Writing my first novel

My debut novel, Waiting for the Dust to Settle, was finally released virtually on the 6th of November 2020. At the launch I (non)seriously mentioned that the "wait" for the book's arrival was like a painful birth! It was such a relief because the wait was long. Many times, I wondered if it was "coming or never coming"! It took many years (yes, 'many years') "waiting" on the book to see the light of day! In the end, however, I must say it was all worth the wait... For the record, I'm thankful to Speaking Tiger Books for publishing it. I write this to share my experience, hoping that it would find resonance with many who are waiting for their big moment...

But first, let me say a few words about the book release. I would have loved a physical launch – sign copies for friends and interact, but it was not to be. Given the times we were living through it was unthinkable. Nevertheless, the online launch was altogether a new experience and rewarding too, in a different way. And thanks to technology, it was good to see that many outstation family and friends could join, which otherwise wouldn't have been quite possible. Above and beyond the impressive remarks from a few (publisher, literary agent and others), I think, the line "Bless my homeland forever" from the song "Edelweiss" (a soundtrack from the movie "Sound of Music") sung by my daughter Debbie captivated many that day. It was interesting how listeners chose that particular line (as it rhymed in the chat box) and added a sort of nationalistic/sub-nationalistic flavour, in tune with an important theme from the book.

The rugged road to being noticed

Let me start by saying the book was not a "lockdown project". Many people assumed it was because it appeared during the pandemic. On the contrary, the pandemic even delayed its arrival by at least half a year! What many don’t know is that publishing in India is not easy. Harder still if you’re a debutant. Only writers or aspiring writers would understand this. Obviously, publishers wouldn't want to take a chance on you, after all, it's business for them! What is the guarantee that it will sell well? Besides other risks, the stake is quite high for publishers. I bet I would also be playing the same role, if I were in their shoes.

Of course, there is the option of self-publishing. And many are taking that route. The sprouting of self-publishing services tell a lot about this growing business. With a growing population of English speakers, the country offers a lot of people who think they can be good writers. I can imagine publishing houses piled up with unread manuscripts and their mail boxes spammed with proposals! And in most cases, there will be just silence, not even a courteous ‘no’. The wait can be deadening... I’ve been there!

One thing is for sure – it takes a lot of patience. And along the way, it is important to have people who believe in you! I was fortunate to have a few who constantly offered encouragement, otherwise, I would have given up midway. Believe it or not, I wrote the skeletal of the novel one summer vacation about seven years back (yes, seven!), and kept adding flesh to it for the next few years. Then I thought it was ready to be launched to life. So I started my “novel journey” by sending to publishing houses. But after half a dozen of rejections, I thought it would never make it. In fact, I kept it buried for a couple of years! However, a few persistent ones forced me to resurrect it. I owe a lot to them!

So, there it is – I finally got published! For me, in the end, getting published by a reputed name means that you are guaranteed of a strong media/publicity team. Unexpected or pleasantly surprising reviews from different corners tell me of the wide reach and influence of the team. Honestly, I’m honoured to be reviewed, even though some were not quite of a good taste in its entirety! Nevertheless, I take it as a learning experience and something I could keep in mind for my next novel, if ever I happen to stumble upon an idea! All in all, the reviews have been enriching, offering fresh insights to the novel. 

Who are my readers?

One of the most interesting reception of my novel was the children’s readership. When I started writing, I must admit that I didn’t quite have children as my readers in mind. On the contrary, I was writing on some serious themes which would suit the serious mind, or so I thought. Did the kids pick it up because it started with a ten year old Rakovei? Or were they appealed by the conflict situation mentioned in the blurb? It was my ten year old daughter who was one of the first to read it at home! Then I began to hear from various families too that the kids were the ones to read it ahead of the adults at home. I wondered how they were able to process all those stories of pain and anguish which, of course, were narrated alongside the beauty and innocence of country life.

