Culture
Nohkalikai Falls of Sohra: The Tragic Tale of a Mother who ate her Daughter
Current Updates | Culture | Philip Lyngdoh | 15-Nov-2020
In these days of gadget-driven world, it is hard to imagine youngsters huddling around a master storyteller to listen to tales that spellbound listeners. Adding to this change is the fast diminishing number of storytellers, although not so long ago, we children eagerly looked forward to special evenings when our ‘Rad’ (Grand Aunt) would arrive to tell us tales from by-gone days. Those were magical evenings that made us swirl into a world with a charm of its own – a world inhabited with nymphs and fairies, giants and creatures that belonged in another dimension.
Rad regaled us with hundreds of stories ... stories that still linger in the memory. Once a story began, we sailed along like on a river, as she took us to walk alongside the characters of her stories as we huddled around the ‘shawla’ (charcoal fire), her image silhouetted against the dimly lit hurricane lamp, not once, but on countless ethereal evenings. Rad’s method of storytelling was unique, often blending her tales with notes of songs in that soft, melodious voice of hers. One such story this Author was fortunate to listen was the poignant tale of ‘Ka Kshaid Noh-ka-Likai’ (the majestic Nohkalikai Falls of Sohra).Here is how it goes.
There was once a village called Rangjyrteh, on a flat land by the banks of the River Umiong, close to modern Sohra, a village that no longer exist, but its citizens of yesteryears known for their industriousness and resourcefulness. The Umiong flows southwards over the plateau and once it reaches the edge, it surges down a deep gorge, spilling its enormous load over a ledge in an abrupt, one thousand and one hundred feet drop. The waters cascade down in sheer, unhindered plunge falling thunderously into the deep-green pool below. So beautiful are the milky-white waters that visitors flock from everywhere, especially during the rains, only to witness the awesome, roaring spray. The foams from the falling waters create clouds of mist that rise in upward drift from the deep-green pool and never cease to overwhelm spectators even today. Despite its gorgeousness, the tragic tale behind Nohkalikai Falls still rends the heart of anyone who hears it. It so happened that in Rangjyrteh village there lived a young couple who loved each other dearly. The husband, U Rang, was a poor but well-mannered, honourable, and very hard-working young man. His wife, Ka Likai was a sprightly lass, gentle and pleasing of disposition. Though poor, the couple lived a happy and contented life. Soon they had a baby girl, their bundle of joy. The parents doted on the infant, especially the father, as she was a spitting image of him. Suddenly one day tragedy struck. A strange sickness overcame U Rang and he died, leaving a grief-stricken Ka Likai and their baby girl behind. Time, of course, healed her grief but memories of her husband refused to fade as their daughter constantly reminded her of him.
She now scrounged for a living, doing odd jobs and working in people’s houses to earn enough to get two square meals a day for herself and her baby. The months went by and the toddler grew in age and intelligence, delighting her mother with her baby talk and playfulness. Ka Likai so wanted to give her daughter a better life but extreme poverty kept the doors shut. Although the villagers were kind to her and always helped with food and clothes, Ka Likai became reluctant to live off others’ charity. Soon some neighbours suggested that she remarry. She was still young and healthy, they reasoned, and a husband would provide for the family while she took care of her baby and the household. Initially, the young widow abhorred the idea of remarrying but the more she thought about it, the more convinced she was of the neighbours’ logic. At last, she decided to remarry in the hope that she can give her baby a better life. The villagers helped find a groom from another village, who they first understood, was a fine young man with impeccable character. He was good and kind in the beginning but a few months into the marriage, he revealed his true colours. Ka Likai discovered that he was a worthless fellow, a time-waster and a drunkard to boot who never worked but only lazed around the neighbourhood.
Life soon became unbearable for Ka Likai. Food was running scarce but her new husband was not in the least concerned. She had hoped for a man who would provide and support but the reverse happened. She had to take up work once more to become the breadwinner not only for her baby and herself but also for the drunken sloth of a husband! Hers was the old job of her late husband that involved carrying iron materials on the ‘khoh’, a bamboo basket slung on the back with a ‘star’, a strap of woven bamboo strips. It was a backbreaking job. She toiled on daily from sunup to sundown, her energy completely drained out by the time she got back home in the evenings. Yet even as she laboured to feed the family, her useless husband had no appreciative words for her. Every evening the drunken sod would spew torrents of harsh words and abuses of every kind upon the hapless Ka Likai. However, for the sake of her precious little daughter, Ka Likai endured the tortures and physical and mental abuses silently. Her daughter was the balm that caressed away all cares and worries when she returned home from work. Her baby was her pride and joy, her only reason for living. She was worth enduring any hardship.
