Shillong, Dec 18: Noted Khasi poet and literary icon of Meghalaya late, U Soso Tham was remembered on his 78th death anniversary on Tuesday.
The anniversary was commemorated by various organizations in different parts of Khasi and Jaiñtia Hills of the state as people went to lay wreaths at the bust of the legendary poet and paid their tributes.
The Khasi Students’ Union and Hynñiewtrep Youth Council also paid their tributes on the occasion. A function to commemorate the death anniversary of U Soso Tham was also organized at Sohra, the birth place of the poet.
The State government declared a state holiday every year on December 18.
The marble bust of U Soso Tham was built by the Soso Tham Birth Centenary Committee in 1973, on his 100th birth anniversary in the premises of the State Central Library.
Tham had made lots of contribution not only to uplift literature but to wake up the Hynñiewtrep community through his words of visions and cautions in the form poem.
At the North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) campus, the KSU NEHU Unit also paid floral tribute to the bust of U Soso Tham which was built there few years ago.
The KSU had also built the bust of U Soso Tham at Pongkung village in East Khasi Hills.
U Soso Tham Auditorium at the State Central Library was also named after this poet.
The life size statue of Tham has been constructed at U Soso Tham Children’s Park at Saitsohpen, Sohra by the family with the help of well wishers.
Tham was born at Ryngkew Wahïajer Nonglba also known as Nongsawlia at Sohra in 1873. His father was Hat Tongper and mother, Lyngkien Tham. U Soso Tham was the only son of poor parents in a family of six. The poet died on December 18, 1940. He became the first person to make use of Khasi idioms in a form taken mainly from English poetry.
He started with his students by translating the poem of W. E. Hickson, “Drive the nail aright boy – Sah beit ïa u prek hep†in his class.
The first edition of his collection of poems “Ki Poetry Khasi” (1925) is lost forever. What many including students read today is the enlarged edition “Ka Duitara Ksiar (The Golden Harp) or Ki Poetry Khasi”. Another important work which could be considered as a classic of Khasi literature is “Ki Sngi Barim U Hynñiew Trep – The Olden Days of U Hynñiew Trep (1936).
Soso Tham had also translated into Khasi language Aesop’s Fables, Charles Dickens’s “The Life of Our Lord†and the great Shakespearean comedy “The Tempestâ€, with title given as ‘U Kyllang’. However the manuscript of this translation was lost.
U Soso Tham lived with his works and his death anniversary is kept alive by his family members and an organisation known as “Study Tour Circleâ€. Not only Meghalaya or the then Assam, but the whole Indian literary world lost U Soso Tham forever. He will always remain as the greatest literary icon in the history of literature of the State.