Preetha Banerjee (PB): Nature and human emotions are intimately intertwined in your work. How do you feel they are connected?
Mamang Dai (MD): Most of my writing is about Adi society and a landscape and traditions I am familiar with. For example, when a person dies there is a period of taboo when family members cannot leave the house. This is followed by a ritual called kutung kuyar when everyone goes to the river. A fire is lit and everyone can bathe, wash clothes and do other things. It is an act of closure, for one part of the mourning period. At such times, it is visible how nature and human emotions are connected. Being out in the open is a gift to open your eyes again to the beauty of the world. In the end “nature” is the great consoler. It goads you into reflection. Just looking at a river running on is like receiving a secret message about so many things that we face at some point in our lives.
About nature and human emotions in my work—it is a bit more difficult to describe, because here it is to do with my thoughts, recollections and imagination, and really, there is no knowing what connections and intimacies may come up.
PB: Your native language, Adi, is primarily an oral language. How is nature or traditional knowledge of nature documented or spoken about in the language and what is the importance of nature in your community?
MD: Among the Adi we have epic narratives called A:bang. Originally chanted in ritual language (old Adi), the A:bang, in its simplest meaning, is a story, or an act of storytelling for an audience performed by a Miri—a shaman, well versed in the history of the tribe. It is a documentation in verse of the beginnings of the universe, the birth of plants and animals, and the early life of man. All the stories have something to tell us about the natural world, and support a close, living relationship with the environment. Of course, there are many different interpretations of the language of the A:bang. People who live in remote villages and whose survival depends on co-existence with their surroundings have quite a pragmatic approach to nature. It is a constant tussle when you are living off the forest. In Adi, we do not have an equivalent word for “nature”. It is more like earth-water, sun-moon, animals-birds; and environment means the place where we are, as part of the surroundings.
PB: How have the natural surroundings of your hometown changed over the years? Has that impacted you and your community?
MD: My hometown Pasighat has changed a lot since the time we knew it as the boring place we were condemned to spend our school holidays. There was a stream close to my grandparents’ house and this was the one spot of joy where we went to play and catch small fish and crab. Now that stream has disappeared. Most of the big streams have also dwindled in size. Old timers use the word dujit, to describe this. It is a way of saying that we have “squatted the river dry” with overwhelming encroachment.
Pasighat town (now a Smart City), I sometimes feel, is all about the story of water—beginning with the stories of migration and river crossings in rafts, the settlement of Adi clans on the banks of the Siang river, the entry of the British and ensuing wars along the Siang, stories of earthquakes and floods, and now the mega dam plans in the Siang valley.
At the same time, major infrastructure development with new bridges over a number of big rivers and, of course, the Bogibheel bridge and Bhupen Hazarika Setu over the Brahmaputra river has made Pasighat an accessible destination for adventure tourism and an important cultural and intellectual hub of the state.
PB: If you had to choose one of your novels or poetry collections that was most directly born from your fear of environmental degradation or eco-anxiety, which one would you select and why?
MD: It would be Escaping the Land, published by Speaking Tiger, 2024. I started it quite a few years ago when I was a journalist covering insurgen-cy related stories. I felt then that the amount of money from the timber business that erupted across the state was destroying great swathes of forest as well as fuelling the alleged “spill-over militancy” into our state.
PB: In a warming world, where there is so much pressure on the individual to live sustainably, how do you stay mindful?
MD: I wake up in the morning and think about the garden. Perhaps a new flower has bloomed overnight! I think staying mindful is about paying attention—to all sorts of little things. I think of not wasting food, of buying local, seasonal fruit and vegetables, and not overspending on processed foods and trying to stockpile items. It is also to be able to restrain yourself from intervening too much in anything. I used to think my mother was doing it all wrong by not using potting compost, by planting a whole bunch of lilies with all sorts of other plants. Now I see that plants have their affinities. They may or may not like shared place, and if I keep moving them for more sun, or give them more feed that I think will be good for them, they wilt and die. That is too much intervention.
Better to be patient, let things be.
