Description

In her new book, Inakali Assumi has attempted a recreation of the spirit of a Sümi tradition, now no longer in practice. It is the Ìsǘ Le, which she translates as this morning’s songs. In addition, she calls it songs about the mundane. But her poems are far from mundane. A more acceptable translation of Ìsǘ Le, also offered by the poet, is ‘songs about everyday activities’. Beginning with the first poem, which is based on the first day of the week, Sunday, and echoes her father’s words, ‘You must never be sad on a Sunday’, the volume of poems offers glimpses into a bright and happy childhood, a time of life that is remembered in verse. — Easterine Kire

Author’s Note: The Sümi ancestors had an exceptional kind of folk songs called Ìsǘ Le, which were songs about everyday activities; songs sung along the way to the field and while going forth to hunting expeditions. These were songs about simple moments of joy and sorrow surrounding daily experiences and activities. Though the early history of the Sümis were not written by themselves and were documented by the colonisers and outsiders, these folk songs were a proof that they were documenting their lives in the only way they knew, that is, through their songs. Drawing inspiration from this, the book is titled, Ìsü Le: Songs of Ordinary Days.

Inakali Assumi is an author, researcher, and an educator. She has a PhD in English literature. She is actively involved in research related to revival and preservation of vulnerable cultural heritage, particularly folk songs, and has been awarded the Samvaad Fellowship enabled by Tata Steel Foundation in 2022. Her short story, ‘The Yellow Dress’ has been included in the post-graduate course of the Department of English at St Joseph University, Nagaland. Some of her books are Voices from the Forgotten Village, a novel; The Yellow Dress, a collection of short stories; and a Sümi drama, titled Niphu lo Athi Kütsüghü Potigha Ighi (The Arrival of Rice Mill in Our Village: A Three Act Drama in Sümi), which is the first drama written in Sümi dialect. Her works have been a subject of research by young scholars for their cultural relevance. She has directed and produced a documentary film, A Documentation of Vanishing Sümi Folksongs, which showcases a number of ancestral Sümi folk songs almost on the verge of extinction with no folk singers to carry them forth.

Reviews

Inakali Assumi in an interview with Akishe L Jakha in Outlook

“These folk songs have a particular musical tone to them, and stepping into that, poem 11 in the book is translated into Sumi and recorded in a studio. So, there is a sense of contemporality in the body and text, but an ancient tune in how the poem is composed. This book is a way of paying tribute to the creativity of my ancestors, and what connects the past and Isu Le is that we are all engaging in singing and writing about our everyday experiences. In the book, there are three sections. The entire book is like one day with three sections: morning songs, afternoon songs, and evening songs. Each section reflects the time, activities, and mundaneness of a single ordinary day; this makes the composition of the book stand out and carries the essence of our literary history.”

From the Book

II

This morning,
when I heard my neighbour’s spade
rub against the earth outside my house,
I thought of my mother’s garden.

The grounding perfume,
and the wild weed’s breath,
made me think of her warmth.

Sometimes home is a fragrance,
warm and dear.

IV

This morning,
I woke up
and lingered in a quiet pause,
thinking of boiling potatoes
with herbs from my mother’s garden.
Oh, they would taste wonderful
with smoked meat curry from last night.

I woke up,
eager to greet
the sweet adventures
of daylight.

V

This morning,
I woke up
next to my cat,
a gorgeous black cat.
How she slept in stillness,
unbothered by the murmurs of the world.
I envied her,
and thought to myself
that I could be a black cat someday,
unaware of weary thoughts
and the weight of the mundane,
just be fed and pampered.

X

This morning,
I woke up
to the warmth of my father’s voice
speaking from the veranda.
My father’s voice,
like a woollen blanket on a cold winter day,
that wraps my weary soul.

In his voice I felt the warmth of home.
Some of us live for such warmth, don’t we?

XX

This morning,
I called my sister,
to tell her
about the beautiful dream
I had of her last night.

Beautiful dreams should be told
in the morning.

The day will bloom brighter,
and the heart, happier.

A good dream makes you
survive a long prosaic day.

XXIV

This morning,
when I woke up,
spring was gone.
It put all the little flowers
in my mother’s garden in slumber
and left, to complete the chores undone.
The little ones would only wake,
when spring comes calling,
and when all her chores are done.

XXVII

This afternoon,
I felt the first touch
of summer in my skin.
The summer sun shone bright
over my neighbour’s green tin roof.
It could have melted the metal.
The sky was at once fiery
and shone in all its glory,
And, in utmost confusion,
poured raindrops on my doorstep,
releasing loamy scent from the thirsty land.

XXXVI

This afternoon’s yellow sky,
with patches of fading clouds
looked like my mother’s belly.
Her skin, like a worn balloon
stretched to make room for a life.

My mother’s bosom —
our sky-like playground.

When I was little,
I often asked mother
why her belly looked different.
Mine, as smooth as
grandmother’s clean mud floor.
Her’s, a zigzag passage that held
untold stories people were bored of listening to.
Mother simply smiled
caressing my hair.

She knew
one day, I would be her.

XLI

Last evening,
I strode into an unfamiliar house.
An empty space,
waiting for stories to be written.
I lighted the hearth
and yet it was as cold as mountain wind
unlike my cradle-home
where the hearth warms up the entire room.
This home that I call my own,
where days are spent in silence
and where thoughts are louder than
the rustling trees outside my kitchen.

This home that starves from my father’s voice
and my mother’s nourishing hands.

XLII

This evening,
my neighbour,
burning the fallen autumn leaves
outside my window,
reminded me
of home.