In this experience, I also began to understand that often it is the adults who often define what should be children’s story and which shouldn’t be. I’ve taught theories of children’s literature to students of literature, but until this time I didn’t realise (in practice) that the child is often not consulted what her taste is or what would be suitable to her. Of course, I’m not saying that adults aren’t capable of making sensible choices for children. But children’s mind can process much more complicated stuffs than we think. They’re certainly much more imaginative and their young minds can certainly process subjects that might be challenging to the adult minds!

But this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have an audience in mind. What I stressed on was that there could be surprising reception, even from unthought of locations. In fact, I’m happy to hear feedbacks from various corners on some important issues that I had hoped to raise through the novel. And the reviews testify to this.

Why I write

Everyone has stories to tell. And I also wanted to play my own part – telling stories of what I’ve heard, seen and felt. And stories that I didn’t want to be silenced or vanish into the past. Some are beautiful and of unforgettable experiences; some are heart wrenching and violent. Nevertheless they all form a part of history that I thought shouldn’t be forgotten. I wanted to tell of growing up in a small town whose innocence has dissolved by the fast paced changes of modern life. And of the travellers’ road strewn with due drops on the blades of tall grasses in the woods as people walk to their villages. My stories are of the recent past, just few decades old, but with the winds of change blowing as fierce as hurricane, they are slowly disappearing without a trace. Worse still, they are being forgotten. I tried to tell a bit of this in my piece in The Hindu.

Let me end with a thought on the title. Most readers would be able to read into the word “waiting” and connect the many stories in the novel. The wait for a solution to the protracted Indo-Naga conflict comes as a major point, but there are several others that awaits peace – people as well as the land. My only prayer is that it will not be an endless wait. And to those who hear, I hope it helps you see things at a micro level.

Of Love and Loss – A review of A Respectable Woman

Author: Easterine Kire

Publisher: Zubaan

Year/pages: 2019/184

The opening line of the new novel by Easterine Kire, A Respectable Woman, resonates with the popular passage of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 where the wise king Solomon articulates that there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven. In verse 7 of the passage we read of “a time to be silent and a time to speak.”The narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kevinuo, says, “It took my mother, Khunuo, exactly forty-five years before she could bring herself to talk about the war.” The statement indicates a period of silence on the subject. And interestingly, silence is not about forgetting but a process of letting matter, the trauma or tragedy in this case, sink in until one can be strong again to talk about it. Most cultures, in a sense, share this truth.

A Respectable Woman (ARW henceforth) is woven around the story of a mother telling her experiences of growing up at a defining moment of Kohima and people who lived through the Second World War. Divided into three parts, the novel chronicles the memories of the mother and traces the family relations in Part One. Part Two begins with the birth of the protagonist-narrator and her growing up “to witness different happenings, some of them good, some much worse…” Part Three is largely a continuation of the narratives from the previous one but focused on personal battles the protagonist had to confront mainly with the tragic death of her closest friend, Beinuo, due to abuse by her husband and taking custody of the orphaned girl. While the plot of the novel is centred on the stories of Kevi and her mother, it is interwoven with the memories of the grandmother and other elders of the community about certain aspects of the past, and in this case the times around the war.

Memory of the period is important because it was a time of tremendous changes, not just for people living in and around Kohima, the centre of the action, but also for the Nagas as a whole as there was a paradigm shift in the political and social dynamics. So significant is the war in the novel that there is repeated use of the phrase “before the war” to demarcate a historical timeline. Just like different seasons mark the timeline of the year, “the war” became an important historical reference point for the Nagas. Though the war was not of their making, the Nagas were caught in the war and were forced into bear the brunt of it. In the recent times there has been few works by Nagas narrating their accounts of the war. Notable ones include The Battle of Kohima (2007) by Mekhrie Khate, Aphriilie Iralu, et al. (Eds.), The Road to Kohima: The Naga Experience of the 2nd World War (2017) by Charles Chasie and Harry Fecitt, and Easterine Kire’s bestselling semi-fictional novel titled Mari (2010). These narratives help us assess the impact of the war on the Nagas. The brutality of the battle of Kohima led the military historian Robert Lyman to remark that the war fought in the Naga Hills was “[t]he most desperate and bloody struggle in the entire war in the south Asian land mass” (Japan’s Last Bid for Victory: The Invasion of India 1944 (2011), p. 215). The centrality of the war is also depicted in the novel wherein Amo, the narrator’s maternal uncle, became a war hero after he survived the Japanese bullets, but couldn’t live long for the same reason.

