Report: Sikkim Arts and Literature Festival 2023 - Hindustan Times
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Report: Sikkim Arts and Literature Festival 2023

May 20, 2023 12:29 AM IST

The first edition of SALF focussed on a range of subjects including climate change, wildlife conservation and biodiversity, crime fiction and mental health

Walking under the giant mystic pine tree and past the coronation throne of Norbugang in Yuksom, where the first Chogyal Phuntsog Namgyal was crowned monarch of Sikkim in 1642, fills the visitor from the plains, especially, with a sense of wonder. It’s early may, the air is crisp, wildflowers grow in wondrous profusion along the roadside and the Kanchenjunga with the smile of a bemused goddess watches over the world and its utterly insignificant humans constantly in motion, striving, yearning, building, destroying, loving, hating and ultimately, inevitably, returning to the elements, the essence of their busy lives lost in a clod of dust, the smoke of the pyre, the maw of the vulture. A short distance downhill from the chorten with its numerous stones stacked by pilgrims and through a copse of towering native Himalayan trees is the picturesque venue of the first Sikkim Arts and Literature Festival that was held from 6 to 8 May, 2023.

A concert during the Sikkim Arts and Literature Festival (Courtesy SALF)
A concert during the Sikkim Arts and Literature Festival (Courtesy SALF)

Novelist Anand Neelakantan (Courtesy SALF)
Novelist Anand Neelakantan (Courtesy SALF)

After the hypnotic chanting by monks from the 376-year-old Pemayantse Monastry, things get off to a rollicking start with a session titled The Bahubali Universe featuring Anand Neelakantan, author of best sellers like Asura: Tale of the Vanquished, Ajaya: Roll of the Dice and The Rise of Sivagami, that draw from Hindu myth. “Now people are reading fiction based on the Puranas, but it was a few of us, like me and Amish, who made it popular,” says the former engineer who revels in being the omniscient narrator of his books. “I am Brahma, I’m the creator. The good thing about this is that many of the teachers I didn’t like have become asuras in my books,” says Neelakantan, a somewhat rare novelist who also works successfully in television and film. “I write novels for my satisfaction but I write for television and film for the money,” he says describing the power struggles within the large writing teams that work on a single show: “It’s worse than a fish market or Parliament; it’s that kind of fighting!” His connection to the Bahubali universe came about in an atypical way: “Bahubali is the vision of SS Rajamouli. My job is to expand the universe so the characters have a back story.” A web series, clearly grand in scope, on the numerous stories that can’t fit into another Bahubali film, is on the way.

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Unlike the sprawling Bahubali saga, the first edition of SALF was a cosy size with programming that stressed both the micro and the macro, the local and the international and focussed on a range of subjects including climate change, wildlife conservation and biodiversity, crime fiction and mental health. Speakers included the child and adolescent psychiatrist Amit Sen, authors Ankush Saikia, Anuja Chauhan, Manjiri Prabhu and Moushmi Kandali, and scientist Priyadarshini Gurung.

A children’s painting competition at the festival (Courtesy SALF)
A children’s painting competition at the festival (Courtesy SALF)

While Sikkim’s natural beauty is a balm for the weary traveller from the nation’s manic megacities, it’s clear that the climate crisis looms over us all. Yishey D Yongda, collector of Gyalshing district where Yuksom is located, spoke about the melting glaciers, the consequent increasing size of Sikkim’s glacial lakes, and the change in the Alpine ecosystem resulting in the death of more than 300 yaks in 2019. “The yaks couldn’t come down from the higher mountain pastures because of unseasonal snowfall. The lack of grass there led to mass starvation deaths,” she said during a session on climate change titled Our House on Fire with scientists Yangchenla Bhutia, Priyadashini Gurung, and Pranay Lal and journalist Teresa Rehman. The yak deaths are a portent of tough times especially as the surface temperature of the Himalayan state has also been increasing over the last 64 years – alarming news and yet another wake up call for the state, nation and indeed, the world.

Still, it’s hard to feel hopeless when you’re surrounded by beauty. The Abode of the Gods, a session on the Khangchendzonga National Park (KNP), with Pranay Lal, Sonam Norden Bhutia, Divisional Forest Officer at KNP, and Dechen Lachungpa, Joint Director of the Himalayan Zoological Park, highlighted not just what’s wonderful about this UNESCO mixed world heritage site – it is home to the clouded leopard, the oldest living species of cat in the world and has a blend of plains, valleys, glaciers and mountains – but also the park’s successful initiatives to discourage littering. Trekkers who leave their trash behind have to pay a hefty fine of 5000.

Chief Minister of Sikkim, Prem Singh Tamang (Courtesy SALF)
Chief Minister of Sikkim, Prem Singh Tamang (Courtesy SALF)

As a border state, Sikkim has its own security challenges and military needs that could be at cross purposes with conservation. However, the environmental, religious and cultural significance of the site has meant that a real effort is made to protect it. “The chief minister is also the head of the environmental body and so far, we have managed to avoid having any roads running through the national park,” says Lachungpa. Talented politicians are often like film stars in their ability to hold the attention of the audience and the chief minister Prem Singh Tamang, who arrived on day 2, launched into a nearly-two-hour speech on everything from state policies, benefits and plans with a few jokes thrown in. He didn’t pause to draw breath or even take a sip of water and had the gathered crowd hanging on to his every word.

Other interesting sessions included poetry readings by Karuna Ezara Parikh and Nawaraj Parajuli that had even the distinguished elderly gentlemen in suits and fedoras nodding their heads in approval, one on the variety of Indian food, and another on the north eastern state’s architecture and built heritage. While both architect Prashant Pradhan and engineer Ashok Chettri talked about being inspired by “the serenity of Buddhist monastries”, the former stressed the need to preserve local architectural styles, incorporate indigenous methods like the use of mud plastered ikra reed in contemporary buildings, and bring back traditional architecture even in a commercial context. “We need to establish technical schools where people learn how to craft these buildings. We also need to create our own school of architecture in Sikkim,” he said.

Festival director Sanjoy K Roy L) in conversation with Hoihnu Hauzel and Shylashri Shankar. (Courtesy SALF)
Festival director Sanjoy K Roy L) in conversation with Hoihnu Hauzel and Shylashri Shankar. (Courtesy SALF)

Hoihnu Hauzel, author of The Essential North-East Cookbook and Shylashri Shankar, author, Turmeric Nation: A Passage Through India’s Tastes talked about everything from food nostalgia and the growing popularity of Korean cuisine in the country to why north easterners rarely become obese, why women do much of the cooking in homes but men become celebrity chefs, the message bearing chapattis of 1857, the wonders of Lakadong turmeric, how its now been established that the Buddha died after eating poisoned mushrooms, and the origins of the wildly popular momo. “The fleeing Tibetans brought the momo to the north east and now it’s popular everywhere,” Hoihnu said. By the end, everyone was ravenous and fell enthusiastically upon plates of delicious fiddle head ferns and chhurpi and other Sikkimese delicacies.

Compact and well organised, with serious sessions during the day balanced by excellent evening entertainment – Concerts by Bipul Chhetri and the Kutle Khan Project had enthusiastic but extraordinarily well behaved crowds – this jaded festival goer enjoyed the SALF thoroughly. The event allowed for the discovery of new ways of seeing, thinking and living, and engendered a fresh appreciation for the mountain state and its warm people. Put all that down to the event being blessed by the radiant Kanchenjunga herself.

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