,
It resonates, it cheers, that the archery
may be won!
It sinks into the caverns, from the sky, too,
it creeps,
To a Khasi, a Pnar, a Bhoi, or a War.
Its cliff-edges, too, overflow without end,
With the torrent that roars,
the breeze that’s tender;
And the heart that’s forever youthful humming in the woods,
Thus rumble the gorges of ri War and reverberate through the boulders.
Long have I departed from relations
and friends,
Though others have gone, others linger on;
Thus the honour of Sohra and its silver seas,
Once more, once more, came dazzling to me.
Thus, the days that are gone, they surge
and they surge,
I don’t know the beginning or where they would end;
Only this I do know, that often I do want—
Once more, once more to be a child.
Ri: country.
U tiew sohkha and u tiew pawang lum: orchids.
Ka sim pieng and u kaitor: songbirds.
Ïewbah: big market day.
Pnar, Bhoi, and War: names of the Khasi sub-tribes.
When still in my father’s and mother’s laps,
Though I survived on the herbs, the world was yet flat;
I bragged, I scorned, I daydreamed as a child;
I laughed, I cackled, but to be good, I could not.
When the river clamoured that it boiled without stop;
When I watched the grass that was green;
Like a hip-hopping bird inspecting itself,
I enquired:
‘Tell me, O Death, where do you live?’
Like a sturdy fruit tree that unfurled its
branches,
When seasoned, and the thoughts had
broadened;
That daydream later came to be seen,
As one of the ciphers etched on the stone.
The grass is now tanned for the river has
ebbed,
It is then that I see— a mysterious Something that it comes;
The tongue is now tied, and I cannot open my mouth,
Sunken in deep thought as winter has arrived.
Enlightenment we seek around the world;
That of the Land’s we know but nought—
How in ancient times the Uncles, the Fathers
Had fashioned politics, had founded states—
When all the race, u Hynñiew Skum
Had lived apart— within the gloom.
Amidst the Stars, the Sun, the Moon,
On Hills, in Woods, the Unknown roamed;
Man and Beast, Tiger and Thlen,
Then they spoke one only tongue;
Before the demons and the fiends
emerged,
Then they worshipped the one and only God.
The Word of Man still had its worth,
They let the Phreit feed on their fields;
Morning and night, they laboured hard;
In the Belly, they stuffed their Paperback;
Then they bred their Fairy tales,
Then out they came, the Fables.
Many a Parable they then described;
‘From Here,’ they said, U Thlen emerged;’
‘Evil and Sacrilege, from where had flooded?’
‘From Here,’ they said, ‘from Diengïei Mount:’
The other one they knew around,
Why they had called, ‘U Sohpet Bneng.’
About their God, Evil, Virtue,
Thus in parables they spoke:
Their Likenesses, too, they said of old,
Were draped before Man as if by Charm:
In the bowers of Stars, some still remain,
Others into entangled jungles have sunken.
‘To bear the Sin, to shoulder all,
from the Cave of the Sanctified Leaf,
The Sacrificial Rooster,’ they said,
‘came standing tall,’
For ‘God to be caretaker of the covenant
from above:’
They organised a Religion that forever
upheld
The Children of U Hynñiew Trep.
When a mother mourned heartrendingly,
Trailing her son’s bier tearfully;
They played a dirge— telling the tale
Of Lapalang, a Deer of legendary fame:
How it mounted the Rusty Arrow,
How the bitter tears began to flow.
The Indications on the stones
Are weed-covered in hills and woods;
The Honourable the Learned
Here they speak in different ways;
From hills, within the shade
The stone, the wood would speak the human tongue.
The ancient tribe— Khasi and Pnar—
A Multitude that spread throughout the
World:
The hidden Light— that we may quest,
Scattered in Huts throughout the land:
From there, intelligence to illumine,
The Olden Days of Ancient Times.
Enlightenment we seek around the world;
That of the Land’s we care but nought:
As others, the days will come,
The ancient Light that we may learn:
The Root, the Seed of living Light,
It sinks into Primordial Days.
The Cerulean Rock will soon emerge,
When it stops, u Lapmynsaw!
The layering Cloud will disappear,
When the Rainbow comes to life:
Pour forth your colours, O Gilded Pen
Let the man in darkness comprehend.
U Hynñiew Skum: another name for u Hynñiew Trep, ancestors of the Khasis.
Thlen: legendary man-eating serpent, symbol of evil.
Diengïei: the mythic Tree of Gloom, marking the end of the Golden Age and the emergence of evil. It stands opposed to U Sohpet Bneng, Heaven’s Navel, a symbol of the intimacy between man and God. The tree was felled with the help of a little wren called Phreit in exchange for paddy from the fields.
Cave of the Sanctified Leaf: parable of the Second Darkness and how the rooster had sacrificed his life to persuade the sun to return to earth from the sanctuary to which she had fled.
Lapalang: legend of Lapalang the Stag and how it was hunted down by the Khasis. The mourning of Lapalang’s mother had given rise to the first Khasi funeral dirge.
Lapmynsaw: sun-shower, bearer of danger.
Dew drops on the grass,
In the morning, they glitter;
I too from home will depart
To hunt for these pearls.
From the grass that is green
They take off with the sun;
Like them then I’ll plunge
To an unknown region.
The thorns, though they prick
In a faraway street;
From home, I’ll depart
And return long after.
The heart, too, will grieve
Alone far away;
The tears that gather
Are actually pearls.
Look, young men, what lies ahead,
That you may tell which way to step;
There’s a star that leads the way,
Alive the name, the glory, stays.