ARW holds an important place in this regard as it documents a lot of what has been side-lined in the current discourses of the Nagas. In an interesting way, the book even becomes a historical source of Kohima’s past because it mentions of when and who set up the first book shop, the first pharmacy, and the famed Kohima Bakery, among others. Also, by mentioning many of the first among Nagas in various fields, Easterine Kire makes a conscious attempt to credit those who contributed to the building of the society, especially in the formative period. As one reads the novel, one gets a feeling that Kohima becomes a character in the novel with all its liveliness, be it bearing the brunt of the war destructions or the makeover it got after it or the restructuring of the township in the 50s and 60s. Certainly, there is a sense nostalgia in the author’s tone as she recounts a lot of what was a part of her growing up years in Kohima. Written in the first person narrative, the autobiographical mode of writing gives a perfect blend of facts and fiction. Though Kevi may not be Easterine in to-to, the reader can nevertheless draw the semblance in various aspects. But in the fine hand of the master-artiste-novelist, the line is nevertheless drawn clearly.

There are also other issues of the society that the author tries to address through the novel. Alcoholism, which had become a byword of the largely frustrated young Nagas, remains an issue which both the church and the state have not contained till today. While critiquing the state for treating alcoholism as a mere crime of the few misfits, the novel also unveils the fact that there is a huge contribution of the “political environment” and the harsh governmental actions on the public which contributed to the social problem. Added to the whole challenging situation is the lackadaisical approach of the church as well as the society. What should bother the reader is the silence of larger society in the issue of alcoholism and its related issue of domestic violence. The twin belong to some of those devils that the Nagas still count ignorable but has eaten into the marrows of the society. The narrator’s shock at learning about his best friend’s marital woes at a much later stage is something to be grasped.

ARW is a book that gives a critical insight into some of the challenges confronting the Naga society today. And in the hand of a commendable writer and ‘insider’ like Easterine Kire the stories she construct powerfully captivates the readers with her own style of narration which is deeply rooted to the storytelling tradition of the Nagas. Even in this novel, her effort to reconstruct the memory of the past is in true spirit of the Naga oral culture wherein there is a conscious passing down of stories of the people to the younger generation. Though the mother finds telling some of her life stories hurting at times she felt the importance of telling about the family because those are the legacies that should be passed on. Every generation’s experience is unique and telling them can be a learning experience for the next generation. As a foremost writer among Nagas there are so much that the younger generation of storytellers can find inspiration in Easterine Kire. Besides the national and international recognitions, the award just endowed on her, The Gordon Graham Prize for Naga Literature, is truly a recognition of her contribution to literary wealth of the Nagas.

Published in Morung Express on 9th April, 2019

http://morungexpress.com/of-love-and-loss-a-review-of-a-respectable-woman/ 

Book Review: People and Articulations in Naga Literatures

February 2, 2016, Morung Express

Manjeet Baruah

Literary Cultures of India’s Northeast: Naga Writings in English by K.B. Veio Pou
Publisher: Heritage Publishing House
Pages: 213, Price: Rs. 300/-

K.B. Veio Pou’s book Literary Cultures of India’s Northeast: Naga Writings in English is an important contribution to the study of literature and culture of Northeast India. It is important because it is an extensive study of Naga literatures, especially since the twentieth century. It is also important because it provides a nuanced view of literatures in English that have emerged from the region during the period. Divided into five chapters, the book covers themes which are as historical and political as they are literary and cultural. Therefore, it makes the study not only one on literature, but also a socio-cultural history of the Nagas, possibly one of the few in this field.

