On reading Beyond the Frozen Hills
TribalBookworms
Miranda Pertin’s Beyond the Frozen Hills (2021) is a breath of fresh air in the literary landscape of our state. What stands out is...
What’s with the brows?
TribalBookworms
Have you ever heard of socks as a way to tell generational differences? It’s true! Recently, during a fascinating conversation with my friend and...
On the spatial politics of home
TribalBookworms
A fortnight ago, the court of the special judge (POCSO), west session division, Yupia, delivered a landmark judgement by passing the death sentence to...
Recovering hidden histories
Tribal Bookworms
Hidden histories do not remain hidden - they linger in memories and stories, waiting to be rekindled and retold. Stuart Blackburn’s Into the...
On Tai Nyori’s A Freedom Movement in the Twilight: Tribal Patriotism in the North-Eastern...
TribalBookworms
Flashback to the times when our forefathers were called ‘Abors’, a term deemed derogatory as it was an address for the barbaric savage tribes...
Society and Literature
TribalBookworms
The pulse of a society is often gauged by how much it values art and culture and how these are respected and celebrated. It...
On contemporary folk music from Arunachal
TribalBookworms
Journeys can be interesting when we have so much to discuss in a little time with good companions. But if you have no one...
On Tani philosophy
TribalBookworms
I had a basic understanding of Donyi Polo, having grown up in a family that wasn’t overtly religious. Yet, certain aspects of our lives...
On Ato1 Menlar, the unsung warrior from the foothills (A ballad)
TribalBookworms
This song I sing
of a man called Menlar,
a convict for you
but a warrior for me,
imprisoned for defending
his home with blood
that rendered him
feeling trapped
and asphyxiated.
Never...
Tribal Bookworms
On Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi’s ‘Paharar Cha’
Human nature is such that we take people, moments and things for granted, until they are no longer around....
On Stories of the Headhunters of Arunachal Pradesh
TribalBookworms
How many of us would agree with Socrates, who in his Phaedo, also known as On the Soul, remarked that a true philosopher always...
On Bride Price
TribalBookworms
Lummer Dai’s novel Bride Price brings literary expression to the traditional practice of bride price exchange in tribal societies, examining this age-old custom through a modern...
Personal and ancestral history
TribalBookworms
“Revenge is a dish best served cold,” is how the blurb of Yumlam Tana’s novel The Place Where Rivers Meet (2020) begins. It hints...
On Yabin Dabi Zirdo’s ‘Muugo-`Roli (Melody of Thoughts)’: Galo poems
TribalBookworms
Amidst animated discussions and endless refills of green tea with Dr A derides, accompanied by an old Galo song sung by Moge Doji,...
Legislating memory, land, and belonging in ‘The Dance of the Last Leaf’
In an age of glowing screens and restless scrolls, when the emerging generation stands increasingly unmoored from ancestral ground, literature becomes more than an...
Becoming and unbecoming: Charting identity and the emotional abyss
Book Review
The Anatomy of My Soul
Chaong Rangjang
Notion Press, 2026
Pp.77
Price: 295
Despite presenting itself as an age of freedom and comfort, the modern world remains shaped...
Reading In Between the Blurry Lines
Book Review
In Sonam Chombay's In Between the Blurry Lines: 14 Defining Moments That Shaped Arunachal Pradesh, the author writes with the keen lens...
Chaong Rangjang’s ‘The Anatomy of My Soul’
Tribal Bookworms
After a period of quiet hibernation, I find myself returning to this space to discuss a book which was described by its poet...
Book Review
Compendium of Indigenous Culture of Arunachal Pradesh
Edited by Batem Pertin, RN Koley,
Radhe Ampi & Hage Ampi
Pages: 252
Price: 300
It is said that books are the...
Book Review
Lapiya
Lapiya
By Tai Tagung
Genre: Drama
Pages: 58
Woman - she has to fight every day for her existence. The times may have changed but the women are...