(SIGNIFICANCE OF TITLE) A journalist, poet and former civil servant, Mamang Dai was born in Pasighat in the East Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh. She was a reporter for the Sentinel, Hindustan Times and The Telegraph newspapers and is currently president of the Arunachal Pradesh union of working journalists, covering news programmes and interviews for all India Radio and Doordarshan, Itanagar. A former member of the Indian Administrative Service, she left the service to pursue a career in writing, travelled extensively and has numerous articles, poems and short stories published in various journals. She is the author of Arunachal Pradesh- The Hidden Land and the recipient of the state’s first annual Verrier Elwin Award, 2003, for the book. The Legends of Pensam published by Penguin in 2006 brought additional fame to Mamang Dai Mamang Dai writes, “In our language, the language of the Adis, the word ‘pensam’ means ‘in-between’. It suggests the middle, or middle ground, but it may also be interpreted as the hidden spaces of the heart where a secret garden grows. It is the small world where anything can happen and everything can be lived; where the narrow boat that we call life sails along somehow in calm or stormy weather; where the life of a man can be measured in a song.” In a way the author informs us beforehand that in the world of ‘pensam’, anything can happen and everything can be lived, therefore as readers we already expect the unbelievable, the impossible and the fantastic even as we begin to read the book. It suggests the middle, or middle ground. In the narration Pensam is literally the middle ground between myth and reality governing the lives of the Adis and also the transitionary phase between the traditional and modern ways of their life. The author also suggests that in the world of the beliefs anything can happen and everything can be lived. To substantiate this the book starts with the story of the boy Hoxo, ’who fell from the sky’ and was carried by Lutor to his village. Lutor and his friend had been drafted to work on a massive road project by the migluns across the Siang valley. On their return after three years, they had with them a basket containing a child. Lutor’s friend tells the villagers, “There was a great noise and fire in the sky and our son fell to earth.” Accepted by the tribe unquestioningly, Hoxo goes on to lead an eventful life and play a key role in the stories that unfold. In the last tale, the aged Hoxo is shown spending time with his granddaughter. The stories in between take the reader through a fascinating ride over a long period of time and tribal beliefs, from the legend of the origin of the tribe to modern times of development that throw their lives and customs into disarray. As mentioned before, The Legends Of Pensam is a set of stories interconnected across a few generations of a family of Adis. There are a host of characters seeped in traditional tribal beliefs and living vulnerable lives influenced by spirits, shamans and unnatural events. “People have premonitions-women dream dreams, babies are born who grow up unnaturally fast, like deer or lion cubs.” For instance, a fisherman has a vision of Biribik, the water-serpent and dies within a year unable to recover from the after affects of that terrible vision. Likewise the death of Hoxo’s father Lutor witnessing, ‘Biribik, the water serpent’, is also an unavoidable circumstance to the people as “anyone studying the signs could understand that something unnatural was bound to happen again, now that Hoxo’s father had seen the serpent”. In the chapter “daughters of the village,” we find that in their belief, ‘it is considered a grave error for a woman to linger by streams and rivers after sunset, for the night is restless with strange dreams and lost spirits.” In such cases, a shamam is called and a ceremony of exorcism is performed.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 07:26:05 +0000
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