Book Review: Funeral Nights by Kynpham Singh Nongkynrih

Funeral Nights by Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Morose to reach the end of the book – feels like a vacuum inside. I will miss the cantankerous characters of the book, Raji, the irascible Bah Kynsai, Bah Su, Bah Kit, the sceptical Donald (spoiler alert: who finds love with the only female of the group), the nay-saying Evening and Ap the omniscient narrator – the alter ego of the author. Their squabbles, and occasional fisticuffs aside, the narration is immensely readable without becoming dry and scholarly.

Five-star rating for the colossal effort of compiling this magnum opus. It smartly encapsulates the Khasi (known colloquially as Ri Hynniew Trep) ethos – if a tome of 1000+ pages can be called encapsulation. This includes various facets of culture, religion, social set-up (matrilineal amongst the tribals but fading away amongst the converts to Christianity), politics, folk-lore, history, culinary practices (pork, beef, mutton – all is kosher only dogs are taboo) geography of Meghalaya, conflicts. Almost encyclopaedic in scope, it details their linguistic quirks in naming, their foibles, the effects of British invasion, Christianity and non-tribal immigration leading to a loss of their cultural heritage, including their extant grassroots political system with the king as a titular head without executive powers being replaced by the corrupt Indian Panchayati Raj.

Indigenous people feel strongly about the name of their state imposed on them

What has this stupid name - Meghalaya, Abode of the Clouds, given by some academic thug from nowhere - got to do with us? Are you a cloud, Hamkom? Does the name connect you with the land, as Nagaland or Mizoram does? Are we a people with no roots in the land? Were they so dim-witted, your heroes, that they couldn't think of a name for their state?

I learnt about Extispicy (also Splanchomancy, Haruspicy, Aruspicy, Hieroscopia, and Hieroscopy) - the practice of using anomalies in animal entrails to predict or divine future events; the difference between Matriarchy - a postulated gynocentric form of society, in which power is with the women and especially with the mothers of a community and Matrilineality - a system in which one belongs to one's mother's lineage, where children are identified in terms of their mother rather than their father, and extended families and tribal alliances form along female blood-lines; cromlechs, ossuaries and other funeral practices. Various aspects of their traditional sport of archery was covered comprehensively.

I really loved the description of the Khasi religion - a beautiful message of spirituality for living in harmony with nature and fellow humans with the blessings of God - U Blei Nong-thaw. No prophet, no jihad, no prosetylization, no caste, no exploitative priests. Who knows? This form of worship may have existed during the Vedic times in our hoary past before it was hijacked by Hindutva votaries and turned into a combative religion.

Khublei! Bah Kynpham!! Following the quaint practice of naming offspring after celestial objects, you could name your child FiveStar. Just joking…

A question: Where can one see the film Ka Phor Sorat by Raphael Warjri?

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