Fr Sngi, as he was popularly called, was born on 3 January 1921 in the present day Bhoi district of Meghalaya. He professed as a Salesian on 6 January 1948 and was ordained priest on 1 July 1958 in Turin, Italy. After specialized studies in Sacred Scripture, he taught the subject at Sacred Heart Theological College, Shillong since 1961.
The Salesian Provincial of Shillong, Fr George Maliekal, called Fr. Sngi “our honour and glory and a great source of inspiration for all.” Fr V.M. Thomas, his counterpart in neighbouring Guwahati province and national president of the Conference of Religious in India, said, “The Church and the Salesian congregation in India, especially in the north-eastern region, are admirers and beneficiaries of Fr. Sngi, a legend.”
Based at the Salesian theologate, Fr Sngi devoted decades to teaching, writing, preaching and healing scores of ailing people who came to him from far flung villages.
He was a popular editor of the Khasi weekly “Ka Sur Shipara” for nearly two decades from 1976. Fr Sngi authored more than 40 books and among his outstanding literary contributions are his Khasi-Hebrew, Khasi-Greek, and Khasi-Aramaic dictionaries. He co-translated and edited along with the late Fr Henry Fantin, the Khasi Catholic Bible, a landmark literary volume in the Khasi language.
A versatile personality, a lifelong teacher and writer, a most zealous missionary, and a loving and lovable priest, a healer of the sick, he was most of all a "great shepherd of the people, one with the smell of the sheep ... one of the brightest we've ever had," in the words of Fr Ivo Coelho, Councillor General for Formation of the Salesians.
