Will you come back to the village?

A friend and co-worker of mine is Khaling; I read this and thought of him, and his work on a translation for the Khaling/rai people.

You…

Saying you’ll come by this evening

You’ll come by tomorrow

You’ll definitely come by this winter

Or by any means you’ll arrive by the end of the year

You keep me waiting and waiting

I’m left to stare at the path

Where have you gotten entangled?

Here…if there were a sun it’s on the verge of setting

If there were a fire it’s close to dying out

If there were a river it’s drying up,

If there were a flower it’s begun to wilt

Here….there is great difficulty

In keeping our culture alive

There are no Shilee dancers for the Tosi puja

There are no Risiwa singers

There is no one to recite veda and mundhum texts

And so…will you come back to the village

Before the Khaling language of Khaling is lost

Before the mundhum vedas of Khaling are forgotten

Before our culture becomes extinct

Before our identity is erased?

-Shiva Kumar Khaling

(Originally written in Khaling/rai)