13. Ka Aïom Ksiar – Season of Gold

Soso Tham wrote Ki Sngi Barim U Hynñiew Trep for his people and this exposition has been and will always be the poet speaking, exhorting and even pleading with his people. Nowhere is this made more clear than in the closing verses. He harks back to the shared myth of inherited beginnings and legends, to the presence of hope and joy and to the two moral pillars supporting the fabric of Khasi society – Truth and Justice. His pride in his homeland never wanes but apprehension and doubt are never silenced. That which he has tried to reclaim and rebuild is still under threat: Uncertain the journey of our people, our land. However, his own belief in the homeland that has long cradled him and the messages of renewal evident in Nature reassert their force reawakening hope and optimism. He ends with a collective prayer of thanksgiving, a renewing of vows and a vision of joyous abandon before making a natural transition to the end of his own earthly journey and his arrival in the House of God where he will seek out his beloved mother – i Mei – the acknowledged heart beating at the centre of the Khasi world.