Word Meanings

A few days ago I was wandering around taking photographs at a huge Eucharist being held in the Don Bosco square up the street from the college. It seemed like every Catholic in northeast India had turned out to take communion. The streets were packed. 

 

When I got back to my cottage and downloaded my photos, I noticed that with all the thousands of people in the streets, I had continually focused on solitary souls--or were they lonely? 

 

Because I couldn’t figure it out on my own, I turned to the dictionary to tell me. “You can be in the midst of a crowd of people and still experience loneliness, but not solitude, since you are not physically alone. Similarly, if you enjoy being alone, you can have solitude without loneliness.” 

 

So, since we’re in Shillong surrounded by people, I must assume that it’s lonely people. But what if they don’t mind being alone? Can they be solitary in a city?

 

“Loneliness, which refers to a lack of companionship and is often associated with unhappiness, should not be confused with solitude, which is the sate of being alone or cut off from all human contact.”

 

Neither seemed to quite fit. So, I tried synonyms and found: alienation, “a word that suggests a feeling of unrelatedness, especially a feeling of distance from your social or intellectual environment.”

 

And it hit me. Was I taking photos of my own feelings of alienation? It’s easy to find metaphors when you have a lot of time on your hands.

 

Shortly after moving back to Susanville a couple years ago, I spoke with one of the Mt. Shasta monks about the overwhelming feelings of loneliness I was experiencing and she answered, “How wonderful! Embrace it. Welcome it. It’s trying to teach you something. Learn from it.”

Blood and Sacrifice

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Maybe it was the full moon that prompted me to stay for the goat sacrifice after the Nongrem Dance. Or maybe I felt I needed to open myself up to all sides of Khasi culture.  Or maybe there’s something in the nature of sacrifice that I’m trying to understand. Or what’s behind killing an animal. I’ve admired the Khasi’s reverence for nature, their care taking of the forest. Blood sacrifice is part of it. So I stayed in Smit Village well after dark, because an animal sacrifice must certainly take place after the moon has risen.

The Nongrem Dance, an annual dance of harvest and thanksgiving, continued all day with colorful, hypnotic, fugue-like choreography. After sunset, the entire village took on a slightly surreal ambience and reminded me of a night I spent in Michoacán, Mexico that I only remember as “the witches’ village.” Fires burning in dark streets. Scent of cedar. Someone told me that sometimes people go there and are never seen again. Only in Michoacán it was women I remember who filled up the street. In Smit, there were lots of men, many of them singing loudly or passed out on the grass after a long day of imbibing in the local rice beer. 

Then the music started. I’ve been reading a book, The Evolution of Khasi Music, by Layynashai Syiem, so I think it began with the ka shawiang, a mournful flute used during death and religious ceremonies. A single drumbeat joined in and the village headmen in white turbans filed out into their seats, a golden goblet on the ground before each of them. Someone started a fire in the center of the field and the incessant doleful music kept on.

The goats were hauled in one by one with ropes, bleating and struggling. They knew what was in store. Fortunately, they did them in quickly, one quick beheading with the ax followed by a round of gunshot to signal their end. And the people surged forward, holding the smallest children on their shoulders for a better view.

As soon as they started dragging the first goat in, I knew I had to get out of there. It had been a bad idea to stay, but the place was packed; I couldn’t move. And with the first bloodshed, the crowd surged forward, yelling and cheering.

I don’t get violence, although I’ve been around my share of violent people, mostly, but not always, men. I get that blood unleashes some primal call of human nature, but that gene seems to have missed me. Before long there was a bloody circle around the headmen who sat impassively and watched. And still they dragged in more and more goats. I hear the final count was over 60. I was gone before they started on the chickens.

I rarely eat meat any more, but haven’t crossed over 100% to a vegetarian diet so it would be hypocritical to say I oppose slaughter of any kind. I’ve always felt hunting or raising your meat was a more honest way of going about it than buying a plastic-wrapped package from the grocery store. I once popped off a dozen quail, plucked and dressed them and simmered them in plum brandy sauce so I could experience the entire range of preparing a meal from live bird to French cooking. And I know those goats will feed villages all over Meghalaya and a lot of people will be grateful for the meat.

But for me, the ka shawiang and drumbeat will haunt my nights for a long time to come, and I don’t think I’ll ever eat mutton again. 

Communication Misses

She’s called Mother India, but sometimes living here feels like being in a relationship with a difficult man. Something I have a lot of experience with. 

 

It comes down to a matter of communication, and how many of us are lucky enough in love to find someone who speaks the same language? It might seem that way at first, but then, at least when it comes to men and women, one day you realize that you’ve been having conversations with an alien. And so has he. She wants to talk about a problem she’s having at work. He thinks he needs to solve it and then doesn’t understand why she doesn’t follow his advice. All she wanted was someone to listen. And he doesn’t have it easy either. He pays her a compliment. She hears an insult. “I like your hat,” he says. And she answers, “What do you mean I look fat? Do you think I look fat?” 

 

Communication misses.

 

India is a bit like that. And I love language and generally pick them up pretty quickly. In China I was arguing with cab drivers in record time. But here I’m lost. I picked up a Hindi book before I left, only to find out that in the northeast not many people speak Hindi. I’ve learned a few words of Khasi, but there are so many different dialects and languages in this part of the country, that most of the time I don’t know what in the hell I’m hearing.

 

Of course, it’s still easy to get around as English is the link language and everyone speaks a little, and quite a few people speak a lot. But then the nuances, the subtleties come into play, the things like “Oh, crap, did I just hand that school kid a banana with my left hand?” I never know if I’ve just made a major cultural faux pas or just a minor fool out of myself.  

 

But then, there are moments of grace and perfect synchronicity. A blending of heart and consciousness so that you realize no matter how difficult the relationship is, it’s worth struggling through whatever series of miscommunications are necessary to bring you this sublime place. 

 

India is like that too.