By Patricia Mukhim
Sambha Lamarr was the first to introduce a literary festival in Meghalaya. She called it the Creative Arts Literature and Music (CALM) Festival which was launched in October 2012. Sambha toured India extensively trying to woo some of the notable authors of the time to visit Shillong and share their experiences. She owned a bookshop in Nongrim Hills – Bookmark. It was more than a bookshop. We had book releases and discussions and many a quiet time just browsing at books, reading them in a quiet corner much like ‘Borders’ the once famous bookstore in the United States where one could sit for hours, take out a book, copy stuff and keep the books back in the racks. I recall meeting Shobhaa De in one of the CALM festivals. Chetan Bhagat too had come and given a talk once and so had other notable writers. Sambha held the CALM Fest in collaboration with the Government of Meghalaya.
Sadly, Sambha passed away in 2016 and the CALM festival too died a premature death. It was only in 2020 that the CALM took on a new avatar in the form of the Shillong Litfest. It’s now into its 5th edition and it has become a thriving event that brings together cerebral engagement during the day with theatre and music thrown in, in the evenings to soothe the tired minds of authors who have been busy discussing their books and signing copies and also giving interview galore. These days the Shillong Litfest is in the literary festival map of the country.
It would indeed be a great tribute to Sambha if the Shillong LitFest organisers recall her extraordinary contributions and make a mention of it in the course of the celebrations. Yesterday when I mentioned this to a young media person for whom the literary engagements in Shillong as far as she could recall began only in 2020, she expressed surprise because she didn’t know about the CALM festival. It’s no fault of hers. Life is all about moving on. But Sambha Lamarr’s contributions merit a mention in the Shillong LitFest.
Since 2012 up to 2015 with a short interregnum of four years Shillong is back hosting the LitFest, now at the picturesque Ward’s Lake which looks lovely by day and mesmerising by night with the coloured lights casting their beautiful shades in the lake waters. Thankfully this year the Cherry Blossoms are still blooming around the lake as if to honour the guests at the Literary Festival. Elsewhere in the city and beyond the Cherry Blossoms have bloomed and cheered everyone and packed up to retire into their green attire. Cherry Blossoms are a petulant lot. Their blossoming is unpredictable. They sometimes decide to bloom early and when they are not cheered they bloom a little late. Now that the youth of Meghalaya are learning Japanese, they ought to ask their Japanese friends how they tame the Sakura to bloom with precision during the summers.
So much about Cherry Blossoms! Let’s move on to the 5th edition of the Shillong LitFest which is in its second leg today, the first having been completed with aplomb on Thursday. Listening to author Sanjoy Hazarika in conversation with literary agent Preeti Gill on the theme “River Traveller” one could actually imagine oneself swaying on a boat while traversing the length and breadth of the Tsangpo and then the Siang until it becomes the Brahmaputra; the twists and turns at its different reaches beginning in Tibet. Sanjoy describes with great flourish what it feels to witness the large expanse of territory called Tibet which spells ‘challenge.’ Sanjoy drew attention to the propensity of humans to tamper with nature and build structures along the river banks. His narrative gets interesting by the minute as he speaks of the prospect of actually encountering pirates somewhere along the way. Sanjoy’s love affair with the Brahmaputra is legendary and the fact that he is journeying with award winning film maker Jahnu Baruah makes it even more fascinating. Baruah the film maker is interested in the picturesque part of the journey while Sanjoy the scholar-academician-journalist wants to absorb every bit of the descriptive aspects of the Brahmaputra.
It is on the lower reaches of the Brahmaputra that Sanjoy encountered the sufferings of those dwelling in the char areas (flood plains). They had no health care facilities and Assam then had the highest maternal mortality rate (MMR). Sanjoy, through the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research (C-NES) designed the hospital ships and with the generosity of well-wishers and funding partners succeeded in providing mini hospitals in ships to reach out to the unreached, particularly. This project is now running in collaboration with the Government of Assam and has regular staff to carry out this momentous initiative.
The discussion between Prof Desmong Kharmawphlang and Ikagai author Frances Miralles was of a different kind. For a moment I was transported to Okinawa in Japan where we are told people live to a ripe old age because they live peaceful lives free from stress and are generally happy with life. It sounds too good to be true considering ordinary humans here live stressful lives checking their mobile for every ping and are generally overworked. When I asked Miralles what is one way of countering stress, he said we should take on only so much for a day and not attempt to do more than we can. “To live long you must love your life and find reason to live instead of being pessimistic,” advised Miralles. He spoke of time management and advised that we should pause and take a break and not put too many things on the table of life. But one advice that really resonated is that today we humans share information but not emotions. That’s courtesy the little instrument we cannot live with today. Also, Miralles’ wise counsel – The first part of our lives we should be students and learn; the second part we have to be teachers and guide younger people is also what empathy and caring is all about.
Sam Dalrymple, a typical historian, brought in different facets of empire from his book ‘Shattered Lands.’ He certainly has done phenomenal research about North East India’s borders with South East Asia and how geography defies the idea of nation.
My session with Banu Mushtaq the incredible writer, activist, lawyer and International Booker Prize Winner 2025 brought out the challenges of women in Muslim society who are trapped by patriarchy at every step of the way. However Banu says its only incidental that the characters in her book, Heart Lamp with 12 stories picked from her long list of stories are Muslim. The reality is that women across this country continue to be hamstrung by patriarchal mindsets and often even women unwittingly become collaborators of patriarchy such as the mother-in-law who invariably chains the daughter-in-law in the guise of societal norms bondage. Banu has survived a stabbing incident and has been under attack from fundamentalist elements for her advocacy and bold stances. No one deserves the Booker more than this plucky soul.. More power to Banu and her ilk.
The session on Heal the World with the intrepid writer, one time journalist and Jerry Pinto and Neena Verma on grief, care mental health and why empathy matters drew out the best from the discussants with Jerry literally meeting up with the audience to speak to them personally about why palliative care means a personal visit to one in suffering and even offering to cook them a meal. Jerry was emphatic that medical care has degenerated to figures and machines where a person is simply diagnosed and told to take medicines with no empathy from doctors. Neena Verma who lost a young son at an age where he was just at the verge of launching himself professionally and had won a scholarship to study in a university abroad, said that healing does not come from the outside. The capacity to heal she says has to come from within, from deep within oneself.
There were other interesting conversations through the course of the day, one of which was about the Biates residing in Saipung, Jaintia Hills. Sadly the moderator took it for granted that everyone knew who the Biates are but everyone knows they are from the Hmar family. That I felt needed some explanation.
Looking forward to more interesting conversations in the next two days..
