What were your early experiences with Adi oral storytelling traditions while growing up in Pasighat in the East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh? What kind of books and oral storytelling resources were accessible to you?

Our time in Pasighat was during the school winter break, and this too was not always in Pasighat in the home of my maternal grandparents, but wherever my father was posted at the time. My brothers and I were in boarding school in Shillong, and our holidays were spent in different parts of the State like Along, Seppa, Hayuliang, Tawang, and Bomdila.

I think this was a blessing because from an early age we got to know the different communities of the State at a time when travel was restricted by poor communication and people didn’t know much about the different tribes and their districts. As children we were surrounded by books and stories. Pasighat was our hometown with all our family, relatives, and cousins, and we heard all sorts of stories and songs when we were young. 

Also, during holidays in the other remote postings, I read whatever books I could find in my father’s collection—Hemingway, Tolstoy, and Pearl S. Buck, without understanding anything much. In Tawang, the district library was being renovated or shifted, and the entire library was temporarily moved into the official quarters of my father, so there it was—cupboards of books that I could lay my hands on (of course, it was a small collection) and I don’t recall any single book having a great impact. We read for fun, and it was just quite thrilling to be surrounded by books and books.

Any particular literary influences that inspired you to start writing poetry and prose at a young age? How important were the oral tribal narratives in shaping you as a writer?

To be honest, I wanted to write stuff like every book I read (not counting prescribed school books)—starting with Enid Blyton and Kenneth Grahame, then westerns, crime, romance. Then I read W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot. The influence of our own oral tribal narratives came much later. I knew the stories from childhood but it was much later that I rediscovered them and began to understand them in a deeper, more meaningful way. And this discovery is still going on. 

You have described your childhood bond with Arunachal’s rivers and landscapes in your poetry and prose works. How has this infused the ecological and spiritual themes in your works like River Poems (2004)? 

River Poems started as a collection for Arunachal, titled Arunachal Poems. Most of the poems were written when I was travelling in other parts of the world, as remembrance of the Arunachal landscape. I didn’t realise then that land could have such an aura, that it could colour all [of] one’s memories and imagination.

About the ecological and spiritual themes in my poems, I must say that writing about spirituality or ecology was never on my mind. It was always about love. I am interested in these things, but it is not true to say that we are always writing with a close bond to a childhood landscape of rivers and mountains. In fact, we are writing about these things now because we were, at one time, most un-traditional in our aspirations and wanted to break bonds and be something or somewhere else. In the process other bonds develop. We begin to see things in different ways. It is a process of learning and unlearning. Now I look at the land with wonder and awe.

Mamang Dai said in The Black Hill there are many stories combined with the true story of the French Jesuit priest who was killed more than two hundred years ago in a remote part of the country’s north-east frontier that is now Arunachal Pradesh. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

You were Arunachal’s first woman IAS officer (from which you later resigned) and also worked as a journalist for The Telegraph and for WWF as a programme officer. How did these diverse roles and experiences influence your fiction and non-fictional works, such as Arunachal Pradesh: The Hidden Land?

The IAS period was such a long time ago! But truly, all were good experiences, and I feel fortunate that I worked as a journalist and was part of the WWF Eastern Himalaya biodiversity hotspots programme in Arunachal. Everything taught me much—by way of research, information and data collection for fictional work and for the non-fiction. 

What challenges did you face as a north-east woman balancing writing, family, and public service? In your view, and based on your experiences and conversations, what are some broader hurdles that women writers from the region still encounter?

If you have family support, it is a great privilege indeed. I had this, with enough space, time and solitude to write, or not. If it were not like this, I think it would be quite tough for working women who have to balance family life—children, schooling (homework and all)—with writing and public life. But if you want to write, you will always find the time to write. In Arunachal there is also the hurdle of communication and language. There is a new generation of writers writing in English and Hindi, but there are some who are fluent only in their mother tongue. And since most Arunachal languages are non-script, it is a long wait for translation and publication.  

Your literary works explore diverse themes, including tribal identity, myths, tradition versus modernity, and cultural erosion from development. What draws you to these intersecting themes?

Quite frankly, I don’t know why a particular theme draws me. Everything is happening before our eyes and we are witnesses trying to give expression to what draws our attention or evokes emotion.

