The Hindu : National : The Monpas on celluloid

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Monday, Sep 20, 2004

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National

The Monpas on celluloid

By Sushanta Talukdar

GUWAHATI, SEPT. 19. The life and lore of Monpas, a colourful tribe inhabiting the high altitudes of Arunachal Pradesh bordering China, is all set to be filmed with a couple ready to shoot the first full-length movie in the Monpa dialect this winter.

The film is based on a popular Assamese novel Sonam (The Fortunate Lady) by Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi, Deputy Commissioner of Sepa District of Arunachal Pradesh.

For Ehsan (Raju) Muzid and his wife Archana Muzid, the 10-year-old dream of making the first full length film in the Monpa dialect is going to come true, thanks to Mountain Hives, a public charitable trust that has shouldered the responsibility of generating the required funds for the Rs. 50-lakh budget film.

The story is all about love, hatred and jealousy between the two husbands of a Monpa woman.

``Though monogamy is the general rule among the Monpas, polyandry is also practised. Polyandry among the tribe, under which a Monpa woman becomes the common wife of all the brothers of a family to which she is married, is attributed to the rearing of yak, an endangered animal. When one of the husbands takes the yak for grazing, another will come down to lower altitudes for trade and commercial activities, a third or fourth will go for some other activity. Though polyandry is not followed by the younger generation, there are still some families of the older generation practising it,'' says Mr. Muzid.

He plans to shoot the film in the backdrop of the mid 70s when yak rearing was common among the tribe. The novel Sonam was also penned in the 1970s. ``The film cannot be shot in the present backdrop as polyandry is not prevalent due to the decline in the population of the yak rearers, known as Brukpas.''

The Monpas are agriculturists. They practise both shifting and permanent types of cultivation. They also engage themselves in wood carving, painting religious scrolls called Thankas, carpet making and weaving. The Monpas make paper locally from the pulp of trees called Sukso or the paper tree.

``Yak is one of the best ecologically sustainable animal resources for the highlanders like the Monpas which provides all the basic necessities for the tribe in the form of milk and milk derivatives, clothing, fuel, manure and transport,'' Mr. Muzid adds.

In Arunachal Pradesh yaks are found only in some pockets of West Kameng and Tawang districts that are inhabited by the Monpas. According to an estimate of the National Research Centre on Yak located at Dirrnag, the number of yaks in these two districts is 8480 while crossbred yak is estimated to be 6281.

There will be altogether 27 actors in the film, of whom 20 will be local Monpas who were groomed at a 10-day camp-cum-workshop organised by Mr. Muzid.

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