The ‘Dancing Village’ is Easterine Kire’s fifth book for children. It deals with one of Nagaland’s well-known indigenous tribes, the Zeliangs and their Hornbill dance. Kire, who hails from the Angami tribe of Nagaland, says this book is her attempt to understand the traditional Hornbill celebration dance.
Written as a gift for the children of Nagaland, the book easily straddles borders as it features an adorable granny telling stories — an image most of us will be able to identify with ease — with the tale of the traditional dance form.
With a Ph D in English from Pune University, Kire has written several children’s books; for her, writing for a younger audience is a liberating experience. “Some of my books are set in outer space. It’s not science fiction, but it is so lovely to be able to say, ‘Once upon a time there was a planet’ – children accept it immediately. Moreover, they contribute to the story themselves.” The whole experience becomes so enriching for listener and storyteller.
Writing on Naga centric issues
Growing up in a state overshadowed by terrorism, instability, unrest, Kire’s writing repertoire naturally features Naga-centric themes like the Naga freedom struggle, the consequences of political oversight and military brutality on Naga life. Along with this is tribal folklore addressed from a surreal and other fact-based accounts couched in a fiction format.
‘A Naga Village Remembered’ is based on the story of the Battle of Khonoma, when a small warrior village fought the British colonial invasion between 1832 and 1880. Another novel, ‘Mari’ deals with interviews conducted by Kiri with survivors of World War II in Kohima village.
Besides being a novelist and a children’s story writer, the Norway-based writer is an acclaimed poet who translated 200 poems from her native tongue Tenyidie (spoken by the Angami tribe) to English, besides publishing a volume of poetry.
And as if this is not impressive enough, Kire is also a jazz poet who performs regularly in Europe with her band Jazzpoesi. “The beautiful and most important thing about this art form is the play element,” says Kire. Following the book launch of The Dancing Village, she performed jazz poetry at the Delhi Slam Poetry recently. “I play with language, words — both jagged words of the Norwegian and English languages — and how they can produce discordant, totally unmusical sounds, in the way a trumpet would sound in a tunnel,” says Kiri.
Rise of NE writers
By writing in both her native tongue and English, Kire has joined a growing community of writers from the Northeast like Dhruba Hazarika, Mitra Phukan (Assam); Robin S Ngangom (Manipur); Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih and Anjum Hasan (Meghalaya). Through the works of these writers, one gets to understand how people from the Northeast are grappling to establish an identity with the rest of the country. According to Kire, the fact that NE literature is increasingly showing up in college curriculums is a good sign.
Writing in English has helped Kire connect the Northeast with the rest of India. According to her, it is time to ‘own the language’, as writers like her don’t necessarily use English in the form that it was handed by the colonial rulers. “I think there is a perfect time for everything. Northeast is trending now and being taken seriously. In Europe, readers are interested in learning more about these states, ” says Kire. A beginning has been made.