SOURCE: ARUNACHAL TIMES

The two-day Northeast Literary Festival (NELF) 2022, organised by the information & public relations (IPR) department in collaboration with the Arunachal Pradesh Literary Society (APLS), began at the Dorjee Khandu Convention Centre here on Monday.

Themed ‘Building bridges through literature’, the festival is aimed at encouraging the budding poets and writers of the state to hone their skills in creative writing, besides giving them an opportunity to express themselves and meet leading poets and writers in person.

Prominent authors and poets from outside the state, including Anuradha Sarma Pujari (Assam), Dr Upen Rabha Hakacham (Assam), Munish Singh (Manipur) and Bipul Regon (Assam), besides a host of local writers are participating in the event.

Agriculture Minister Tage Taki inaugurated the festival, and exhorted the writers and poets to be “pathfinders and good social observers and work towards bringing meaningful change in the society through their writing.”

He also stressed on “the significance of literature in preserving culture and tradition of the society, besides inculcating human values among the people.”

Taki lauded the eminent authors of the state, including Padmashri and Sahitya Akademi awardee YD Thongchi and Padmashri awardee Mamang Dai, “for their immense contributions in literary works” and urged them to “guide and motivate the younger generations to upgrade their skill and work for promoting literature through creative writings.”

MLA Laisam Simai, who is also the adviser to the IPR & printing minister, said that the state government is “working on preservation and promotion of arts and literature for greater interest of the state on a serious note.”

“Our state, with diverse culture and traditions, provides huge scope for development of tribal literature,” he said, and urged young talents and budding writers to “break the barrier and work towards building a pan-Arunachal.”

Conveying Chief Minister Pema Khandu’s wishes to the organisers, Simai said that, under the new education policy, local dialects would be introduced in the school curriculum in a phased manner.

He also called upon the APLS to “play a vital role in preservation of local dialects, cultures and traditions at large.”

Anuradha Sarma Pujari, who is also a Sahitya Akademi awardee, said: “As the state is endowed with vast natural scenic beauty with varied cultures and traditions, there are abundant scopes for creative writings.”

She spoke about the strong bonding between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh through literature and music, and said that novels authored by late Lummer Dai and YD Thongchi in the Assamese language were published in magazines in Assam and became popular among the Assamese people.

She also presented some of the highlights of her book Mereng, a biographical novel on Indira Miri, the first education officer of the then NEFA, who took much pain in promoting education in the state.

Pujari requested the participating writers and poets to “work towards translating the new generation poems in Assamese, so that those could be made popular in Assam.”

Thongchi, who is also the APLS president, said that the literary festival “is being organised to realise the dream and determination of the writers to make the society more beautiful and the world more liveable.”

He said that, “barring the Khamti tribe, none of the tribes in the state has a script of their own on which literary works can be carried out.”

Thongchi further said that, although the state has rich oral literature, “the first effort towards written literature was started only after a decade later from independence of India when schools started opening in NEFA and the students started written literature under the guidance of the teachers.”

IPR Director Dasher Tashi and APLS general secretary Mukul Pathak also spoke.

The first day featured a session on the topic ‘Language and script’, chaired by Upen Rabha Hakacham with Banwang Losu, N Changmi and two others, with Sokhep Kri as panellist. The state’s dialects and scripts were discussed during the session. Another session on the same topic was chaired by Thongchi, with Lisa Lomdak, Gyati Rana, Kalingna Mannoi and Lardik Kare as panellists.

The short story reading session was moderated by Munish Singh and participated in Miranda Pertin, Subi Taba and Chatung Lowang. Thirteen poets participated in the poetry recitation session with moderator Anuradha Sarma Pujari.