MK Binodini’s centenary celebration to highlight oral literature

James Khangembam
Imasi: The Maharaj Kumari Binodini Devi Foundation is going to celebrate MK Binodini Devi’s Birth Centenary celebration from 6th Feb to 9th Feb at Chorus Repertory Theatre, Imphal. UNESCO, Central Institute of Indian Language (CIIL), Sangeet Natak Akademi, Chorus Repertory Theatre, and Manipur University are the collaborative partners of the upcoming festival called The Listener, Festival of Orality. Eminent theatre personality Ratan Thiyam is the Chairman of the Festival.
In a one on one conversation with L. Somi Roy who is the director of the festival and founder of Imasi Foundation, spoke about The Listener, its theme of orality, oral literature, and its significance in Northeast India. and the events that are going to make the Centenary commemoration come out alive.
This is one festival where one should attend to explore and witness the bountiful literary works of orality of Manipur, its neighbouring states and beyond.
Q: Tell me something about the Imasi Foundation and the Centenary celebration of MK Binodini .
Ans: Maharaj Kumari Binodini Devi was born on 6th Feb, 1922. A committee for the celebration of MK Binodini’s Centenary was instituted by Najma Heptula, the then Governor of Manipur. We could not celebrate in 2022, because of the Pandemic. Imasi Foundation’s The Listener is a festival of orality, in literature, music and culture. We have received a great deal of interest and support. The festival is going to be celebrated at Chorus Repertory for four days, 6Th February being the opening day. The festival is open to the public for free. The Imasi Foundation began with the mission of preserving the literature and legacy of MK Binodini. The foundation also works in the larger field of cultural conservation. Earlier we organized the Myanmar Manipur Cultural Conservation Conference. We are now planning for the festival called The Listener. This is the first festival of its kind in the world. It is the festival of listening, not reading; a literature festival without books. It is a new concept. There will be a lot of songs and musical performances. We are looking at the content of the songs, their lyrics – where are they coming from, what is the inspiration, what is the source. We are supporting and valorizing our tribal heritage, the modern songs by Guru Rewben Mashangva of Manipur and Tiameren Aier of Nagaland, as well as non-tribal oral heritage for example Khongjom Parva. Ratan Thiyam is the Chairman of the Festival, I am the festival director, Imasi Foundation is the producer. Manipur University and Central Institute of Indian Languages are the Academic Partners of the festival, UNESCO, Sangeet Natak Akademi and Chorus Repertory are the collaborative partners.
MK Binodini was very fond of tribal culture. For Instance, she adored Komlathabi, and wrote a famous essay about Tamenglong. The festival is commemorating her birth centenary with this tribute to tribal literature and heritage.
Q:  What inspires you to celebrate the Oral literature festival for the first time in the world ?
Ans:  In the case of all forms of literature, oral literature precedes written forms of literature. Manipuri literature flourished before the traditional manuscript Puya evolved.  We are trying to valourise, support and give recognition to pre-text and non-text (without script) literature. Others may not accept that they are literature but for us, they are our literature. This is the thrust our foundation is organizing the upcoming festival or orality.Oral literature is performative; a performance is needed or how else how we listen to it? A grandmother telling stories to her grandchildren is a performance. Children never get tired of listening to stories. That is the beauty of performance. Kids will persist with their grandmother to retell over and over the stories they had just heard days before. Kids also love to watch their favourite Disney cartoons repeatedly. But for Disney, every time it is watched everything is the same as they have a standardized form. They have been made into movies. This is not in the case of oral storytelling by a grandmother. She may add or make changes according to her mood. Without performance there is no passing down oral forms from generation to generation. This is the concept that excites me. We have been working on it for four years now.
Q:UNESCO, CIIL and Sangeet Natak Akademi are partners in the Listener’s Festival of Orality.
Ans: UNESCO takes keen interest in preservation of language that is why they are collaborative partners. Old Manipuri language as in the songs sung along by Pena balladeers is an endangered language, so we will do a program about it in the festival. The question and challenge of how do we develop digital resources is taken up at a panel organized by CIIL, with the participation of UNESCO. Our partner Tantha is videotaping the entire festival and we will send these documents files to the University of North Texas where we already have a collection of Imasi Foundation documents. All these performances and discussions need to be preserved for future generations and for universal scholarship. That is why UNESCO is taking interest in The Listener.CIIL is taking the initiative of bringing Prof. Shobhana Chelliah and Mary Burke from University of North Texas and Indiana University.  They will help discuss: How does one record a language for preservation?  What kind of access do we give people and then who does tribal heritage belong to? Whose heritage is it, anyway? If it is not for the tribes they would not have been preserved; they have been the custodians.  So we are going to have a discussion about that as a part of the festival program.
Q : You are giving a focus in North East India, any reason ?
Ans : Particularly in North East India where there is a huge tribal population, but also all over the world, the preservation and continuation of tribal heritage is a big concern. There might be differences in performance but the common and shared concern is how to preserve them. Every week a language dies, every week one language disappears. Each language represents a unique perspective and view of the world. That is every language has words that are untranslatable into other languages. When we lose a language, one window to reality, one point of view of one culture dies, and the window closes.  So what is going to happen to our languages?  Everything is globalizing, every signboard in Imphal is written in English. With globalization and homogenization of culture through Disney, through the Pizza Hut we now have in Moirangkhom, what do we lose? As a curator starting with my exhibitions in the US, I have always been focusing on the role and future of local and regional cultures in the age of interconnected globalization. And we share so much!
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