Poetry Finds an English Voice in Northeast India

Agartala, May 31 : The trouble-torn Northeast’s image as an insurgency-ridden killing field seems to have undergone a makeover with the publication of an English translation of the region’s poetic impulses penned in diverse languages.

English teachers of the North Eastern Hill University in Shillong, Robin S. Ngangom and Kynpham S. Nongkynrih, have edited the 325-page volume published recently by Penguin India.

Dancing Earth, an anthology of poetry of the Northeast, is a treasure of poetic creativity of the region.

Though the volume contains lyrical poems authored by indigenous poets of the eight northeastern states, poetry of Tripura, Assam and Manipur figure in it prominently.

Chandra Kanta Murasingh said poems penned by nine poets of Tripura, including himself, had appeared in the volume.

Besides him, the other poets from Tripura are Kalyan Brata Chakraborty, Nanda Kumar Debbarma, Swapan Sengupta, Shefali Debbarma, Niranjan Chakma Yogmaya Chakma, Ganghini Sorokkhaibam and Sudhanwa Tripura.

“The Northeast’s cultural and linguistic diversity find expression even in poetry composed in Tripura as the nine poets, including I, composed our poems in indigenous Kokborok, Chakma, Bengali and Manipuri languages that have been translated into English for publication in the volume,” Chandra Kanta said, adding Oxford University Press had earlier published a translated version of a collection of poems of the region.

For Chandra Kanta, inclusion of the English version of poems in Kokborok — Tripura’s indigenous language — is another feather in his cap.

As a poet, Chandra Kanta received his first institutional recognition in 1996 when he was conferred Sahitya Akademi’s Bhasa Samman Award meant for poets and authors in non-scheduled languages.

The Akademi had also published the English translation of his Kokborok Loka Sangeet and Kabita in 2007 and Tales and Tunes of Tripura in 2009.

“In these volumes, English translations of my Kokborok poems, indigenous folk songs, ballads, proverbs were published and these portray a concrete picture of Tripura’s multifaceted indigenous culture,” Chandra Kanta said.

He hoped that publication of Kokborok poems in the Penguin India volume would serve the cause of Tripura’s indigenous language.