I had originally intended this piece
to be a memorial for all those Englishmen and Englishwomen – all part of the
British Raj – who lived and then died here; some of their remnants surviving in
the form of plaques and tombstones adorning their graves scattered all over our
land.
The trigger for such a piece
happens to be a cemetery I recently visited; a quaint cemetery of a quaint
church in Meghalaya. It has been the custom for me when I travel to new places (I realise this now with my latest visit),
to end up visiting the old British-era churches and their grounds which often
double up as the final resting places for erstwhile British subjects. When I
visited Nainital so many years back, I went to St. John’s Church in the upper
reaches of the hill-station, and explored the cemetery lying just beside it – interring
the remains of so many English folk; men who had gloriously succumbed in battle,
dutiful wives who had followed their husbands to this land, and even infants
who had been cruelly snuffed out by the deadly epidemics of that age. So many
headstones were crumbling and the letters on some were almost rubbed out by the
ravages of the wind and the rain, but my friends and I had a strangely wonder-filled
time reading out the messages describing the lives of all those people from so
long ago. I continue to experience that same feeling of wonderment and an
unexplainable kinship whenever I visit old churches and cemeteries, like the
times spent at St Paul’s Cathedral, Kolkata, Hudson Memorial Church, Bangalore
and the war cemeteries in Digboi and Guwahati.
So it was that as I looked upon a
crumbling stone-brick column serving as a headstone, whose sides now housed a loud brood of sparrows, I felt that same wave of something familiar
sweeping over me. I was standing on top of a low wind-swept hillock in the
cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church at Nongsawlia, Lower Cherrapunjee, Meghalaya
and looking down over the church in the background. The First Presbyterian
Church at Nongsawlia was established in 1848 by Welsh missionaries who had
undergone great hardships to travel all the way from Wales to the Khasi Hills,
to spread the words of the Gospel among the local populace, also educating,
teaching and guiding them in the process. A Primary School set up in 1843 by
the first Welsh missionary Thomas Jones for educating the Khasi children still
stands today, as does a High School established by the missionaries. As you
move from Cherrapunjee town to the outlying areas of Lower Cherrapunjee, the tall
bell tower with a simple cross on top is the first indication of a church you
see as you round a bend. Just beside the tower, stands the unassuming First
Presbyterian Church of Nongsawlia, with its grey stone walls sourced most
likely from the local stone quarries (the
lower portion of walls painted with simple white lime), with its
Gothic-arched windows and sloping roofs of red tin.
On the other side of the road, a
gate with a curved sign proclaiming ‘Presbyterian Church Nongsawlia Cemetry
1845’ leads the way to the cemetery scattered over I think, 3 small
hillocks with the farthest right on the edge of a plateau and offering
panoramic views of the gorges beyond. The first 2 hillocks are studded with
graves adorned with headstones of departed Welsh- and Englishfolk. Many of these
headstones are now half-sunken, a few further embellished with protective rings
of iron grill. Some of these headstones are more like ‘head-towers’, fashioned out of stone bricks and into vertical
columns much like the stone monoliths which Khasi people used to erect as
memorials for their forefathers, and which dot the hilly landscape all over. The
last hillock contains more recent graves of Khasi dead – some modern graves now
decorated with ceramic tiles of floral patterns and covered with colourful
artificial flower bouquets left behind by the grieving.
Beyond the stones and the
buildings lie the stories of people who strived for something singular and
whose efforts are now forever a part of the Cherrapunjee and perhaps, Khasi way
of life. The Welsh missionaries, who first came to these hills bearing the
words of the Lord, were supported by the honest folk of Wales impoverished themselves, who were
moved sufficiently to improve the lot of peoples whom they had not even heard
of or met. Still suffering under the constraints of the Napoleonic wars which
had severely affected them, folks of distant Welsh towns like Anglesey and Denbigh
set aside a portion of their produce or livestock as charity for the Bible
Society which spearheaded the missionary drive. Possessing neither riches nor
much education the Welsh people contributed with extraordinary fervor and
resolve, to send forth these missionaries
The first Welsh missionaries landed
at Cherrapunjee on 22nd June, 1841 and proceeded to reform many aspects of the
Khasi way of life by imparting practical skills in agriculture, distilling,
mining, education and religion. They also introduced the first Khasi script
using Roman alphabets and enriched the lives of the local population in ways, which
were far-reaching. Clothes, embroidery patterns, reading and writing, medicine,
designs in crockery, using coal in limestone kilns – the Welsh missionaries worked
in ways of spreading the Gospel that “joyful
sound shall have reached the uttermost parts”. Subsequently, the
missionaries moved to other parts of Meghalaya like Shillong, shaping
positively the lives of Khasi and Jaintia people.
It is indeed heart-warming and
inspiring to reflect on the stories of these people behind the crumbling
headstones and weathered plaques. A little bit of the hills of Cambria will
forever live on in our hills of the Khasi and Jaintia people.
