Meeting the Locals

Arriving at the Moheshkhali ghat by speedboat.

Toys for sale, Adinath Temple fair.

A stranger in a tea shop says I have a Bengali face. “How so,” I ask. “Foreigners usually have a fat face,” he says. “So, do I look sick then?” It didn’t take long for the Moheshkhali locals to prove they’re not shy.

A trip to the island readily accessible by speedboat from Cox’s Bazar won’t leave the visitor feeling they’re not a part of it.

It’s advisable to walk in from the jetty to the start of the road before taking a rickshaw, for a better fare.  Anywhere in Gorakghata town will be about twenty taka. I’m lucky. I find an honest driver. But as he rides in others are excitedly calling out, “hoto!” meaning “How much?” in their local Bangla. They’re wondering how much overcharging has gone on, but when the driver calls back “one hundred taka!” they know he’s criticising them.

“Ah, Bengalis!” says the honest driver, shrugging his shoulders. But of course, he’s Bengali too.

No visitor to Moheshkhali is likely to feel left out.

For anybody without any Bangla accommodations are made. “Good night!” one man calls out, remembering whatever English he can. It hardly matters that it’s early afternoon.

Selling sitolpati mats.

Another man is busy buying roadside fish. He seems engrossed in the sale, but the sight of an outsider is too tempting. “How is your country?” he asks. Should I take him literally and start explaining how Australia is? Well, most of it is quite dry, desert in fact… It’s expensive compared to Bangladesh but it’s also quite materially developed… Large parts are flat but in other areas there are mountains… Or should I just say “Australia”, answering the “Which country are you from?” that he actually means?

At the Adinath Temple there’s a fair going on and one college professor has been tasked with making loudspeaker announcements. He stops me for a chat. As I walk away I hear a new announcement, “Thanks to our Australian friend who says he just ate jelabis!” It’s difficult to feel more welcomed than that!

The jetty and ghat in Moheshkhali.

In a local eatery I’m stunned. “Do you speak Bangla?” someone asked, a simple question but I’m lucky I caught it since it’s uttered in what sounds like one long syllable! I’m not used to Chittagonian Bangla. “I speak a little Bangla,” I’m thinking, “But do you?”

New shoes, anyone?

To the outsider, Bangla in Moheshkhali sounds a bit like an electric saw unsure if it wants to cut a tree. It sounds choppy like the speedboat getting there that banged, wave to wave, across the channel. It sounds like chewing on gum. It sounds a bit Burmese.

“Chittagong dialect,” reads the District Gazetteer, “is almost unintelligible even to the people of neighbouring districts like Noakhali and Comilla… The most noticeable feature that strikes the stranger is the tendency of the people to slur over consonants, to clip syllables and to substitute aspirates for sibilants.” I think that’s a more sophisticated way of saying the same as above.

By evening I find myself in Chandan’s tea shop. He’s smoking a respectable Gold Leaf, so I start to joke about how rich he must be, how he must have a car. Everybody’s laughing; while Chandan says he has two cars! “But I smoke cheaper brands too,” he says.

He says he’ll soon be married which is my cue to question him like a relative. “Is the girl from a good family? What’s her qualification? What does her father do?” He returns from the counter with an invitation card in shiny gold. “This is the very first invitation I’m giving,” he says, and he’s hoping for two hundred guests.

Passengers from Cox's Bazar town.

Meanwhile Jamal the betel seller over the road is concerned for my wellbeing. He gives his mobile number. “If you have any problem at all, you just call me!”

Evening at the temple fair.

I ask if that also applies if I’m in Cox’s Bazar and he says it does. “But what if I’m further away, like maybe in London or Tokyo? Should I call you then?” Bless him! He offers to shut up his betel shop and come to rescue me anywhere, worldwide, anytime!

In Moheshkhali, everybody’s watching the foreigner, but I’m told I’m lucky. “A few years ago two foreign women came here,” I hear, “and a crowd of at least a hundred followed them as they walked along the road.”

About the jetty are mudskippers basking, lounging and fighting for ground. Larger specimens are charging; forcing smaller ones to flee back into the tide. As I’m boarding a speedboat to follow the tide to Cox’s Bazar myself, I can only smile at the memories of friendliness and curiosity that the people of Moheshkhali have given me.

Transport.

This article is published in The Daily Star, here: Moheshkhali through a Foreigner's Eyes

Selling sweets at the Adinath Temple fair.

