SHILLONG: The organisers of the CALM Festival saved some of their best events for the final day at the State Central Library premises on Saturday with a packed schedule of book launches, discussions and documentaries.
The last day also featured a presentation of photographs taken by renowned photojournalist and Padma Shri awardee Pablo Bartholomew, who is perhaps most famous for the photo of a half buried child after the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy.
The slideshow on Saturday focused on the self-taught photographer’s work documenting the Naga tribes over a period of more than 10 years, beautifully capturing the lives of the North East people.
Bartholomew, son of Burmese and Pakistani refugees, recounted some interesting anecdotes along the way, confessing to the audience that he only learnt to drive in his 30s (and only because circumstances forced him to) at an abandoned World War II airfield in Manipur.
Some of the photos presented were of the monoliths of Nagaland and he ended with some recent shots of the stone structures he has taken on his visit to Meghalaya, with a request that the government authorities find “imaginative ways” to protect these examples of the state’s heritage without making them inaccessible to the public.
The discussions ranged from women’s safety to acting, youth concerns, Niam Khasi and whether women writers are generally unappreciated.
On the last subject, the panel – made up entirely of eminent women writers Esther Syiem, Monalisa Changkjia, Madhu Jain and Bijoya Sawian – felt that appreciation is there, but it took a long while in achieving it.
“Society is still generally governed by a patriarchal construct,” Changkjia, a journalist from Nagaland, said. “But I love the way women writers say to hell with this construct, we will find our own voice and do our own thing,” she added, while describing Naga society as one of the most patriarchal.
“It’s wrong to think that North East women have a higher status. We are more visible, yes, but we still lag behind in status.”
Syiem also noted that it is only recently that women novelists emerged in Khasi society, while Sawian added to this by encouraging the youth to write.
The festival featured another successful woman author in Nina Harkness, whose second novel, ‘The Jewel Daughters’, was launched in the evening.
Harkness, who has roots in Shillong, is the author of ”A Sahib’s Daughter’, which was a number one seller on Amazon’s e-book list for over a month. Her latest book revolves around the relationship of a British sahib and a local woman. The book, set in the waning days of the Raj, highlights the social stigma faced by such couples. Mixed blood offspring can also be subject to discrimination at some point or other, she wrote. The merging of two completely different social cultures is dwelt upon in the novel’s drama and conflict.
One of the two documentaries screened was ‘Where There Are No Roads’, which features the work of the boat clinics launched by the Centre for North East Studies of Jamia Millia Islamia in partnership with the National Rural Health Mission in Assam, catering to communities often cut off by the mighty Brahmaputra, whose majesty looms large throughout the documentary.
“We started these boat clinics 10 years ago,” Sanjoy Hazarika, Director of C-NES, said after the screening. “I felt it intolerable that, in this day and age, people still did not have access to doctors. And instead of making people travel long distances to get medical care, I thought why not take the doctors to them?”
The film details the challenges faced by the rural villagers and healthcare workers, who have to battle against nature, time and a lack of development in providing much needed care.