Ialam is in his thirties, enjoys a good kwai—a combination of areca nut and betel leaf—once in a while, earns his living by making handicrafts, and dotes on his three children. A typical resident of the East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya, by any reckoning. But Ialam is not just another villager, especially to the women of his village. During pregnancies, he is the person they depend on for a safe delivery. Ialam is a male midwife, one of an unusual group of men who double as midwives or nong tyn ksa ksum as they are known in Khasi. “All men in our cluster of villages are well versed with this skill,” he says, “But only about 15-20 like me make a regular practice of it.”
Called Syntein, the cluster of five villages—Mawkaphan, Domskong, Jympait, Kenbah and Kenmynsaw—is located deep in the interior, far from the modern world. On your way there, the road abruptly ends to give way to a little path strewn with rubble that is almost impossible to walk on. Then there comes a perilously suspended bridge, a wobbly wood-and-iron contraption below which lies 230 feet of sheer nothingness. Finally, the villages come into view. They seem one on top of the other, with the last one being at the foot of a huge hill, very close to the Indo-Bangladesh border. From the first village to the last is an hour-and-a-half long trek downhill. “It is very difficult to get to Syntein, so not many people come here,” says Protik Roy Malngiang, ‘assistant king’ of Mawsynram block (which includes Syntein).,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
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