At the ghat, as I prepared to board the speedboat back to Cox’s Bazar there was a guy in a bright yellow t-shirt. In bold letters on his t-shirt was written “Three Lines, Up the Nose!” which is clearly a reference to cocaine snorting. In Bangladesh people often wear second hand clothes from the west. His made me chuckle to myself and I thought about explaining to him that he was advocating drug use, but then I thought if I said anything out of shame he might never wear that t-shirt again… and maybe he doesn’t have hundreds to choose from. So I let him be.

Sree Jamlal's Book

Sree Jamlal's book is treasured by him and his family.

Village police officer and secretary of the local indigenous association in Dinajpur’s Ghoraghat, Sree Jamlal Robidas, 60, is proud to show a copy of a manuscript he has. The simple book which is not grander than a basic exercise book, has well-decorated but worn and faded pages. Nonetheless, in his modest family home, it’s treasured. It’s a religious text.

He says the Robidas community in Bangladesh, whose ancestors inhabited a stretch of territory from Bhojpur in India’s Bihar to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, speak Nagri language. “We Robidas can be found in many districts. Around 200 families live in Ghoraghat.”

Nagri or Nagari is a term used to describe an ancient writing script of northern India and collectively its descendant languages and scripts, which include Bengali. The historical script of Sylheti is called Syloti-Nagri.

But the term Nagri is also a commonly used synonym for the Devanagari script of Hindi; and it is Hindi or perhaps Bhojpuri, another Devanagari-script-based language native to the region of Sree Jamlal’s ancestors, which would appear to adorn the tired pages. He suggests both Hindi and Bhojpuri are alternative names for their language.

While the Devanagari script may be common in South Asia, the religion that is the subject of Sree Jamlal’s book is more unique. 

Sree Jamlal with his family at their home in Ghoraghat.

“We are not Hindu,” says Baduram Robidas, the 47-year-old religious secretary of the national Robidas Development Association. “We don’t believe in protima (the religious statues common to Hindu temples) and we don’t observe their pujas. We have two gurus, Sheo Narayan Swami and Ravidas.”

Baduram similarly estimates that about 200 Robidas families, whose men by custom take the name Robidas while the title Robi is included in many women’s names, live in his home town of Gaibandha.

Their principle guru Ravidas was a radical mystic of the fourteenth (or fifteenth) century who challenged the caste system and idea of untouchability. Born into the dalit Chamar caste in a village near Varanasi, Ravidas taught that one is not distinguished by caste but personal action.

“If you have an honest heart you have no need to go to the holy Ganges,” Baduram quotes of Ravidas, “The water in your little pot: that will be your Ganges water.”

“If you are born a Brahmin but don’t have the true spirit or knowledge then Ravidas says you are not Brahmin,” he explains. “If you are born a Robidas and your heart is good it does not matter.”

Ravidas believed everybody had a right to read sacred texts and worship God, in contrast to traditional Brahminical belief. He also emphasised the value of honest labour – another challenge to the established hierarchy. He was something of a rebel theologian.

According to Baduram, the motto of Ravidas’s teachings is shohong sotho nomo, which means “To live with truth.”

Early morning in Ghoraghat.

Ravidas is also followed by Sikhs, with 41 verses of his poetry included in the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib. “Even Guru Nanak studied Ravidas,” says Baduram with pride.

However, theological differences in Punjab over whether Ravidas was a guru, although he was born before the first Sikh guru, or merely a holy man, brought about a schism resulting in the Ravidassia religion. Punjab’s Ravidassias call their house of worship a bhawan or gurughar.

Though in essence the same religion, how much this subsequent Punjabi history is reflected in the localised traditions of the Robidas in Bangladesh is uncertain, especially given Baduram’s inclusion of the second guru, Sheo Narayan Swami.

More commonly known as Swaminarayan, this later guru born in 1781 founded the Swaminarayan Hindu sect in Gujarat – but he was born in Chhapaiya village near Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, about 170 kilometres from Gorakhpur. The proximity of his birthplace to the ancestral home of the Robidas may explain, in part, his influence.

However, according to Baduram there is another reason for venerating Swaminarayan, a guru who had followers from several religions. “Sheo Narayan Swami observed the position of dalits and how Brahmins mistreated them. He saw how easily a Chamar could be killed and that their bodies were left in the street to be eaten by dogs and foxes,” Baduram says, “Sheo Narayan Swami named the religion of Ravidas as the true religion.”

