[Reader-list] 4th post: Conversations and Discussions

[Renee Lulam]

The screening of Sanjay Kak's Jashn-E-Azadi. Here at Shillong. In Assam Club
at Laban. Laban was one of the first colonial settlements, hence Laban,
meaning White. Students, scholars, academicians, writers, journalists,
aspiring filmakers and documentarians abound. From various communities in
Shillong -- Khasi, Assamese, Bengali, Karbi, Meitei, Adi, Mizo, Nepali,
Malyali...to mention ONLY a few. All based in Shillong. Post-screening
discussions took on various colours -- green, red, very very subtle shades
of what could be saffron, grey, black, white....all depending on personal
backgrounds and political persuasions. And paymasters.
For a while, being there, recording the discussions, listening to the
questions asked and answered, even those that tended towards downright
vapid, conversing with people, it was tempting to accept all this at face
value, to leave the surface unscratched, to ignore the very real
complexities that make up the Shillong milieu. Almost too tempting to
oversimplify things -- to allow one's self that Shillong is indeed
cosmopolitan and leave it at that, that this variety is allowed free equal
expression in different forms in its democratic and public spaces.
For a couple of hours there, it felt like it. Because at some level, that
discussion and that audience could happen only in Shillong.
As we pack up, later, Jules comments -- Here we are, in Laban, at Assam
Club, with Bengalis, discussing politics (in Kashmir)
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