Random thoughts at the end of 2014

Another year is coming to an end but I can't get over the senselessness of much that happened in the year. 

Munin Barkataki award 2014

GUWAHATI, Dec 27 2014 – The Munin Barkataki Memorial Trust has announced the ‘Munin Barkataki Award’ for ther year 2014. This year the award has been given jointly to Tulika Saikia for her novel Charixal Gosanir Tez and Dibyajyoti Bora for his poetry collection Topani respectively. The awards will be presented in a special function as a part of the Birth Centenary Celebration of Munin Barkataki to be held on February 28, 2015. 

Chilean Flavours

A description of a wedding in Chile between a Chilean with long dark hair and a German blonde on crutches, and much more...

The fact that the wedding was going to be in Chile in early December, in the beginning of summer there, was already something special. Having to look for summer clothes to take along before leaving shivering cold Germany felt a little weird. But it seemed a pleasant thought to be able to have a few warm summer days even in the middle of  'our' winter.

Landing in Chile reminded me of how different the whole country looked from the other places I knew -- vast empty spaces with gorgeous landscapes and colours in between densely populated cities. No matter where one was, one did not need to go far to get a view of the snow-capped Andes in one direction and the rising waves of the Pacific on the other. This country has it all from semi-equatorial deserts and tropical areas in the north, through idyllic temperate zones to the Patagonian ice fields of the Antarctic south...

Afghanistan revisited...

Ten years after my first visit to Afghanistan in 2004, there is nothing spectacular to report. The country limps forward, the bombs and the natural disasters notwithstanding. Whether the situation there is better today than it was ten years back is hard to say. 

How to get things done in India

Coming home always brings with it new revelations. Living in Germany I had foolishly begun to expect that things function everywhere as they should as a matter of course -- coming home to Guwahati and having to go to renew my driving license in the DTO office recently cleared my head of many of those illusions.  Last year I had a similar experience trying to get the necessary permission to use the State Archives at Dispur. About what exactly happened on those occasions, some other time, right now I just want to list, for your convenience, some ways (read, tricks) to get things done here.

The Dibrugarh conference: much ado about nothing

The occasion was the annual congress of the anthropologists in the country, hosted by the Dibrugarh University in February. Hundreds of anthropologists from all parts of the country and abroad were expected to attend. I am a life member of the INCAA, but had never attended a Congress. Since the venue was nearby in Dibrugarh, I decided to attend.

Another conference on the Northeast, this time in Delhi

The Northeast is making the news in Delhi for all the wrong reasons these days; but our little conference on the Northeast titled 'Diversities and Connections: Reconsidering ethnic boundaries in Northeast India ' at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) at Teenmurti on the 6th and 7th Feb. 2014 gave us some reason to cheer.

Munin Barkotoki Awards, 2013

GUWAHATI, Dec 31. 2013 – The Munin Barkotoki Memorial Trust has announced the Munin Barkotoki Award for the year 2013. Poet Mridul Haloi gets the award for his collection of poems Akole Aaso Kushale Aaso and story writer Apu Bharadwaj gets the award for his story collection Mostiskar Cinema. The cash amount for the award has been increased to Rs 40,000 said a press release. 


Three other promising writers to be honoured by the trust include Suresh Ranjan Goduka for his poem collection Eta Sadhukothar Arombhani, Chandana Pathak for her story collection Antir Goli and Pankaj Kumar Dutta for his story collection Fugu Maasor Maasuoi. Altogether 35 writers have been awarded the Munin Barkotoki Award since 1995, said a press statement.