Swaminarayan is indeed famous for considering and helping the poor and vulnerable, but while some say he worked towards ending the caste system he was not entirely against it like Ravidas. A bigger difference might be that while Swaminarayan protested animal sacrifice and preached lacto vegetarianism, Ravidas’s family were tanners, an occupation often associated with Chamars.

The Robidas of Bangladesh, like the family of their guru Ravidas, traditionally work with leather. “Leather and shoe-making are our custom,” says Sree Jamlal, whose yard features a pile of drying goatskins. “But most Robidas are poor, living hand-to-mouth, and they take day labour or rickshaw driving jobs.” He estimates only 2% of Ghoraghat’s Robidas families are solvent and that the literacy rate is “almost zero.”

His own son studied up to class 8. “It’s difficult for our children to complete their education,” says Sree Jamlal, “due to our financial condition.”

Goatskins in Sree Jamlal's yard.

Similarly, Baduram’s father was a cobbler, and from adolescence he used to help with the family trade. But Baduram was more fortunate, being able to complete his BA. Subsequently, he landed a job with famous footwear manufacturer Bata, where he still works as the Lab and Quality Assurance Officer at their Savar factory.

In his spare time Baduram hopes to contribute to his community, which is not officially recognised as either an ethnic or religious minority in Bangladesh. Baduram’s primary concern, however, is that knowledge of their unique religious traditions is being lost.

“The new generation has mostly been converted to Hinduism,” he laments, “because they can’t read the script of Nagri.” Baduram is writing a book to address the issue. His book, “Guru Grontha” – “The Book of the Guru” – written in Bangla, aims to make accessible to a Bangla-reading Robidas youth their true religious heritage.

It can be that before too many days have gone by there’ll be a volume of new pages at Sree Jamlal’s house – a new book that is equally treasured but this time written in everyday, familiar, Bangla letters. 





This article is published in Star Magazine, here: Sree Jamlal's Book

In the Garden

Chatlapore Tea Garden in Moulvibazar District.

Sun and light: the dirt road leading into Moulvibazar District’s Chatlapore hillock country feels forgotten. At the final village bazaar the rickshaw pulls to a stop. It’ll be on foot from there. There’s a sentry post and a boundary. It’s in the nature of gardens to be distinct from the wider world. They’re supposed to be nature rationalised and improved.

Houses are different in the garden.

The houses of usual Bangladesh can venture no further in, because usual Bangladesh has ended. Ahead are old structures of a new kind: workers’ cottages in rendered brick, washed in white, pastel blue or green, with brick chimneys distantly reminiscent of an old English village and more directly of colonial India. Only the tin roofs are the same.

An old landscape of a new kind arrives too: neatly trimmed tea bushes cover most ground, recounting at some feet higher the undulating lay of the land, in parallel. “When I was young the tea trees were younger,” says Sagar Das 50, a native of the estate who with his wife was long ago allocated one of those cottages. “Now I am old and the tea trees are also older.”

The small hills of Chatlapore.

Since the dawn of time gardens have been planted, pruned and tended as a space for relaxation, of beauty and contemplation. Gardens are usually a place to escape ourselves – but for its inhabitants the tea garden defines. Instead of being away from daily life the tea garden is daily life. It’s the only life. In place of a border to block out a shabbier world the tea garden boundary hems a world in. Das was born in Chatlapore.

When he was a baby his mother used to take him to sleep in a basket in the narrow aisles between the tea bushes or at the roadside under a tree. Jackals occasionally took children then. But a baby could hardly be left at home while wife plucked and husband toiled in the garden.

In Chatlapore tea garden, Moulvibazar.

As a boy there were games – one with two sticks, a longer one as bat and the shorter as ball. They played jambura football too, kicking the large grapefruit – called a pomelo or shaddock in English, about any patch of open ground. “As kids we ran naked,” says Das. “We didn’t know much.”

At 12 years old his unadulterated childhood reached its conclusion. With only one year of schooling completed, Das started to work. His first job was cleaning the nursery where tea saplings are readied. After one month he was shifted to drain digging. His starting salary was 37 taka per week, which he gave to his parents.

Tea garden housing for the workers.

On his first day he expressed shock. “What has my father done?” he asked aloud, “Will I come into the jungle to work?” The other workers laughed. Like theirs, his life in the garden was predetermined. He belonged to it.

