84 12 february 2018T
here’s a beautiful, almost
cheeky, red herring in the very
positioning of Centrepiece: New
Writing And Art From Northeast India,
a comprehensive anthology of non-
fiction, fiction, poetry, photography
and visual art edited by graphic novelist
Parismita singh. Nowhere on the front
or back covers does the word ‘women’
appear, but in contributor bio after
contributor bio, the pronouns ‘she’
and ‘her’ repeat. (a little earnest fact-
checking reveals that one of a duo does
not identify as female, but the coup is
nearly complete). in this manner, the
‘centre’ of the title is apparent: imagine a
world so woman-centric that it need not
be announced.
Centrepiece is primarily concerned
with women’s work, not work that is
gendered, but labour of all kinds that is
limited, encouraged or affected in some
way by gender. ‘i reject the idea that
work is related only to money or food,’
writes aungmakhai Chak in The Objects
of Everyday Work: A Photo Essay, which
explores a non-capitalist understand-
ing of beauty through the crafting of
tobacco pipes, baskets, earthen jars
and woven clothing. rini barman’s
wonderful piece, Hands That Brew, is
on rice liquor and the gendered poli-
tics behind it, while Daksare Sketches:
Through The Needle and the Loom by
bumbum studio’s shreya Debi and
bilseng r Marak (the duo mentioned
above) is about their own work with
fabrics, inspired by the daily movements
of women and girls.
these are but some examples; the
anthology features over 30 outstanding
contributions. singh’s curation of poetry
and artwork is to be praised. Never does
either feel like filler material amongst
prose and photo-essays. each genre—
from nearly academic papers to hashtag
poetry—is given its due, with impres-
sive selections. there is an even contrast
between the explicit, such as Dolly
Kikon’s paper, Women At Work: The Gen-
der, Culture, And Customary Law Debate
in Nagaland, and the unspoken, such as
Zubeni lotha’s untitled photograph of
women in military gear, wearing gigan-
tic hornbill headgear.
among the poems, soibam
haripriya’s Curfew is particularly evoca-
tive, finely blending both gender and
governmental limitations. it begins,
‘curfew and rains,/ and you are home/
thinking slowly/ of how life evades you’
then reveals its preoccupation—there is
a baby bawling, and the narrator longs
for the time before she ‘became/ a pair of
milch breasts’, for now she knows, ‘biol-ogy is your arch enemy.’
Visual art suffuses the collection.
Mayel Lyang by alyen leeachum foning
is a lovely tale of travel and homecom-
ing that uses the handiwork of several
artists. the book ends with a spec-
tacular painting: in Kundo Yumnam’s
Self Portrait, 17th May 2017, a woman
draws milk-like threads from her heavy
nipples, and knits them together. she is
headless; the threads swirl around her
torso as though in orbit.
the fiction here often plays with
the meta-narrative. Jacqueline Zote
recounts Mizo lore in The Other Side of
the Looking Glass: Retelling of Mizo Folk-
tales, in which a woman tells children,
bored during a power cut, stories by
candlelight. in Women’s Literature by
sanatombi Ningombam, a woman
attempts to write through a day full
of half-rinsed laundry, pots spilling
over on the stove and other domestic
demands. there’s no chance of suc-
cess, and only as she crumples up her
work in frustration does her husband
raise his head from his food to notice it.
‘What is it that you are so angrily tear-
ing up?’ he asks. ‘it’s women’s literature,
women’s literature,’ she says.
Centrepiece is a gorgeous collection,
with page after page of beauty and sur-
prise. What emerges is a heterogeneous
series of portraits and worldviews. there
is a clear—and admirable—refusal to
pander to the non-Northeastern gaze,
and so an outsider reader does not suffer
from a niggling sense of voyeurism
either. both female experiences and the
distinct cultures of the Northeast are
given primacy in a rare and rewarding
way. there is so much here to enjoy
and be educated by. nbooks
Gender and Geography
Being feminine is so natural in this
celebration of the Northeast
By Sharanya Manivannan
CentrepieCe:
new writing And Art
From northeAst indiA
Parismita Singh (editor)Zubaan
213 Pages | Rs 1000courtesy centrepiece