SHILLONG: The five-day Festival of The Arts – Experiencing the North East is being held at the intellectual hub of India – the India International Centre (IIC) from October 27-31.
This is yet another attempt by the North Eastern Council and the Ministry for the Department of the North Eastern Region (DoNER) to bring the region and its people closer to the national capital and expose its produce and rich cultural heritage to the rest of India.
It’s like an array of colours spread out to attract visitors depending on what they love to spend time on. There were kiosks on tourism, stalls selling the rich weaves of the region and a host of bamboo products from all the seven states.
The venue at the sprawling lawns of IIC was just right. Food was a major draw but not all the states showcased their cuisines. It was Naga food and Momos that were on sale as if the other states had nothing to offer.
The visitors were largely IIC members comprising elderly, retired bureaucrats, a sprinkling of politicians and a few young people. The other visitors were largely northeasterners themselves. Discussions relating to tourism and the Act East Policy were sparsely attended. Even literary discussions by writers from the North East were not as vibrant as they would have been in a literary festival.
There were too many distractions on the sidelines. To give this event an authentic northeastern flavour, rock bands from the region are invited to play.
The high point of the inaugural session on October 27 was the performance by the Shillong Chamber Choir, which drew an unprecedented crowd to the venue.
The sound system played spoil-sport but the choir leader William Richmond Basaiawmoit carried the crowd along and the audience was fascinated by the style and poise of the choir.
To club everything from the arts to music to cinema, to food, crafts with some serious discussions thrown in is like force-feeding people an assortment of food they can hardly digest. So while the food, fabric and craft stalls had a regular flow of visitors other areas had scanty footfalls.
For instance the Arts exhibition of contemporary arts from the region, curated by noted artist Wahida Ahmed was set up at the Art Gallery in the Kamaladevi Complex at the IIC Annexe which hardly had any visitors. It was a silent space with only the artists and curators sitting there.
Then there was Ashok Elwin who was asked to exhibit the rare and prized photographs of his anthropologist father, the renowned Verrier Elwin. He stood alone at the corridor of the Kamladevi Complex next to the auditorium, with hardly anyone showing any interest in the exhibits. Elwin said, “This exhibition has not yet been inaugurated although today is already the second day of the programme.”
Other than the members of the IIC not too many outsiders knew about this huge North Eastern extravaganza. Simply out It was a waste of scarce resources by the NEC and DoNER since the programme was not adequately advertised beyond the IIC.
A teacher of Delhi University who is from the region said, “Our problem is that we carry our insularity with us everywhere. Even here in Delhi we like to do things within our own circles by ourselves and for ourselves and the DoNER officials too seem to suffer from a similar malady.”
Meghalaya is perhaps the state with the poorest representation with just one stall in a corner of the IIC lawns which only had some basketry.
Incidentally, not very far away from IIC which is at Lodi Road, another festival of the North East is being simultaneously held at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA). This one is by an NGO from Assam.
So while the North East has no dearth of festivals at home and in the national capital within the region the sense of stagnation persists.
Senior officials of the NEC and DoNER were present at the event but was that enough?