Issues such as modernisation, religion and orality; political experiences and shaping of ideological apparatuses; genres of texts; memory and social experience; and notions or practices of political geography, these issues have figured in different ways in some of the other works on the Nagas too. Then what makes the present book distinct? A reading of Literary Cultures of India’s Northeast highlights a difference which entering such issues through the vantage point of literature can make. For example, the book shows how literary works construct characters. The characters are drawn from the social world, and their experiences and perspectives, as provided with, are important in the making of the narratives. The characters may be of the urban world, or they may be rural. They may be male or female, and could be of different ages. They could speak or imagine in different forms, whether in oral genres or in the written ones. They could be part of events which occur in different locations such as market places, domestic confines, roads, camps, churches, graveyards and many more.

In other words, what is shown in the book is how literature allow us to see the people, the common people, and acquire a sense of how they view their own locations in history and politics. Therefore, what we see is how people being historical and political beings is also closely connected to they being human beings. And it is this relation which the characters and the narratives illustrate. Perhaps, it is this visibility of the common people and their lived worlds which often remain in the shadows of discourses. Therefore, Veio Pou’s book is importantly positioned, wherein the common people become humanly tangible, and it is the tangibility of human life which gives concreteness to discourses or their understanding in research work.

However, one may argue that literatures being fictional narratives, are the characters too only imagined realities? Perhaps not. One can support Veio Pou’s contention through other illustrations as well. For example, when one goes through the tour diaries, reports and brief life narratives of the 1950s from the erstwhile Tuensang Frontier Division, one gets to see how agrarian and guerrilla existences, landscape, objects, building roads, rituals and customs, and firearms were inextricably connected in the lives of the people. There were instances when land was exchanged for rifles and problems that could arise thereof. There were instances when disputes over ownership of agrarian resources were connected to the vicissitudes between agrarian and guerrilla existences. From growing rice to finding wireless sets in the rice fields were part of people’s experiences. There were instances when the focus was not Zapu Phizo per se, but his Tommy gun, and how it changed hands through several people until one day it was found in a field in the village outskirts.

To borrow an insight from Veio Pou’s book, perhaps one can say that what these archival narratives highlighted was the world of those Nagas who were common but tangible people. They were concrete in the materiality and thoughts of their lives. And as his book shows, people in this sense of reality abound as different characters in Naga literatures too. The people who figured in the archival texts were engaged in living their socio-economic lives and also had their political convictions for the Naga movement. After all, they entered the archival narratives because the state encountered them, at times accidentally, while looking for camps and leaders, and did not appreciate their political convictions. Similarly, many important Naga literary works bring out the inextricable totality of the human and political existence, or the historicity of life that comprises both the everyday and the political of the landscape.

Thus, characters from the archives and literatures appear to express a common point. Veio Pou’s book has numerous discussions on how culture, politics and history are contained in the very materiality of people’s existence and thoughts. We get to hear them, see them, and find how the vividness of their past and present can come alive if only we make that little effort. Naga literature abounds representing and manifesting such reality. Genres, languages, or styles in literature are also part of such conditions of reality. The nature or choice of genres and styles cannot be isolated from how they articulate such reality, and also seek to shape the making of reality. As the book shows, folk and written, human and political, state and organisations, body and gender, peoples and nation, these dimensions converge in Naga literary narratives, transforming literature into rich and complex narratives of a national life.

Veio Pou’s book, through exploration of these dimensions, is not only a work of literary studies but also one of socio-cultural history. And it stands as an important contribution towards a nuanced understanding of people, landscape and articulations from this part of the world.