Make an effort like other men,
Work not only for your subsistence
But also that you may ascend,
From the very rungs of fame.
Or to pile up only wealth,
And your boundaries to spread;
Because, long, they can’t remain,
Like a reputation and a name.
Though you may be small and weak,
Quietly, if you have to weep;
Who will say you cannot claim,
Glory and a name.
Fear not if you have to plod,
Through the fire or through blood;
Only brave men who are game,
May reach the mountaintops of fame.
Though the sun beats down on you,
Soon the cool breeze you’ll taste too;
It’s in all that’s done diligently,
That it lurks immortal glory.
The sun beats down on me,
The wind lashes at me;
To the sky the branches spread
Through the earth the roots thread.
Alone I am the forest,
Though all alone I rise;
The thoughts are lofty
That swirl within me.
That every man is wise,
That who can deny;
Yet without a break,
How can he even speak?
Of a sudden, a branch snaps,
All the town shivers;
It is only a paragon
Who wins the love of all.
It is only in a paragon
That lies the will that lasts;
You may fault him all you can,
But how will you root him out?
Like him, I too must go,
Like a champion mightily must I fall;
Look, children of the earth,
Like this I’m standing tall.
Trot was one among the breed
Of dogs where dwelled a rarity:
He had a physique, strong and healthy,
He was nimble as the breeze.
Among the weeds, he stalked the weaver birds,
He ran after the swallows in the sky;
Into the forest he also dashed,
In the water he swam and splashed.
The most beloved friend of Trot,
A casual labourer:
A poor man, he persevered
For the children and his wife.
With him, he skipped and danced;
At last, the time arrived,
The master must depart from home,
And from his friends, his dearest ones.
And so he could not take his friend along.
It is another realm:
Through chasms and inhospitable lands,
Alone he walked, all by himself.
The realm mysterious, it is that;
It is somewhere and everywhere;
The unknown there, the terrible,
It has no taboo, cares for none.
And from there, whosoever set foot in it,
Young men or women,
Children, old ones, or infants,
They never did return.
And once they had crossed over,
One step into the edge,
They had no wish even for a fleeting look;
For nothing did they pine.
The world and its splendour,
The wealth that we treasure,
The youthful eye that loves all worldly things,
There they lose their meaning.
The eye of man would like to peer
Into that deathly hush,
But the way to go there
Is through the golden tears.
The agonising mourning of man
Cannot find a resting stone;
They vanish the dirges that it moans
Into the wearying wastes.
So to the fore the master went,
Trot quietly by his side;
Behind his wife and weeping children,
Till the edge of a precipice.
What happened there—how he was mystified!
How else shall I describe?
Often, he tried to plunge into the void,
Then to the house he fled.
He knew among them from then on,
Would cloak a darkness end to end;
That he tossed and whimpered restlessly,
The hearts turned to water completely.
Like others, the days brightened;
Like others, they would set;
Beneath the pines, the master stretched,
Peacefully in the grave.
The swallow, as always, emerged,
From within the crevices,
But Trot alone he curled in grief,
Under the dripping porch.
The weaver bird and frisking deer
About the hills they ran:
Why wasn’t Trot chasing them around!
Instead, he slumbered in the grounds!
Other generations yet will come,
Their monuments they will raise;
Will someone here and there,
Recall the memory of Trot?
When I recall your memory,
To a distant world I flee;
For a lifetime shall I dwell in the wilds,
The land of fruits and plenty.
Like a mist-covered waterfall,
Hiding its features;
I, too, turn to other years,
Alone with falling tears.
Time flies, scuttles in a hurry,
When in your company;
Never shall I forget now,
Not in other days than these.
Though you have sunk beneath the earth,
A thousand times you will emerge;
U tiew-pathai on soggy ground,
From a distance, bequeaths its fragrance.
U tiew pathai: literally a message-bearing flower, an orchid with a strong, sweet scent.
As if from a vision I wakened,
When I had my first sight;
From the sun that was hot,
Alone, how she sat;
Though I knew her not,
Or what her name was;
It was in her that on earth.
I sought a heaven.
Like the rose that’s hidden
In its own leaves;
That has its head bent,
In the air that’s fragrant;
I loved more than my mother,
And sweet was the name;
It was with her that on earth,
I savoured a heaven.
During days that were clear,
When the breeze, too, was cool;
When the grass was still green,
And the flowers were swinging;
To the slopes and the shades,
We strolled and wandered,
A little away from people,
It was there, the heaven.
The rose is still hidden
In its own leaves;
It still has its head bent,
And the air is still fragrant;
Though she has gone far away,
Together with her name,
To another world,
To another heaven.
Just when I was falling asleep,
In a land far away
Once, not so long ago, I listened to a song;
It was all very clear—the melodious voice,
The only daughter who had crossed the divide.
Often, I walked the days dark with clouds;
Yet from the lap of nature,
I received afterwards
Days that were cool and a sky that was clear,
And when tired, down came the tears.
Often, I had listened to the bee as it flew,
To the songbird, too, as it folded its wings;
In the lap of nature they hummed, melodiously:
Ecstatic my soul and lofty my thoughts.
Forever did I love the hills that were hushed;
Often, too, I had watched the stream
As it quarried its pools
And carried off the gravel;
Thus, I returned to my home to finish my tasks.
The bird is now free,
And it sings from the thorn:
Why should I mourn for days that have gone?
I’ll seek, every time, for the songs that are pure,
That are found every day only in the fold of nature.