Of course he’d learn the morning conversations: “Ma gave me rice,” “Ma gave me flat bread.” Minute details shared, even if tongue-in-cheek, was about all there was for variety and diversion – on the way to work, during the 9 am to 2 pm workday – every day except Sunday, or after work over a cup of preferred salt tea. Sugar is expensive in the garden.

These days Das works with a sickle, pruning. As is usual for a worker his current salary is a paltry 69 taka per day. He participates in leaf plucking during monsoon when the volume can’t be met by the women alone.

Rajkumari Das never went to school. She started working when she was 12.

Rajkumari Das, 40.

His wife Rajkumari Das, 40, is originally from Khajadura Tea Estate. She also started working at age twelve. “The tea garden was exciting,” she says of those first days, with an initial month devoted to fertilizer before she began helping her mother to pluck. “But I am still plucking!” she says.

Like the men, during work hours with two to three hundred other women she got used to sharing life’s little details. They talk about their families and homes, food and children. They swap recipes for chutney or favoured dishes, and occasionally chase away foxes.

Sometimes discussions are lively, sometimes serious or sad. And it all happens in that chutney language they call Chilo-Milo – a mixture of languages from all the groups the British seduced and brought from across India to work the plantations. For the word ‘come’, some say asa while others say awa, awather, awatho, awohi or chelo... there are yet more ways than those...

In the garden they speak a blended language called Chilo-Milo.

In the garden is a new culture and language of an old kind – or rather a mixture of many.

The language Mr and Mrs Das speak at home they call Deshwari, which may refer to the name of a village populated by Hindi and Santal speakers in India’s Jharkhand state. Their Deshwari may be a localised version of Hindi – it’s uncertain. Like many thereabouts they know little of their ancestry. Useless things from beyond the garden boundary, anything that doesn’t help the plants grow like identity, would seem to have a propensity to dissolve in salt tea – and in the garden sugar is expensive.

The first tea workers were brought in from across India.

Rajkumari, who never went to school, heard from her parents that her great grandfather came from some Indian elsewhere. Like many neighbours she’s heard that those first workers were coaxed into the garden with promises of finding trees that produced money just by touching or shaking them. More than that, she doesn’t know.

Over a century has gone since their forefathers arrived and a quiet sense of resignation appears to have settled over the Das home. They have their modest housing and at least the promise of adequate health care. There’s little point in questioning their below-meagre salaries which shape that quality blend of employment and servitude that is also their lives.

Tea workers taking a break from weeding, extra work undertaken before the plucking season peak.

There’s only to accept the multi-generational dislocation from original culture and ancestral identity. The British wanted tea. The garden came to be. In their family, all hope of genuine change belongs wholly to the next generation.

Identity tends to dissolve in the salt tea of the garden.

The house allocated to Mr and Mrs Das is, by coincidence, opposite one of the garden’s primary schools. “I used to see other children going in there,” says the father of four, “so I sent mine.”

Besides, Sagar Das remembers his own bewilderment at being sent to work in the ‘jungle’. He remembers his words about his father on his first work day. “My children,” he says with quiet pride, “will never say such a thing about me!”

Sagar Das aims for a future for his children beyond the garden.

Nowadays their eldest daughter works as a teacher for BRAC; the other two daughters and one son study from college to class 8. “I want my children to have a good life; I hope they will be able to take care of themselves,” says Das. “Only Bhagawan knows how it will happen exactly – but as long as they are okay. What more could I wish for?”

He seems to be aiming for his children to live beyond the boundary. Through education his goal appears to be nature rationalised and improved. For his children, Sagar Das wants the radical reality of a genuine garden – and perhaps even tea with sugar.

Allocated workers' housing.

But there’s a problem: the plantation system is designed for replication, not for change. It doesn’t have much time for the whims of one Mr. Das. Tea garden workers can only stay in their homes as long as at least one family member works in the plantation. So if all his children establish themselves beyond the hem and the rules of the only life he and his wife have known, where will they stay when they get old?

The British wanted tea. The gardens came to be. Evening arrives at Chatlapore.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: In The Garden

The tea garden hems life in.

Land of the Seven Huts

Meeting Moulvibazar’s Khasis

A bundle of betel leaf, ready for sale.

Khasis in Ishachora Punjee sorting the betel 

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In part by circumstance, in part by design, from their betel gardens in the hills beyond Kulaura the wary Khasi have most often kept mainstream society at a distance. But increasingly they are discovering the need to engage, to protect their rights and build a better future. At the same time, the community’s self-confidence is growing through a process of rediscovering their written language and history.