In The Black Hill (2014), for which you were awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, you weave Adi oral lore with history, love, and colonialism. What role should literature play in preserving Arunachal’s fading folklore amid migration and modernisation? You have also critiqued tribal patriarchy and mainland racial biases towards the north-east people in your books like The Legends of Pensam and The Black Hill. How have north-east’s writers over the years resisted it through their narratives?

In The Black Hill there are many stories combined with the true story of the French Jesuit priest who was killed more than two hundred years ago in a remote part of the country’s north-east frontier that is now Arunachal Pradesh. The fallout of this incident was a British punitive expedition just like other such expeditions into the hills that ultimately became the reason for establishment of administrative offices and colonial presence in the region. My hometown, Pasighat, is an example, established in 1911. 

Today, of course, there are north-east writers engaging with narratives of reclaiming the past and telling our stories as witnessed through our eyes. There is also the political side, the need to address present-day issues with new narrative strategies, giving rise to biased mythologies that are different from the old oral stories that spoke of harmony and carried ethical and spiritual messages for a community.

For me, as a writer, I think of history as a meeting place. People have their own stories. History is this version—or the other, and writing is that mysterious bridge that connects everything, because a story can time travel and revisit the past to bring meaning to the present.

The Sahitya Akademi Award for The Black Hill and Padma Shri in 2011 brought more recognition to your work. How have these awards influenced your subsequent writings and its reception?

Yes, I am very grateful to be a recipient of the awards. Awards are personal milestones reminding me about why I started writing in the first place. At the same time recognition can become distracting, because the post-publication scenario is a minefield—it can change perception and priorities, and mould you with a sense of misplaced responsibility or expectation, and kind of diminish the joy and most importantly, the freedom of writing.  

Mamang Dai said people write because they care. It is about how we bear witness to life around us and sometimes this bearing witness comes at a price. | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement

How can marginalised voices from north-east be amplified? Could you recommend some emerging Arunachal authors and works to help outside readers better understand the region’s rich literary heritage?

The literary scenario in the north-east has always been very vibrant. A general view is that a lot of writers here write in English and also that a lot of the writings is about myth and legend or conflict scenarios. But this is a misconception.

Writing was once the realm of study and research. Now there are book clubs, literary societies, and forums all promoting literature and reading and writing in different languages like Hindi, English, Assamese, and mother tongue. In a digital world self-publication is an option too, if you have the know-how, and a new generation of writers are already looking at nature—the land, in a different way, making their mark with fantasy and historical novels, and taking up environmental issues and political corruption.

About marginalisation, I think the real marginalisation is within the States where readership and literary activity need to be promoted primarily through quality school education, language curriculum and a society open to discourse and exchange of ideas. Otherwise, in today’s world, the word is already transcending boundaries and borders through the use of technology.

Which north-east classics shaped your own writing journey, and should be read widely by young writers from the region in order to preserve indigenous literary legacies?

In Arunachal I started with reading archival material of the State Research Department. These are mainly writings by travellers and surveyor records of erstwhile North East Frontier Agency (NEFA), as the territory of Arunachal Pradesh was known. I also read a lot of forest reports and every publication about the different tribes in addition to the earlier books of Verrier Elwin, who was adviser for tribal affairs to the NEFA administration. Elwin’s books are a good start for anyone to know about the early frontier days, and the myths and stories associated with different regions and tribes of the State.

You have also protested against environmental threats and championed tribal rights. Do you see activism as a potent tool for writers to drive positive change in Arunachal today?

Well, writing, ultimately, is about freedom of expression. People write because they care. It is about how we bear witness to life around us and sometimes this bearing witness comes at a price. We know so many voices are silenced because they dared to express a truth. So, there is an activism going on all the time, a resistance in writing, because writing is an expression of faith. It is also a celebration of the power of imagination and the power of words to create loveliness and give hope.

Any global or Indian authors and books you revisit for inspiration?

Oh, I am revisiting all the time. Mainly poetry—all the Indian poets both ancient, the saint poets and mystics, and contemporary poetry in English and in translation. And then I keep dipping into Jorge Luis Borges and the notebooks of Raymond Chandler.

As a civil servant turned writer who was not always a full-time writer, what advice do you have for young north-east writers?

I would suggest keeping a notebook.