Manjeet Baruah teaches in North East India Studies Programme,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

http://morungexpress.com/book-review-people-and-articulations-in-naga-literatures/

Easterine Kire’s The Log-Drummer Boy and Children’s Literature (From a Naga Perspective)

I was much delighted to see the publication of Easterine Kire’s The Log-Drummer Boy. Not just because it was written by a foremost Naga writer writing in English and somebody I really admire, but also because I had always wished for the day when I’d see children's books based on our own culture and tradition. The book has a simple narrative structure, but captivating enough to interest adult readers too! (Somehow, and strange enough, it is often the adult readers who are engrossed with the so-called “children’s books” and rushes to watch “children’s movies”! Perhaps, it is the child’s fantasy in all of us that refuses to die with age.) The book opened to introduce us to two young children who begged their grandmother-storyteller to tell them “another” story. Relenting to them, the story she went to tell was about a young boy named Nokcha, who lived with his grandparents, and had a fascination for the log drums. His grandfather, one of the log-drummers in the village, instantly recognized the latent talent in the boy. And so, the young boy of seven was enthralled one day when his grandfather decided to make him a small log drum. Since then he would practice beating the drum into different rhythm. In olden times, the log drum was an important item for the people as it could be used to announce war or announce a big festival. People could recognize the rhythm of the beat and accordingly be alerted. One day, during the time of harvest, Nokcha could not accompany his grandparents to the field because he had sprained his ankle. It so happened that on that day the enemy warriors were waiting to lay siege on the village. Those were the days of warring against each other. Alarmed at the impending threat and prompted by his caretaker-of-the-day, an old woman, the boy ran to where spot where the log drum was kept and “beat out a warning beat very rapidly, his little hands moving fast as he could manage”. The sudden sound of the log drum surprised even the enemy for they thought there was no one in the village. It sounded like almost a dozen of men beating the drums. The alerted villagers ran back to the village and enemy ran off, some of whom even fell into the hand of the villagers. That day the boy saved the village from being attacked. And the entire village praised him and made him an honorary drummer.

Books, whether they are part of the school curriculum or not, certainly shape a child’s outlook. Therefore, there is an increasing need to introduce children to books that will be constructive and not just supply them with whatever is available. In our context today, the influence that comes from those that children read apart from the school curriculum is huge. What we read in our leisure time can shape our thinking to a large extend. But what is given to us in school form the basis of knowledge. One cannot deny that the impact that institutionally transmitted knowledge has in our attitudes to everything around us. It comes almost naturally to any child to accept the formally taught materials in the school as complete knowledge. As fertile as a child’s mind is, anything sown in it can grow well.
Somehow, we all imitate or live out what we have seen or read when we were young. For instance, consider the kinds of books we read during childhood. I’m sure it is a shared experience for children growing up in the eighties and nineties of the last century when for most part of our early schools years the kind of stories that interested us were limited to the few comic books available to us; Western ones like Superman, He-man, Phantom, Batman, Tintin, Commando War comics, etc. and Indian ones like Tinkle Digest and other Amar Chitra Katha series on Indian myths/epics, Chacha Chaudhary and other picture stories and comics. Later on, one would slowly graduate to the Archie’s comics and the various photo romance magazines. Strangely, during those days, I don’t remember having read any story or comic strips based on our folktales. [One may, of course, say that Tinkle comics incorporated some folktales from the Northeast and other tribal communities from various parts of the country, but if I’m not wrong it came to be seen in the much later editions.] Thus, being exposed to materials with no connections to my culture, for a long time I considered my cultural items ‘unimportant’ and even being ‘ashamed’ of being identified with them. And by being ‘western’ in my style and outlook, I mistook it for being ‘modern’. I’m sure many of you had that experience. It took years for me to ‘unlearn’ many of what I’ve learned through ‘institutions’ and redeem a sense of dignity in my own culture.