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Through the trees: a home on the hilltop of Kukijuri Punjee, Kulaura, Moulvibazar.

Henry Talang and his wife.

Apart from the stars, the night’s leafy darkness had only been broken by a chain of orange-tinted lights and the glow of distant lower towns on the plains. The lights were spaced along the far hill and marked the Indian border. Which towns of Moulvibazar District were glowing was not certain: was that Robi Bazar or Kamalganj? Was that Kulaura? On the other side, the villagers said, one town-glow marked Tripura’s Kailashahar, the other Dharmanagar. The oxygen was unadulterated, the silence almost magical in this land of the seven huts. It’d seemed a shame to sleep.

Eyes opened as the rooster crowed. Dawn had arrived in Kukijuri. In the village of the Khasis perched on jungle hilltop, as it should be, activity begins with first light. Yards are being swept, clothes washed and hung to dry. Henry Talang wanders over from the main house. I suspect there’ll soon be tea.

Montri Joseph Konglah and his wife.

Talang, 30, is the Montri’s second son. Montri is the title for the leader of a Khasi village. By tradition he chooses his successor from among his sons – whichever he deems most capable; or in the case of no sons he might choose a son-in-law. But there’s flexibility. A Montri can hold his title until death or retire. Villagers sometimes elect a new Montri and there are also punjees – what Khasi villages are called – run by committee. In Kukijuri though, it looks as though Talang is next in line. He’s already responsible for much of the punjee’s affairs, which is probably the reason he often carries a look of tension.

Nothing in a punjee can happen without the Montri’s approval. As a visitor it was natural to go to his house first. It’s why I was invited to stay there. The Montri’s house isn’t hard to find. It’s usually the highest house in the punjee.

Kukijui Punjee.

“Bengali tourists don’t come here,” current Montri, Joseph Konglah, 65, said on the previous evening. “Only foreigners come. About eight years ago some Spaniards came. A French couple stayed here once.”

The road to Kukijuri.

Chopped wood stacked and ready.

Talang promised that after breakfast we could walk in the hills. The goal was to reach even more remote punjees. But before that, in first morning light it was as well to consider Kukijuri – the surprise of finding such a well-established village high on a hill was not diminished but refreshed. Most houses were brick – and every brick was carted in, through the tea gardens, along the muddy path that follows the gully and merges in narrow spaces with the stream. Every brick was hauled up the hillside by hand, along the same path I’d taken.

Isolated Kukijuri is home to 47 families.

On the ridgeline is a basic iron gate to mark entry to the punjee. Inside, among the houses of the 47 families are two churches – Kukijuri is 80% Catholic and 20% Presbyterian – and a primary school. As is customary for the Khasis the surrounding areas are betel gardens: well-tended, semi-cleared areas of forest. The betel vines grow on taller trees and do best with a good dose of sunlight. Betel leaf and areca nut are the main cash crops.

A pig greets Kukijuri's morning.

At the back of the Montri’s house the pigs have started shuffling about in their pens. They’re hungry and grunting. Wood’s been chopped and stacked high ready for winter. It’s neat and orderly.

A few villagers are disappearing into the forest. They’ve set off along winding, rough paths that lead into the valleys. They’ve each got soap and a towel, ready to bathe in a stream.

But most prefer to wait for water to reach them. It’s carried up in buckets, very often by tea garden labourers. The gardens are some miles off but the labourers are keen to earn extra, early morning cash. Each bucket will fetch ten taka on one of Kukijuri’s verandas. Water fees: it’s in the nature of a hilltop Khasi economy.

The Montri's front yard, Kukijuri.

The day in Kukijuri began with the rooster crowing – as though he was inviting sunlight into the hills. Of course with each sunrise starts the way to the future. And yet that dawn also felt untarnished and ancient, as though finding inner strength requires a reconnection with the past.

Betel leaf collecting baskets outside a home in Kukijuri Punjee.

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Betel nut plantation. Harvest is in December.

When U Blei of the old belief first thought to create the world, did he plan for his Khasi to settle in these hills? He is U Blei, she is Ka Blei and they are Ki Blei: God belongs to every gender and number. God was known too as the designer-creator U Blei Nongthaw Nogbuh, before Christianity. He still is in parts of Meghalaya and by a few Khasis in Bangladesh who follow the old religion.

