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PHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN

NEW VIEW Anjum Hasan: ‘In Shillong, India was faraway. Moving to Bangalore was moving to India’

Anjum Hasan is an ‘insider-outsider’ in her birthplace, Shillong. The poet and writer who has just written her first novel Lunatic in my Head states: “The book is not a missionary attempt to shed light on the forgotten North-East. It is borne out of a love for the place.” She believes that good literature goes beyond the place – though it may happen to become representative of it – but largely the idea is to tell a story. “The idea was to graze space with possibilities in writing about people and their relationships. To explore possibilities of friendships and falling in love in the region.”

Though originally from Uttar Pradesh, Hasan was born and brought up in the ‘Scotland of the East’. “There was always the feeling of belonging and not belonging.” And it was her move to Bangalore in 2001 that enabled her to look at Shillong from a different perspective to be able to write a novel. “In Shillong, India was faraway. Moving to Bangalore was moving to India.”

She feels: “In a place like Shillong, the landscape and weather inevitably enter my writings. They may not be idyllic, but rhythms connect the three.” She also believes that English, as a widely spoken language in the hill-station, is the peoples’ passport. “English was the way to express oneself, having an English professor for a father and Irish nuns in school, it instilled a love of writing and the language.”

But the distinction of being tribal and non-tribal or dhkar (foreigner) in Shillong is debatable as the British took it over in the 1860s.

“Though it is a multi-cultural city, the sense of a shared culture in the once-capital of Assam, is not overt. They remained in relationships and conversations, and were not give and take like in theatre or art. But over long periods, there were flare-ups like through the 70s, 80s and 90s.”

She feels, “People tend to romanticise Shillong. They have some image of it being a pretty place. But they ignore the city’s modernity for it has all the institutions of a modern city.” She believes that tourism, if handled well, can people give a better insight – for even a tourist’s eye is tangible.

AYESHA MATHAN

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