The Log-Drummer Boy came at a much needed time. The young Nagas are living in a time when there is a sense of cultural loss because we’ve only being taught with materials that are foreign to us for all these time. And yet, in a way, the younger generation cannot really be blamed for possessing too little knowledge of culture and tradition. The educational materials that we have been exposed to through out our school life have no links with their own history and culture. Thus, by being not included in the educational curriculum, a message gets passed on that sources from the oral tradition do not fit as materials to be learned or taught. This attitude can be traced to the early years of Christianization, the missionary run schools/institutes being the main source of modern/western education. Though it may have seemed inevitable then, for various reasons though debatable, we’ve reached a stage now where there is potential in creating an indigenous knowledge database. We can start by incorporating children’s book like The Log-Drummer Boy into our school curriculum and encourage production/writing of books like that. (Of course, I understand that there is incorporation of writings by various Naga writers at different levels in the school syllabus, that is laudable). In the case of the book under discussion, the cultural content of the book can help children appreciate our tradition, and in a good way preserve various cultural markers of the society. Undeniably, Nagas have too long depreciated our own culture by thinking that there is hardly any value. But that is not true. There are lots of things that we need to know of our culture, not just to uplift our cultural identity but also because they were part of what made us a people till today.

Often we consider our old storytelling tradition as a kind of time pass activity, merely to listen and enjoy. But it does much more than that. The stories are narrated and songs sung with certain coded message to teach life’s lessons or tell us about people’s history and culture. For instance, in The Log-Drummer Boy, we were informed that in the olden days “the log drum” is considered to be “a spirit and that it protects the village. That is why we respect it and give it honour.” Besides, the grandmother, while telling the story, went on to explain the important functions of the log drum those days and the different motifs labelled on it, representing different symbols and meanings. Being from an oral tradition, the songs and stories are repositories of our rich cultural heritage. And the storytellers hold big responsibilities of passing down information accurately and the wisdom of the forefathers kept when they tell stories. Yet, sad but true, for most Nagas it is only at the research level where we become conscious of the disconnect with our culture. And then we begin to find topics of study to recover, or make an effort to reclaim, the loss. But by the time we move into the field to gather materials, we’re faced with the unfortunate predicament of the scarcity of what we’re looking for. One of the most regrettable losses, I think, is the almost complete disappearance of our culture specific songs and stories.

The inclusion of The Log-Drummer Boy and other similar books into the school syllabus will not only help younger generation of Nagas appreciate our culture but also restore a sense of dignity in who we are. On a personal note, I was very much encouraged to find that the book was published in collaboration with Fernwood School. Though I don’t know the school personally, it is heart warming to see that at least schools (hoping that there are more schools) are taking interest in promoting books like that. I’m sure such an effort by schools will go a long way in imparting cultural values to the budding minds. And of course, there’s the wonderful illustration by Canato Jimo (My daughter loves the cute illustrations!) I hope we’ll see more of it! Easterine Kire is one of the most prolific writers among Nagas writing in English. She is the acclaimed writer of A Terrible Matriarchy (Zubaan 2007, second edition 2013), which was also among the selected books by the government of India to be translated into the six UNESCO languages in 2011. Her novel Mari (Harper Collins 2010) has also been translated into German, her novel Bitter Wormwood (Zubaan 2011) was shortlisted for the Hindu Lit Prize 2013, and her latest novel When The River Sleeps (Zubaan 2014) traces its source to the rich oral tradition of the Nagas. Through her writings a lot more of the Naga story is heard by others from many parts of the world. The Catalan prize for free voice which she won last year (2013) is a commendation of how her work is speaking for a people whose stories have long being subdued. Her initiative for a publishing house, Barkweaver, along with a couple of others is aimed at promoting our stories and songs. And in the recent years Barkweaver has published many people centric story book including Naga Folktales Retold, Forest Song, Life on Hold, Different Strokes (again another book that can be of great help for schools with study guides for teachers and parents), two children’s books, Once in Faraway Dorg and Dinkypu and her latest book of poems My Book of Angels (all authored by Easterine Kire).

Book Details:
The Log Drummer Boy 
Author: Easterine Kire
Illustrator: Canato Jimo
Publisher: Barkweaver
Year of Publication: 2013
Pages: 40
(The book can be ordered online at www.ilandlo.com)

(This review is a slightly improved version of the one that first appeared in Eastern Mirror, 4 April, 2014)