There’s a myth of how Khasis came to the world. It was a time when the Earth was verdant and splendid – but empty. The Earth petitioned the creator to send a custodian. A heavenly assembly was called and it was decided that of the Khyndai-trep, the sixteen “huts” residing in heaven, seven should be sent to remain on Earth as guardians. That must’ve been the time when those hills first filled with that cheerful greeting “Khublei!” still to be encountered in abundance.

Kukijuri Punjee is 80% Catholic, 20% Presbyterian.

The Khasis call themselves Ki Hynñiew trep: the seven huts. In Moulvibazar they also call themselves the Khasi – not Khasia as many Bengalis prefer.

Those first days were of peace and prosperity – God promised to stay with the seven huts; and he planted a giant tree to act as ladder between heaven and Earth. As long as this tree remained the people of the seven huts could go up and down as they pleased; but if it was felled sin and suffering would emerge. God gave three commandments: earn righteousness through labour, know mankind to know God, and know your maternal and paternal kin. While Khasi society has no caste, according to the last of these Khasi may not marry from the same clan.[1]

A church in Kukijuri.

Unfortunately the evil one persuaded brothers U Sormok and U Sorphim to cut down the giant tree – convincing them it would block all sunlight and suffocate Earthly life. With the tree fallen the Earth became bright, ironically good for betel vines, but God’s promise was broken.[2]

There are over one million Khasis. Most live India’s Meghalaya. Kukijuri is one of 38 punjees in Kulaura, of an estimated 94 in greater Sylhet. The Montri suggests the Khasi population of Bangladesh might reach 35,000.

It is thought the Khasi have been in the region for a long time – longer than most of the other ethnic minorities of Bangladesh. The Khasi language is of the Austroasiatic family thought to have originated in India, passed through the Brahmaputra Valley and into Southeast Asia. Khasi is related to Mon, Vietnamese and Khmer, and to the Munda languages of central India.

Busy with the betel harvest. Ishachora Punjee.

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Henry Talang crossing a bridge on the way to Belwa Punjee.

Downhill isn’t difficult except that the knees start to shake. There’s a half-hour walk and five bamboo bridges to cross to reach Belwa Punjee. At a much lower altitude, like Kukijuri it’s spread across a ridgeline. Home to 65 families, Belwa is much younger: a 25-year-old punjee that formerly fell within Konglah’s jurisdiction.

Five bridges to cross on the way to Belwa.

But for the last 18 months Belwa has had its own 35-year-old Montri, chosen by the punjee committee. He takes advice from Kukijuri. He’s invited us into his home. As is usual in a Khasi house we are offered tea and biscuits, and a little later, a sample of the rice wine called kyat. “The best thing about our punjee,” says the young Montri, “are the betel gardens. In newer areas the betel grows well.”

A home in Belwa Punjee.

Yet betel cultivation often brings the Khasis in that area into conflict with mainstream society. There are attempts by influential locals to secure access to hillside land and resources. Forestry officials seek illegal payment. Instances of punjees being attacked and betel vines cut are not uncommon – and a betel vine takes three years to regrow.

Part of the problem is that there is no clarity of land tenure. There is not even consensus among government officials. Local forest officers claim jurisdiction; the Deputy Commissioner says they have none. This does not help the Khasi when forest officers come knocking.

Belwa betel vines.

The Montri of Ishachora Punjee nearer to the tea gardens put it this way: “The Forest Department officials are very pleasant. We drink tea together... and then they want money or trees. If we refuse they make false cases.” Honesty is highly prized in Khasi culture. They don’t bargain. They don’t lie. One wonders how much the cultural gap exacerbates these difficulties.

On behalf of Kukijuri, Talang says he is currently involved in seven cases – and the expense of pursuing justice involving lawyers and trips to Dhaka’s High Court is a drain on punjee finances. In Belwa too, the new Montri singles out forestry cases. “The Montri’s work is very tough,” he says, “There’s much to do – the cases are the worst.”

New houses in Belwa Punjee.

Indeed a Montri’s responsibilities are many. He mediates disputes, ensures the sick are attended to and maintains the punjee’s accounts recording betel leaf sales. He also leases land to each family – Khasis traditionally practice collective property rights. According to the Bangladesh District Gazetteer, Sylhet, of 1970, the Montri “pokes his nose in every business.”[3]

A few houses in 25-year-old Belwa Punjee.

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Raksham at the IPDS office in Kulaura.

