In Conversation with Easterine Kire

You are considered one of the first Naga writers to begin writing in English. You’ve said in an interview that you wanted to put indigenous works into the limelight, and so you began writing and translating. Was it hard to find a publisher for your initial works? What were the challenges faced by you in the process of setting up your own publishing house, Barkweaver

Did I really say I wanted to ‘put indigenous works in the limelight’? Or was that what the interviewer was asking me? It sounds a bit arrogant, doesn’t it? And I do apologise if it comes out like that. I have always I wanted to chronologically write down the historical life of the Nagas, and I believe I have been doing that all along. Oral Naga historians continually narrate history using wars as a timeline. It is a device that is also used by the older generation in Zimbabwe. They use wars or major events like the year of the installation of the railroad to tell time for instance. Mothers would say that a certain child was born in the year of the railroad, or the year after or the year before. Our forefathers also did this and would use historical events such as wars in the same manner. I have worked with oral historians, getting out information from them and writing them down as historical novels. Fortunately, Ura Academy published my first novel in English and the same book has now been bought by Speaking Tiger and is retitled, ‘Sky is my Father. Zubaan was looking to publish women writers from the Northeast and so it was not too long a wait before getting on the Zubaan list. Speaking Tiger has, in addition, been doing a good job of bringing out my books. Barkweaver Publications is a project for we four who are in it. It was not difficult to set up, but we quickly realised that our objectives are dif. Often it is said that a lot is lost in translation— in reference to this, did you face any difficulties with regards to translation, given that you have translated around 200 poems into English?

Translation of folk poetry is not easy at all. I had to choose what kind of English to use in translating the folk poems which were so old that they were difficult for a casual Tenyidie (my mother tongue and the language in which the poems were written) user to get at the deep meanings that many of the words and phrases held. Many of these words are no longer used. So, their meaning was also more or less lost due to the fact that the context no longer existed. As it is, poetry itself is so complex that one always wonders if the translation does justice to the original. I think the translation becomes another literary experience altogether.

How and to what extent does politics inform your work?

We from the Northeast - we should fiercely resist being persistently defined by politics. For far too long, our region has been defined by its political troubles and this has created so many stereotypes that the media continues to perpetuate. It has dictated expectations upon Northeast writers and artists.

Politics should not be given more importance than all the other elements that we grow up with and get our influences from – religion, culture, history, and so on. We should not allow the political to be thrown like a dirty blanket over the many, beautifully layered cultures of the Northeastern states, because we would then be so grossly misrepresented.

When I write historical novels, political incidents take their place in the movement of the book – as part of our history. I have written a novel, Bitter Wormwood, which was an attempt to let others understand the beginnings of the Naga struggle for freedom in the 50s and 60s and the road it took by the 80s, 90s, and beyond. But besides that, I think it’s unhealthy to give too much importance to politics, just as there would be a lack of balance in our lives if we did the same to other elements like religion for example.I know there are people out there who insist that Northeast writers have to write more about the political situation political situations in our region. 18

But I’m saying no, Politics is overwriting us, overwriting our very lives, we don’t need to give it more room than what it has already taken, and what’s more, we should take back territory it has occupied over the years!

How do you get the inspiration/ material for the lives that you depict through your poems and stories? Would you consider them personal? Have you taken any inspiration from your life experiences?

If I am writing biographical novels, I do a great deal of research, both into family histories as well as the history of the times. Research is so important in order to get good, authentic material. The life stories of real people are inspiring but the writer needs to work real hard behind the scenes. I use the help of an editor for historical verification and this is something I have tried recently, and it is an immense help. I retain my impressions of people that I meet – neighbours, acquaintances, friends and family, and use these in many books. There are also purely imaginary characters as well, such as the two sisters in When the River Sleeps who have supernatural powers at the tips of their fingers. I was very fortunate to grow up with a storytelling grandmother and mother who fed me with stories. Inspiration from life experiences? Certainly. I pick up a lot from both experiences I have undergone or seen others go through. Observing all that is going on around you gives a lot of material to work on.

You have chosen English as the medium for writing about the experiences of the Angami Nagas. Don’t you think it’s counterproductive to write in the colonial master’s tongue? Isn’t that like surrendering to the power of the colonial masters?

I respectfully disagree. I write in an English that I have nativized to my own use. I don’t feel writing in the English language is a surrender. I don’t believe that English cannot adequately carry the cultural experiences I write about. My characters talk Naga English in the sense that their thought patterns are not English thought patterns, they think in an Angami manner and that comes out when they speak. It is what Raja Rao calls, ‘translating the reader.’ It is an act of bending the colonial language to serve your needs. What other devices or methods have you employed in your novels and poems to assert your identity as an Angami tribal woman, in spite of this anxiety? Is it too far fetched to suppose that your inclusion of Angami words in your novel “Don’t run, My Love” can be considered to be an interspersion of your tribal identity and modernity?

See, the thing is, I don’t set out to write a novel asserting my identity as a Naga/Angami/Female etc. You don’t have to assert your identity. It is there, integrally there, like your DNA. In fact, it is your DNA. It comes out in a natural process as I write from my world view and as my characters live out their lives from their respective world-views. Many Angami words are culturally untranslatable. Their meanings are so beautiful in the original and the translations cannot do them justice; this is one reason why I let them appear in the original. And the English language is able to accommodate them all. So, yes to your last question that it is a natural process for me to include native words in my novels, as happens in Don’t Run My Love.

You have worked with a plethora of themes but the past of the Naga people and the period of insurgency seems a poignant theme in your novels, could you elaborate as to why your work revloves around these themes?

What you call ‘the period of insurgency’ is just one novel and a novella, Life on Hold. I’m not absorbed in the political. By the way, we would be wrong to refer to it as Insurgency, because the Naga groups were fighting for freedom before India became a nation. On the other hand, the Naga past is fascinating. If you look for answers as to why we practise such and such a thing in our cultures, the answer is always in the past. So, you have to go there, using the help of stories and old people, and try to see the place that cultural teachings, and spirit beliefs occupied, and still occupy, in our psyche. It is also such a rich source of inspiration and I am not finished writing about it. The answer to why people believe in the spiritual and why they live with respect for the spirit world is found in the past and its teachings. I believe these teachings can add more value to our lives. They promote respect and compassion for our fellow humans as well as for animals and plant life, not to mention the life of the spirit which is all around us.