The ongoing North-East Festival gives you glimpses of the best of crafts and cuisine that the eight states have to offer, says Hamari Jamatia
Get “attacked” by a pair of Sikkimese yaks or find out which state grows avocados — take your pick at the ongoing North-East Festival in the Capital which will envelope you in its captivating variety.
On entering the ongoing annual North-East Festival held at the sprawling IGNCA campus, one must always follow the beats of the drum. The open-air amphitheatre located towards the West of the campus holds the dance and song programmes of all eight states and this is where the crowd piles up, the shorter ones straining their necks to get a better view of the performances. I come under this category so I squeeze myself between other visitors and sit down on the front steps.
The yak dance of Sikkim is on and it involves two teams of two men crouched under a furry costume of a rather cute black yak, playfully teasing the crowds in mock-attacks, all the while sticking to the beats of the melodious live music that increases in tempo whenever they are in attack mode. A herdsman tries to tame the “animals” and fails miserably at first, slipping and falling on stage as the audience goes wild with laughter.
Attention is caught by a young male musician with long, flowy hair, wearing a tapering cap that reminds me of Mongolian rulers. He turns out to be extremely chatty when I approach him after the dance and gets talking about Sikkimese arts. “We are here to showcase our traditional dances and music as not many people are aware of them. We are presenting the ‘Maruni’ which is a Nepali dance and the lepcha folk dance of hunters and farmers,” he says. Mikma Tsering lepcha plays the instrument called Tungbuk and is a trained singer under Padma Shri Hilda Mit. He goes back on stage after a break and soon gets the audience clapping to his renditions.
Talking to him made me wonder how less I know about the region I belong to. The gap only aggravates when I visit the state-wise stalls put up at the site. At the Mizoram stall, I am told that the state has become a grower of avocado in the past few years and intends to turn the fruit into a profitable cash crop. At the Meghalaya stall, they sell bay leaves claimed to be the most aromatic in the country and at the Sikkim stall, beautiful orchids of all shades promote the tourism potential of the state. My final stop is the stall of my state of Tripura where seven college boys are promoting the young talents of Northeast-singers, designers and musicians. “We are also cooking pork in Tripuri style,” one of the boys tells me.
That is when I realise that my lack of knowledge about the culture and farming of the Northeast is immediately balanced by my extensive knowledge of its cuisine. And that’s not so bad at all!