Joyanto Lawrence Raksham, 38, is a Mandi (Garo) who, as project coordinator for local NGO, Indigenous People’s Development Services (IPDS), has been working with the punjees of Kulaura for six years. As a student he had Khasi friends and assumed punjees would not be dissimilar to Mandi villages. “But I saw it was not like ours,” he says, “The Khasis live in a tight community; Mandi villages are not like that. Khasis are united and uncompromising. Their sense of nationalism is strong. Whereas Mandis will readily speak Bangla, even to each other, Khasis don’t – and I couldn’t understand a word!”

IPDS training for Khasis, Monipuris, Tripuris, Mandis etc.

While the Mandi once had a similar – nokma – governance system it has declined in importance and Raksham needed to adjust to the Montri way of getting things done. He noted that Khasi villages tended to be located in isolated areas away from Bengali villages and towns – and juxtaposed to their hospitality he soon understood Khasis are by nature reserved and wary of outsiders. “It took time to win their trust,” he says.

The Montri's family in Ishachora, wearing traditional diek kiang.

Yet perhaps because of their isolation and self-sufficiency, Khasis have been able to preserve more of their self-identity through the conversion to Christianity and into the modern era. Punjees at their best are free of crime and serious internal conflict. While matrilineal traditions are changing – in Kukijuri males now commonly inherit an equal property share – women have a high status. “Though the eldest earning male member is the manager of the family” reads the Gazetteer, “his wife exercises greater influence.” Marriages and divorces are straightforward and common with no stigma attached. It’s even possible for Khasi couples to raise a family without the formal acknowledgement of marriage.

Raksham has crossed many bamboo bridges.

It’s unsurprising that such liberties and localised harmony invoke a sense of protectiveness. Nonetheless, nowadays Raksham can understand some Khasi language and he is often considered as an honorary Montri. Khasis share their problems with him.

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Dulukchara school.

The new church under construction in Dulukchara Punjee.

Dulukchara's new church.

From Belwa, Talang and I backtrack some way before heading along a new path to reach 14-year-old Dulukchara Punjee. “We don’t have a Montri,” says Rosebell Khasi, inviting us into his home, “This is a committee punjee.” Rosebell’s father was the previous Montri before he retired; his son is a committee member.

Parrot and betel basket.

Henry Talang. Tea in Dulukchara.

Dulukchara is home to 25 families – 5 Catholic, 15 Presbyterian and the remainder followers of the old religion. There’s a new church under construction and a primary school of 30 students funded by Norwegian missionary aid.

“Our punjee was really poor but for the last five years the betel grew well,” says Rosebell.

Rosebell Khasi (left). Dulukchara Punjee.

Dulukchara Punjee.

By mid-afternoon Talang and I have completed the strenuous climb back to Kukijuri. In the meantime the bazaar has arrived. Shoes, clothes, utensils... every imaginable item is carted up the hill by Bengali traders to be sold door to door.

The Dulukchara road.

Students at Kukijuri primary school with sole teacher Probin Areng.

Teacher Probin Areng believes in education.

I am invited to the primary school a few hundred yards along the ridge from the Montri’s house. It consists of one long room with a large blackboard at one end and a smaller one at the other. There are several long tables and benches, also mats to sit on.

Teacher Probin Areng, 56, is undoubtedly grateful for the two blackboards and seating options. As the only teacher, he instructs classes KG to 5 simultaneously, to cover the ages of the school’s 46 students. Areng is Mandi – he decided to move to Kukijuri in recent years after buying a betel garden nearby, and has brought the teaching experience of a long career, including fourteen years at Laxmipur Mission High School in the plains.

It’s hardly unusual for a Khasi punjee to have a

Betel leaf sorting, Kukijuri.

resident Mandi teacher. Not too many years ago for lack of qualified Khasis all the local teachers were Mandi. It’s a circumstance that hasn’t changed much. “At first they didn’t want to study,” Areng says of his experience, “I had to drag them to school! They were scared.”

Yet, he’s a teacher with high hopes. “Education is the key to the future,” he says, “Earlier people did not take care about education – things are changing but it will take time.”

Kukijuri homes.

It’s not only a matter of keeping students enthusiastic – each month in the presence of the Montri, Areng meets their guardians. “I tell parents to give love and support, to ask their children what they learnt and how school is going – to take an interest.”

“I like to see my students succeed,” he says. “Fourteen are at college, twenty-seven at high school. I have former students working with the church and NGOs. I’m really pleased.”

Probin Areng with the 'big blackboard' at his school.

