Writing the self, decolonization and gaining through translation

The Khasis, who refer to themselves as Children of the Seven Huts, are an Indigenous ethnic group in Meghalaya (‘the abode of clouds’) in north-eastern India. As early as 1824, the Baptist mission in Serampore had translated a portion of the Bible into Khasi using the Bengali script. But Khasis found the script difficult to read and further efforts were discontinued. So, until the arrival of the Welsh Mission, when Thomas Jones transcribed the Khasi language into the Roman Script in 1841, the language remained primarily oral. While reading and writing ensured progress in literacy, the use of English as the medium of instruction and the accompanying imposition of western values had serious cultural consequences. The mother tongue was considered inferior, oral traditions that had long been channels of a unique world-view were marginalized and the old ways of thinking based on a profound respect for the natural world were gradually eroded. This was because an oral culture was considered less than one possessing the written word. But fortunately especially in the absence of written documentation, remembering, telling and sharing have always played a significant part in Khasi social life. Kynmaw is the Khasi word for remember and as Nigel Jenkins points out in his book Gwalia in Khasia, the word is ‘megalithic’ because it suggests to make or ‘mark with a stone’ (1995: 5), immediately recalling the monoliths raised to commemorate past lives. Kynmaw is also a chilling warning – ‘remember’, or else’ – and that is what this article sets out to do: to rekindle the old reverences for a language teaching us a way to be to halt the dangers of an ongoing cultural forgetting.