What was it like to partner with Zubaan on the anthology, The Many That I Am: Writings from Nagaland?
Zubaan gave me creative space. They have also reached out to me to work on other projects, and I’ve said yes to them without hesitating because they are empathetic towards the stories from the Northeast.
It must have been a huge responsibility curating it.
That responsibility was very much on my mind. When the submissions came in, most were sad
What was it like to partner with Zubaan on the anthology, The Many That I Am: Writings from Nagaland?
Zubaan gave me creative space. They have also reached out to me to work on other projects, and I’ve said yes to them without hesitating because they are empathetic towards the stories from the Northeast.
It must have been a huge responsibility curating it.
That responsibility was very much on my mind. When the submissions came in, most were sad stories, and I was concerned whether they would present a particular picture of Nagaland. Ours is a patriarchal social setup, so if we’re to start telling our stories somewhere, then why not talk about something close to us, why not start with pain? If you read the stories, you’ll notice they almost always end with hope. That’s the beautiful thing.
To have a diverse collection, I did reach out not only to writers, but also artists, illustrators and poets. There’s a deep message here: that I’m a woman, and I’ve my place.
There are several recognised writers from Nagaland in this anthology like Temsüla Ao and Easterine Kire to name a few. How did you find a balance between having a variety of voices and some recognised figures too?
It was Zubaan’s idea, actually. Urvashi told me that if I liked, I could also include published authors, and I was very happy to do that because a book also needs to have some weight, and, of course, it’s inspiring for young, upcoming authors to be included in the same anthology with Temsüla Ao, Easterine Kire and Avinuo Kire. It also creates a balance in a way because their selection had to do with the anthology as a whole, too.
For example, we have Easterine Kire’s Cherry Blossoms in April, a love story between a Japanese officer and an Angami girl. The historical background is crucial here: the Battle of Kohima and Imphal was the only battle that the Japanese lost, and that changed a lot of things for the course of the war, and brought it to an end in the remote areas of the Northeast. Having a love story with that background was also a way of saying that it’s also our history. It was interesting that the book was published in association with the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, so, in a way, it made a lot of sense to have it.
Then, Temsüla Ao’s story reflected on the Naga movement, how people in the villages deal with things. Forget what’s going on between the centre and state-level governments, it was important to highlight things people were facing every day, because no one cared to look there. For me, Avinuo Kire’s The Power to Forgive was very touching. How does a girl who has been abused by someone she knew from the family have the power to forgive the father, who was on the perpetrator’s side?
A region’s history can have an impact on the self-expression of its inhabitants. What is the state of self-expression in Nagaland nowadays?
It’s always a struggle, and especially in the context of where I come from, because it’s a very community-based thing, too. People in a community are impressionable, so if one person does a thing, everyone tends to do the same thing and that gets carried forward. And swimming against the tide, bringing in stories of people who’ve been excommunicated or ostracised, who’ve had to face the brunt of societal ire and anger, that’s always going to be difficult. That’s always going to be there, but if we keep on digging deeper, finding that while I’m this, I’m also that, that can change things.
Naturally, if you’re going off tangent from the norm, it’s going to invite resistance because nobody wants to change; everyone likes the status quo, for there’s an effort involved in accepting change, too, forget bringing it forth. That said, what I’ve found in my culture, in the Ao tribe, is that though women have no voice in the village councils, there’s a kind of practice where the women get the chance, through songs, to express themselves. Through these folk songs, they poke fun at men without any fear or ramifications, and everyone accepts this; men also laugh at it. So, there’s this medium for them to speak their minds. I’m sure there are such practices in other cultures, too. But we’re going further away from our traditional ways at the same time.
Anyway, though women in our tribe would speak up in this cultural setting, they never did so elsewhere. However, sometime back, there was something going on between two villages, and women were very upset by what was happening, so at a public meeting, they stood up and started singing these folk songs. Many people got angry about it, but they couldn’t say anything, for women were using folk songs to criticise them. However, a greater effort is required to create spaces where women can voice their opinions.
Art provides that space. Through your films, you tend to preserve the richness of cultural memories and histories of Nagaland. What’s your politics while filming?
Filmmaking is also something that happened to me. I’m not a trained filmmaker. In films, we have to show and not tell, as the maxim goes in writing, too. But as it’s being shown, it falls on the viewer, so it’s as much a job of the filmmaker to try and present things as it is of the viewer to perceive the nuances of what’s been shown. In a book, you can still tell something, everything. But if you’re to make an interesting watch, you end up using symbolism. Can a filmmaker come and tell the audience what’s what? No. So you have to have that sixth sense of what will be picked, the messaging through the film.
Some filmmakers tend to celebrate violence. What are your views on filmmakers’ ethics and responsibilities?
It’s a free world. When it comes to making a film, the person who has the funding for it will make it. It does take a village to make a film. As a writer, you can sit in a quiet room all by yourself and just write a saga, but filmmaking is different.
It also reflects on the trauma we share. If some stories are becoming popular or going viral, that means more people are consuming them. But why are they consuming them? I remember hearing that it has something to do with trauma, too. Such stories are feeding the audience their trauma, which they end up relating to.
Women are getting empowered in many ways, but it’s still a man’s world. There are factions of men who don’t want to accept women in any field; a woman being their boss unsettles them. Power lies with all these men, and it isn’t as if they don’t have their agendas. They show audiences what they believe in, and as they can reach out to a larger audience, their ideas get circulated.
With the new generation, especially, we’re breaking new ground, so we have to be careful about what we end up showing. The audiovisual medium is so powerful; one visual or one song can create a huge impact. What’s happening is that we’re misusing resources. People who have money at their disposal aren’t using their conscience. They see that if they spend this much, it is it going to get billions of people to love this thing, so more cash comes in. But there are also nice people who come to events like the White Owl Literature Festival and Bookfair and ask questions. We need to keep such kinds of conversations going.
Saurabh Sharma (they) is a nonbinary, queer writer, essayist, and culture critic. On X: @writerly_life; Instagram: @writerlylife.
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