By Dominick Dauni Roising Rymbai
Mahatma Gandhi once said, “I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any”.
Insofar as the use of the words renew and revive, revival sounds better. Its like re-igniting a fire from the dying sparks of charcoal/deadwood. The fire is from around the hearth (sawdong ka lyngwiar dpei). And “Lit” is Gen Z language for something exciting, cool and fun.
It’s been over 10 days since the 3-day Shillong Literary Festival 2025 ended. A lot of water has flowed from the Ward’s Lake into the Botanical Garden and reached the Bay of Bengal. The hangover of the LitFest still lingers and there is no cure for such a hangover. Much has been written and discussed about the Festival in the Op-Ed pages of The Shillong Times and on social media platforms but here’s my own take on it.
To be human and humane is to have a living body, a thinking mind and an empathetic soul. For the body, we have the Meghalaya Games. And the various investment in sports infrastructure around Meghalaya (not just in Shillong city) by the Conrad Sangma-led government. What about the mind and the soul? Is anyone seriously thinking about this ?
Something to activate the demographic dividend?
Why can’t we have a year-long calendar of events, culminating in the Shillong Literary Festival. The primary target audience will be our Gen Alpha and Gen Z. We do need to consider the millennials and the baby boomers too. Competitions like inter-school and inter-college quiz, debates, essay competition and story writing, maths olympiads, coding and, science exhibitions can be held as part of campus pre-events. Going beyond Shillong, Tura and Jowai and, assisting in the spread of tourism and developmental activities, the events can be held cluster-wise at different villages. Examples can be Tuber, Mynso, Shangpung, Nartiang, Nangbah-Wahiajer, Bataw, Jalaphet, Padu and Nongtalang in the Jaintia Hills; Mannad, Umdohlun, Rangblang, Nonglang, Nongkhlaw, Mawthengkut in the composite West Khasi Hills; Umden-Diwon, Bhoirymbong, Mawhati and Patharkhmah in Ri Bhoi; and, Lawbah, Pynursla, Nongkrem-Smit, Mawmaram, Jongksha in East Khasi Hills. Likewise, places like Adokgre, Kharkutta, Rongram, Selsella, Darenggre, Phulbari, Zikzak, Baghmara, Chokpot, Siju, Songsak and Dambo-Rongjeng may be considered in the Garo Hills.
Of the dates, it will do a lot of good, if the Government of Meghalaya (as the primary sponsor) ensures the organisers/curators fix the Festival’s dates after the year-end examinations of schools and colleges. The Education Department can help with this .
Mathematics and Science: Besides Literature, the Liberal Humanities and, the Fine & Performing Arts, we cannot be dismissive of Maths and Science. Mathematics has applicability across the Sciences. On the December 18 and hopefully other days too, we should take heed of what our Poet Laureate Soso Tham wrote to his son Primrose G. Gatphoh; when the latter disliked Mathematics and was stationed in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), forced to help fight the white man’s Great War of 1914-1918. “Love it (Mathematics) henceforth. For unless you are strong in Mathematics, your mind will be weak, you will never be able to bear the strain of doing hard work requiring hard thinking. But if you have loved Mathematics, a very dry subject, you will be strong to do much very dry work which is always the work of men in high position of life.” Also, he added, “If you want to be strong, you must have plenty of rough exercises. Don’t you know if you would be mentally strong, you require hard mental exercise? Mathematics therefore, is the subject that will help you in future years in hard and dry thinking and solving most difficult problems in your life and work. Remember that as we grow older, problems of life and work become more difficult. He therefore who is mentally strong will best be able to solve them with the greatest ease.”
As far as Science and Technology is concerned it can help mitigate our various challenges, particularly those affecting our beautiful God-gifted landscape. We should be encouraging some of our best and curious minds – those with an aptitude for Science to work extra hard. Then study at the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT (formerly Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, Jharkhand.
Language and History: For nearly 200 years, our stories and our lives have been dictated to and the narrative written by outsiders. And some of the indigenous insiders who have done so have nearly always had their own self-interests. The common people are totally out of the picture. While it’s good to be selfish and smart its equally bad to be selfless and stupid!
There are two Day-3 discussions that have ignited our short attention span. In the first hour, it was Our Hills, Our Histories featuring the academic and cultural heritage aficionado in Dr. Madeline Tham and, the young economist and budding historian Daniel Challam, in conversation with the distinguished History Professor, Dr. David Reid Syiemlieh. In the afternoon, it was Whose History Is It Anyway?, featuring a Lotha Naga poet-politician – Mmhonlumo Kikon and Prof. Sanjeeb Kakoty, moderated by Dr. Glenn Kharkongor a medico-academician. Both discussions say a lot about ourselves; we, the minority population but large- hearted indigenous people of India’s North East.
The living documented Constitution of the Republic of India, with its Sixth Schedule and Article 371, gives ample room for us to live with rights, duties, the pursuit of happiness and, safety and security, in our united but diverse nation-state. On Day-2 the discussion on the 2-volume books, From Isolation to Integration: Navigating the Geopolitics of India’s North East (1990-2023), author Patricia Mukhim rightly said that the indigenous people themselves need to be consistently pro-active, in their demand to include Khasi and Garo in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. It was heartening to hear the spoken words of Prof. Ailynti Nongbri on the work being done by the Khasi Authors’ Society in standardisation of spellings in the Khasi Alphabet.
Us and the world
We should be proud of our own languages and mother tongues and need to speak, read and write them. It all starts from the family. For our literature, we need good translators/interpreters from Khasi and Garo to our official languages – English and Hindi, and ultimately onwards to the world-wide web of Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), French, Russian and Spanish.
Through translators, we should be hearing more from the Garo Hills, the composite West Khasi Hills, Ri Bhoi and the Jaintia Hills. For example, a discussion on the book History of Garo Literature by Prof. Milton S. Sangma, is a good starting point. An enactment of a drama-comedy Bamphalar act, a popular Jaintia theatrical tradition as the curtains-downer of a particular day would be educative. Geographically, the Khasi-Jaintia-Garo Hills (Shillong plateau) are considered to be an eastern extension of the Chotanagpur plateau of Eastern India as well as the south-eastern foothills of the Himalayas. We need to hear more from other parts of India’s North East, with whom we already have close natural affinity. From the mainland, how about bringing indigenous tribal literature from other parts of India? The Hynniewtrep Niaw-Wasa people have common cultural and genetic threads with the Munda people of Eastern India. Bringing the well-known Tata Samvaad festival held annually at Jamshedpur to Shillong would be a good beginning.
Technologically, it is a well-connected world today. We need to take ourselves to the world. And bring the world to us too. With the Cherry Blossom trees (Japan) and the K-pop sub-culture (South Korea) connections, perhaps, we can always dream of Hariko Murakami and Han Kang in our midst at the next Shillong Literary Festival. We can also add the intrepid Arundhati Roy and the inimitable Shashi Tharoor on the list of speakers, even if it is done through online-based communication apps.
Disclaimer: Views expressed are strictly personal. Email: [email protected]
