These Hills Called Home

Temsula Ao. Poet, short story writer and ethnographer. Nagaland, India

Yet another beautiful collection of stories from Temsula Ao. Mind-opening too. We see what we choose to see. How much more effective these stories are in sensitizing us to what is going on in Nagaland, than newspaper/TV reports full of statistics.

Available on http://www.flipkart.com/, for delivery within India. I had written about her earlier, here.

"More than half a century of bloodshed has marked the history of the Naga people who live in the troubled northeastern region of India. Their struggle for an independent Nagaland and their continuing search for identity provides the backdrop for the stories that make up this unusual collection.

Describing how ordinary people cope with violence, how they negotiate power and force, how they seek and find safe spaces and enjoyment in the midst of terror, the author details a way of life under threat from the forces of modernization and war. No one—the young, the old, the ordinary housewife, the willing partner, the militant who takes to the gun, and the young woman who sings even as she is being raped—is untouched by the violence.

Theirs are the stories that form the subtext of the struggles that lie at the internal faultlines of the Indian nation-state. These are stories that speak movingly of home, country, nation, nationality, identity, and direct the reader to the urgency of the issues that lie at their heart."

Mari

Read my second book based in Nagaland - 'Mari', by Easterine Kire (Iralu). A simple story, beautifully told. Easy flowing narration - and very visual.

Summary

Kohima, 1944. The Japanese invade India, life changes overnight, and seventeen-year-old MariO’Leary and her sisters are evacuated from their home and separated from the rest of their family. Even as she pines for her fiancé Vic, a soldier in the British army, Mari and her sisters are forced to run from village to village, camping in fields, eating herbs for food, seeking shelter or a trustworthy friend, until the madness has passed.

A sensitive recounting of the true story of a young girl during World War II, Mari brings alive a simpler time in a forgotten place that was ravaged by war before it was noticed by the rest of the world.

About the Author

Easterine Kire (Iralu) has written several books in English including three collections of poetry and short stories. Her first novel, A Naga Village Remembered, was the first-ever Naga novel to be published. Easterine has translated 200 oral poems from her native language Tenyidie into English. Her forthcoming books include Forest Song; a volume of Spirit Stories; and Bitter Wormwood, a novel on the Indo- Naga conflict. She is founder and partner in a publishing house, Barkweaver, which gathers and publishes Naga folktales.

You can buy it here, they deliver within India: http://www.flipkart.com/mari-easterine-kire-book-9350290187 I picked up the book at the Odyssey bookshop.

Read about Easterine Kire and her story, in her own words: http://www.icorn.org/articles.php?var=8

Temsula Ao

Thanks to a friend who gifted me this book - 'Laburnum for my head' - I got to read my first collection of short stories from a writer from Nagaland.

Though we see so many people from the North-Eastern states in most of our metros, I am always troubled, and ashamed, by the fact that most of us don't know enough about these fellow Indians, their rich cultures, the causes of the strife that continues there. We rarely go out of our way to discover a people or their stories.

I believe that the first step to understanding and caring for a community is listening to their stories.

Read Temsula Ao, who beats so many renowned Indian writers we know of - I am appalled that I had never heard of her before. Superlative writing, and a range that is impressive.

Laburnum for my head, a Penguin publication, by Temsula Ao (awarded the Padma Shree in 2007)
Penguin Review: http://www.penguinbooksindia.com/category/Fiction/Laburnum_for_My_Head_9780143066200.aspx

Buy it: You can buy it for just Rs.123 from Flipkart if you are in India - http://www.flipkart.com/laburnum-my-head-temsula-ao-book-014306620x

Temsula Ao
Temsula Ao is a professor at the Department of English, and the Dean of School of Humanities and Education, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. She is the author of eight books, including five books of poetry and a collection of short stories, These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone, published by Zubaan-Penguin (2006).

A member of the General Council of the Sahitya Akademi, she was awarded the Padma Shree in 2007.

A nice article by her on her grandmother who lived up to 106 - http://www.harmonyindia.org/hportal/VirtualPrintView.jsp?page_id=4862

Going to take betel nut

“The basic concept of [the Khasi] religion rests mainly on the three doctrines: ban Tip Briew Tip Blei, ban Tip Kur Tip Kha and ban Kamai ia ka Hok: to know Man, to know God, to know the maternal and paternal relations and to earn righteousness.

...It follows from this, therefore, that Man lives in the world to earn righteousness and having so earned it, he then returns to his Maker when he dies. The Khasis call this return "leit bam kwai sha iing U Blei" - going to take betel nut in the House of God."

‘Around the Hearth - Khasi Legends’ , by Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih
Penguin Books. Folktales of India series