Every time Ka Likai tended to her daughter’s needs first although she never neglected the needs of her husband. Despite his extreme cruelty, she was grateful that he looked after the baby while she was away. Such was the purity of her heart. Nevertheless, as days passed resentment and jealousy gnawed at and grew in her husband’s heart. He begrudged the tender love and care Ka Likai showered on her daughter. Under the perceived notion that she neglected him, his sinister mind hatched an evil plan to kill his stepdaughter. A day came when he carried out the heinous crime. While everyone had gone to work and the village was quiet, he strangled the poor baby. He cut the body into pieces and cooked the fleshy parts into a meal. He threw away the head and bones in the thickets outside of the village for the animals to eat. Before dusk approached and it was time for people to return from work, he latched the house and vanished.
Ka Likai arrived back home that fateful evening and, naturally, found no one at home. She called out her daughter’s name and her husband’s but there was no answer. She thought nothing of it because many times they would be at some neighbour’s house. It was also getting dark and she was hungry like never before, as she had had a particularly grueling day. In the dim light of the wick lamp, she espied the pots of rice and curry in the kitchen corner. Hunger made her devour her meal and enjoy it too. Her husband had prepared a very sumptuous meal, she mused, and she ate to her heart’s content. After a meal, as the Khasis do, she looked for the ‘shang kwai’, the betel nut basket, to have a ‘shikyntien kwai’, a serving of betel leaf, areca nut and lime. As she groped among the betel coat shavings, she saw something like a baby’s finger. She brought it to the light of the lamp and saw, to her horror, that it was indeed a baby’s finger. At once, she recognised it to be her baby’s little finger.
A shaft like a cold knife pierced through her heart. A bolt of lightning went through her entire being when it dawned on her that, unwittingly, she had eaten her daughter’s flesh. Cold sweat ran over her, dampening her hair and clothes. A feeling of helpless wretchedness swept over her as she also realised she had her knowingly trusted her innocent baby into the hands of a monster of a husband. Intense grief coupled with shame and anger gripped her and hung like a dark cloud over her head. Oh! How Ka Likai wailed and flailed! She picked the ‘wait-bnoh’ (bush-cutting knife), plucked her hair and ran aimlessly about like a lunatic, repeatedly calling her baby’s name. “I’ve eaten the flesh of my baby”, she cried, repeatedly, “I’ve become a monster! What is there for me to live in this world anymore?” The curious neighbours rushed out and soon surmised the misfortune that had befallen Ka Likai. They tried to get hold of her to calm her down but the knife she wielded was too menacing and they dared not come too close but only helplessly followed her from a safe distance.
Ka Likai kept calling out her daughter’s name time and again. The sound of her mournful cries rang across the plateau as she ran over the cragged boulders on the Umiong’s course towards the ledge. With her darling daughter gone, life had lost its meaning and death was the only welcome option. In death, at least she would be able to rejoin her daughter and her daughter’s father in the afterlife. Ka Likai’s plaintive cries echoed through the darkening skies, slicing across the air, to the accompaniment of the river’s roar. The slippery, pockmarked rocks that jutted on the waterscape presented no impediment to her as she plodded doggedly on. Intense, indescribable angst now possessed her soul and death was all that mattered to her. At last, she reached the cascade’s tipping edge. The night had already set in, moonless, with only the stars twinkling across the vast expanse. Their reflection shimmered in the waters of the pool below as if beckoning to her.
The villagers, dongmusa (torches) in their hands, were drawing closer. They shouted and pleaded for her to turn back but Ka Likai was deaf to their cries. The thunderous roar of the white-waters leaping two hundred fathoms down now mesmerised her. The cool mist that rose from the waters felt to her like her baby’s soft hands, tenderly caressing her face. She stood there for a moment, whispered a prayer, and, without looking back let her body down to join with the flowing spray, bidding farewell to this cruel world forever. Moments later, when the villagers reached the ledge, Ka Likai had already plunged and disappeared into the deep-green pool below into another realm. From that time onwards the Umiong Falls was rechristened Nohkalikai Falls because the hapless Ka Likai had ‘noh’ (plunged) from its ledge into the pool below. The tragic story of Ka Likai left us with lumps in our throats and pangs in our hearts. Tears welled up our eyes as we hugged our Rad, all of us wishing we would never suffer the same fate as Ka Likai. However, Ka Likai must be happy now because, they say, whenever visitors see a rainbow span the deep-green pool, that is Ka Likai and her family smiling at them!
(The Author is a retired Sr. Asst. General Manager of Air India. He can be reached on philip.lyngdoh@gmail.com. Story narrated is from his personal knowledge)
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