Funeral Nights

It was Raji Manai who first told us about Ka Phor Sorat.

One night, some of us, friends and acquaintances, found ourselves sitting  together in the drawing room of a death house somewhere in Shillong, talking about strange deaths and strange ways of disposing of the dead. We spoke of the sky burial of the Tibetans, the Parsi towers of silence, space burial, and new ways of treating human corpses. As we marvelled at the uniqueness of each, Bah Kynsai interrupted us to say, 'I think, of all the strange ways of disposing of the dead, na, the Torajans' is the strangest.'

Bah Kynsai used the word 'na' as many people in the Khasi Hills would use the word 'em', or 'no', as in this sentence: 'Kane ka jong phi, em?' ('This is yours, no?') Obviously, this is something a native English speaker would not say, but among the Khasis, 'em' is liberally used at the end of sentences, sometimes even in the middle.

Bah Kynsai's full name is Kynsai Marmaduke Nongbri. Kynsai means 'of the best kind' and Nongbri is his surname or clan's name. His middle name is the result of a Khasi penchant for foreign tags. Most of us have English given names, but even those with Khasi names often have something English-sounding in the middle.

Bah Kynsai does not look like your typical Khasi. He has a dark, round face, but with a sharp nose and a head of thick, curly black hair that never seems to be out of place even when the wind blows hard and fast-people suspect it is a wig, though no one has dared say it out loud. He is huge, too, for a Khasi, about five feet ten and weighing about 85 kg. He is the exact opposite of me, for instance: I am fair-complexioned and stand at about five feet four inches in my socks-the average height of Khasi men-and weigh only 55 kg. Most of us call him Bah Kynsai because he is much older than us and out of respect for his profession. He teaches geography at the university.

'The Torajans,' he continued in response to our queries, 'are a mountain tribe living in the south of Indonesia. Like us, they have a population of more than a million, and like us, most of them have converted to Christianity, though some still practise the old animistic religion, which they call Aluk To Dolo, or the way of the ancestors. They have a very elaborate and costly funeral ceremony that can last for several days. But the strangest thing, na, is that this ceremony takes place only weeks or months or even years after a person has died!'

'What? What?' almost everyone asked incredulously. One of us even laughed out loud and said, 'I don't believe you, Bah Kynsai.'

People tend not to take Bah Kynsai seriously since he is always pulling their leg with tall tales. But, for all his jesting, he is a well-read, knowledgeable man.

'Bew, liah, tdong!' Bah Kynsai cursed the laughing doubter. 'You don't believe me? Ask Ap! Ask Ham! We watched the documentary together, man!'

'Tdong' means arse, but 'bew, liah' are among the worst Khasi expletives, so I will not even try to translate them. If you're wondering why Bah Kynsai was cursing in a death house, it was because we had the room to ourselves.

Ham is Hamkom Dkhar, a college professor and historian. He is deeply interested in exploring the history of what he calls the 'Jaiñtias'. These are, in fact, Pnars, as I told you earlier, living in Ri Pnar or Jaiñtia Hills district. Sometimes they are also derogatorily called Syntengs. But many Pnars today prefer to call themselves Jaiñtias, and even refuse to accept that they are part of the Khasi family. But more of that later. Dkhar, as you might have guessed, is his clan's name, and the word Hamkom is from the Pnar dialect. I don't know what it means, and Hamkom has never offered an explanation. But Bah Kynsai said it could mean the same as the Hindi movie Hum Kisise Kum Naheen (We Are No Less Than Anyone), or in the case of Hamkom, 'I'm no less than anyone'. Hamkom certainly acts that way, perhaps because he is handsome and, at five feet eight inches, rather tall. He wears his curly hair very long, like a rock star, probably a remnant from his guitar-playing days with a local band. I was told that his girl students are forever falling in love with him and that he is very proud of that fact, although, as I was also given to understand, he never takes advantage of it. Perhaps he agrees with what Bah Kynsai used to tell his university friends: 'Do not fish in this pond! The fish will drag you in!'

Hamkom and I nodded when Bah Kynsai mentioned the documentary, and encouraged, he said, 'You see, they have also seen it, so don't give me that crap about not believing me, ha, tdong!'

The Khasi 'ha' is not the same as the English exclamation. Sometimes it functions like 'okay', as in: 'We saw these guys, okay, so we went up to them and started talking.'

'But why would they keep the body for so long?' someone asked.

'Because they have to slaughter lots of buffaloes and pigs as part of the ceremony, na? Scores of buffaloes, hundreds of pigs, chicken and fish. And people come at all hours, and they eat non-stop. Can you imagine the amount of money needed for all that? It can take months and years for them to collect enough funds. It all depends on how well-to-do the family is. In the meantime, ha, they preserve the body by rubbing it with special leaves and herbs, and when that is done, they wrap it in layers of cloth and keep it in a tongkonan. This is a huge traditional house of bamboo and wood, erected on piles and beautifully designed, like Noah's Ark. I say like Noah's Ark because the roof, na, is so uniquely built, with gables sweeping up dramatically like a pompadour, that it resembles a saddleback or a ship's prow. The tongkonan roof reminds me a little of Donald Trump's hairdo actually. You have seen Trump's hair, na? Like that.'

Raji, who had been listening intently, now said, 'I'm very interested in two things, Bah Kynsai: the keeping of the body for months and years and the slaughter of buffaloes and pigs. I'll tell you the reason later, okay, but right now, I'd like to know why they do it.'

Raji Manai (nobody knows the meaning of his first name, not even Raji himself) is about my height, maybe slightly taller. He has very sharp features and a long, lychee-seed face. Because of his full beard and caterpillar moustache, people often take him for a non-tribal. He is a man of many talents: not only an artist, painter and sculptor, but also a well-known filmmaker, a journalist with his very own cable news network, and a writer with three books to his credit. He is Catholic, but with such a deep love for anything Khasi that he goes to every cultural or religious event organised by the faithful of Niam Khasi. I would grade him as a model Khasi, for though he worships Christ, he has no contempt, only respect for the Khasi religion, and love for Khasi culture. He recognises the fact that, as Khasis, we all share the same ancestors and the same past, regardless of the new faiths we have adopted, and, therefore, always places his community above his religion.

In response to Raji, Bah Kynsai explained: 'Because they want the buffaloes and pigs to join the deceased in the afterlife, na, so his spirit will be able to herd them as on earth, na? The Torajans' belief in the afterlife is so strong, ha, their dead are buried with all the tools they would need to carry on their trade in the next world. If that is not done, their spirits will not be able to live in peace. But as they await their burials, na, the dead are kept in their tongkonans and treated just like people who are sick or merely sleeping. The family members even feed the corpses whenever they themselves eat.'

'Ish! Remarkable, remarkable,' Raji said excitedly. 'Khasis who are not Christians also symbolically feed the dead for three days and three nights before they are cremated. Ap can tell you that.'

'Oho, this is not the same, na, Raji?' Bah Kynsai said impatiently. 'These people treat the dead as if they are alive, man! They not only symbolically feed them; they also care for them in every way, washing them, dressing and even taking them out for fresh air now and then.'

'Taking them out?' came a chorus of amused and disbelieving voices.

'Arre! Ask them, tdong!' he said, pointing at Hamkom and me.

'True, true,' we replied.

'Bah Kynsai,' Raji interposed, 'I want to know more about the buffaloes.'

'Why are you so obsessed with buffaloes?'

'I have a reason, but after your story . I promise.'

'Well, during the death feast, the Rambu...