But for Kukijuri’s families enrolling children beyond class 5 isn’t straightforward. The nearest schooling options for higher grades, Haiderganj and Laxmipur, are each several kilometres away, entailing the additional expense of boarding hostels. For university the most common choices are Sylhet or Dhaka. Of the few who complete university, most don’t return.

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Everything must be carried by hand to punjees such as Dulukchara.

A betel vine. Kukijuri.

Cecelia Lamarong 32, and Monica Khonglah, 30, are welcome exceptions. Khasis with tertiary qualifications from Dhaka, these two confident and articulate pioneers teach at the Laxmipur Mission High School – Areng’s former stomping ground. Indeed, as former students they number among his successes.

A class at Laxmipur Mission High School.

“To go from one culture to another is difficult,” says Khonglah of her university days in Dhaka a decade ago. “The adjustment is hard. Dhaka is a big city – the houses are different. Things move very quickly and everybody speaks Bangla. We come from the punjee!”

Khonglah and Lamarong. Khasi pioneers.

She mentions the shock of seeing women wearing burqas for the first time. “Women in Dhaka are also free,” she says, “but we were used to the punjee where even at night there is no risk to women walking about.”

“When we studied there,” says Lamarong, “there were only thirteen Khasis living in Dhaka.”

One advantage of having Khasi teachers is that when students have difficulties they are better placed to help. “If they don’t understand in Bangla,” says Khonglah, “we can explain in Khasi.” “We understand what’s different for them,” adds Lamarong.

Another innovation has been the inclusion of Khasi language classes. While previously the Khasi language, written in Latin script, was sometimes taught informally through churches, classes are now held for eighty students after their other classes are done. “At first they didn’t like it,” says Khonglah, “But I teach songs, poetry and rhymes and they perform them at school.”

The Khasi language was once endangered but has experienced a revival. In particular the written form is not well-entrenched in Bangladesh, given that books needed to be imported from India. But last year Caritas started publishing texts for PG to class 2 locally.

A similar initiative has been running in Ishachora Punjee since 2008. With funding from Oxfam, IPDS opened a Khasi language centre that introduces 30 students to their native language, including its written form, each morning before school.

Like Areng, Khonglah and Lamarong believe education is a means to secure a better future. “Don’t rely on the betel garden,” Lamarong tells her students, “Do something else as well.”

“Besides,” says Khonglah, “there’s climate change – less rain – a problem for betel cultivation.”

Monica Khonglah and Cecelia Lamarong believe education can bring a better future to the Khasi community.

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An ingenious "tap". Ishachora Punjee.

In recent decades Christian attitudes have shifted towards recognising the inherent value of local cultures. The new approach has encouraged the Khasis, despite in many ways having maintained their separate identity, to re-engage with their past. And that is, of course, to know themselves better.

It’s not only the written language and literature being revived. Since 2008 Bangladeshi Khasis have recommenced celebrating an important pre-Christian festival Shad Suk Mynsiem, which symbolises spring and thanksgiving for the land. This has generated renewed pride in Khasi clothes, song and dance. “We used to sing English and Bangla songs,” says Khonglah, “We thought we didn’t need our traditions. But now we understand it’s our culture. We started Shad Suk Mynsiem again and now I really feel it.”

Together with strengthened efforts in modern education and better attempts to connect with mainstream society – such as by pursuing their rights through the courts, renewed cultural awareness can only be an asset, allowing coming generations of Khasis to more fully and confidently contribute, to bring to the fore the wealth of their cultural experience and unique history. Despite the contemporary challenges it’s easy to be optimistic that Khasis will be able to realise their full potential not only as Khasis but as Bangladeshis. In the process, the life of the nation is sure to be enriched.

There’s another Khasi myth which says that brother and sister – the moon and sun – once danced together. Everybody said it was sinful, being from the same family. From shame the sun hid herself in a cave and the Earth descended into darkness. People tried every means to coax the sun out, and ultimately they deployed a rooster as messenger. It was with the rooster’s crowing that the sunlight came again.

Ishachora Punjee.

Areca (betel nut) palms, Kukijuri.

Kukijuri residents.

Kukijuri Punjee.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: Meeting Moulvibazar's Khasis

Neat and tidy: Ishachora's Montri's veranda.

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[1] Sen Soumen, “Khasi-Jainitia Folklore”, Context, Discourse and History, p.71

[2]Ibid, p. 62

[3] SNH Rizvi, ed., “Bangladesh District Gazetteer Sylhet”, Dacca 1970, p. 104