By Daïaphira Kharsati
Mustoh is struggling to keep its traditions alive. Very few of its people practise cane work and its famed areca nut (kwai) plantations have declined. Yet, Mustoh – its people – are resilient. A quaintness still permeates its lush greenery, and the edges of its cottages and small concrete houses are lined with South American ornamentals, a variety of crotons and magenta cock’s combs. As with any other old settlement, its descendants struggle to keep the traditional occupations alive but remain unsure of their future.
We stepped out of Shillong in the early hours of November morning to explore Mustoh. It remains a small village with about 300 households nestled in the lap of the Shella Bholaganj Block. We wanted to know how many more stories are home to a village now mostly known for its revived Khneng embroidery – border motifs in black wool embroidered in the shape of the ktiar insect.
The winding road to Shella, the pleasant aura emanating through the frondescence, the sharp and numerous sounds of insects engender a warmth now lost in Shillong, and would stir a restless heart eager to escape the dog days.
Time is slow in Mustoh. By afternoon, the sun pierces the skin sharply, and slumber sets over the village. Children take turns to bathe near a manmade watering hole. Upon seeing visitors with cameras, some squealed in both excitement and suspicion. They keenly checked their photos on the digital camera to approve or disapprove of the shots.
Mustoh opens into a small space for parking vehicles. To the left, we walked through a narrow path protected on the left by bamboo rails to visit the ad hoc secretary of the village, Kitdorlang B. Tiewsoh, a lean and sprightly man. A peep over the rails shows lush vegetation, tall areca nut palms, a strange collection of butterflies – and insurmountable garbage, a sharp reminder of the state’s waste crisis. Proper water supply is also yet to be sanctioned despite the abundance of natural water gushing through pipes in streams.
It is over shikyntien kwai that spark conversations even among strangers. The much-loved kwai is grown in different parts of the state, particularly in the War regions, where the plantations have a long history. Mustoh is no different. The rural folks depend on areca nut, but production is on the decline. The pandemic has not helped; at the height of the lockdowns, plantation produce was often vandalised or stolen. Citrus fruits, another mark of Mustoh, despite still fetching the village a handsome amount, have seen better days. “We are hopeful the government will do something; as the years pass, we see a decline”, says Tiewsoh. When Tiewsoh was a young man, Mustoh was like an orchard – an Eden in the hills. Pungent betel leaves, soft areca nuts and potent citrus fruits were not its only abundance, the village benefitted from the golden age of Shella, producing well-educated, worldly rural folk. Little of that remains. The picture of the orchard remains just another memory to Tiewsoh.
N. Kongri, who lives on the opposite end of the village, says no one has ever tried to understand why the citrus fruits just fall from the trees prematurely, as if the branches are too weak to support them. “Every year, starting from September–October, we notice there were certain problems with the fruits, but no research has been conducted”. Yet, not all is bleak. An abundant crop of the bastard oleaster (Elaeagnus latifolia), soh shang, along with jackfruits, bay leaves and an assortment of fruit, has compensated the loss in Mustoh’s famous oranges.
But it is easier to bring back fruit into production than lost skill. The village is famous for its cane works, but only a handful now makes these. Cane works involve arduous physical activity. Old dam (mats) are found across households to make dam kdait, dam shken and dam thri, but Wandalin Laitmon, an artisan, says carpets that are more easily available in markets have substituted dam. “It might take a month or more to make one”, she says, while showing a collection of soot-covered dam and stools. After a few minutes of conversation, she admitted she stopped selling them save smaller dam for some Rs 1,000, a heavily discounted price for a handicraft. “Maybe there are two or three of us who still weave them”, she adds. “It is time-consuming and a monotonous physical activity, from chopping the cane to cutting and weaving it into intricate details, and then dried around the hearth”.
While traditional crafts make for excellent tourism traps for outsiders, little is said of how unaffordable it is for War Khasis of Mustoh to practice their own culture. Even the riam tynrai, or riam Shella, which comprises the jaiñ-it and jaiñkup, are expensive, but still worn by the older women. “I feel proud that khneng works in recent years have been revived through the khneng embroidery society”, says Tiewsoh. More people are practising the weave and embroidery than before. But signs of extinction are obvious and difficult to discuss: Christianity properly arrived in Mustoh under a Presbyterian mission that established a church in 1866. Today, almost no niam Khasi followers remain, and with their slow conversion over a century, the shad phor, a pastoral dance, became extinct in the village.
Other remnants of the ancient faith have been refurbished to attract visitors: Umbloi nearby is where Tiewsoh says the old gods would bathe. Today polished pathways have been constructed up to the bathing spot following the efforts of the Village Employment Council under MGNREG. He speaks with a familial fondness of Mawslaitbit, Umbloi and a goddess called Jitlakhai. “But no one goes over to Mawslaitbit for unknown reasons”.
As has been since 2019, the language given by the pandemic hangs over every conservation. “Though we have been able to sustain our livelihood through farming, the pandemic has been difficult for us. We are not able to get essential commodities; work and employment are also on hold.
“We are thankful to God that there has been no COVID case so far in our village. But we are struggling because of the pandemic. We can’t purchase much because goods are getting costlier”, Tiewsoh said.
At one time, residents in Mustoh would trek to Mawmluh for health services. Now, a direct road through the hills connects Mustoh to Mawmluh, but the health infrastructure remains fragile. There is only one dispensary in Mustoh and a Primary Health Centre in Laitkynsew, a village some 5 km away. In 2020, for instance, a sudden illness broke out in Mustoh, but the new health infrastructure was able to aid recovery efforts.
Despite the ups and downs, the Mustoh villagers are made of a stronger constitution than the sedentary settlers in Shillong. “The people in the village live a healthy life and a pleasant one”, says Tiewsoh. “There is an elderly lady who is probably 100 years in Jatap. My mother is 89 years old and the oldest in the village. She does not suffer from either blood pressure disorders or diabetes. They are strong and healthy except that they have become hard of hearing. We were even able to get vaccinated. Seventy-five per cent of the people are now vaccinated”.
When walking back to our car, we asked a group of children what they wanted to be: one wanted to join the armed forces, another wanted to be a doctor, and still another said she could become a photographer. The children are full of rich dreams, fuelled more by the possibilities they see through their phones. But the parents live a different reality. The children often cannot attend school and the nearest colleges take students far away from the village where they must compete with richer students.
Before we took our leave, Tiewsoh pointed at an unassuming spot of gold-bathed forest on the next hill. ‘That was the home of Jitlakhai’, he says, a young queen that lore says was kidnapped by a plainsman struck by her radiant beauty. From here, you can see silver sheets of river Shella snaking into the marshes of Bangladesh. He laughed – “We hope to make her home an attraction one day”.
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