| Sumario: | Standing at the intersection of social science research and poetic musings on the flux and flurry of life, this book vividly captures the multifarious problems that India’s North East encounters as it comes into contact with the forces of modernization and change. Organised in two parts, the first part focuses on the economic crisis that plagues the Northeastern states, the spread of Christianity, and Khasi men’s movement against matriliny. The second part contains fifty-two ‘stories’ in verse on a variety of subjects ranging from the gender question to environmental degradation, and problems faced by the Northeast diaspora in India’s capital city. While the book argues for a more nuanced reading of the issues examined, it also questions the way in which the North East and its people are represented, the model of development adopted, and ability of the much-hyped ‘Look East Policy’ to benefit the heavily militarized and infrastructure starved region. What is also remarkable about this book is the novelty in its approach. By combining different theoretical perspectives and genres of writing, it not only succeeds in bringing together different sets of issues within a single cover, but also lucidly communicates the angst and trauma, dreams and aspirations of a people/s long viewed as the cultural and peripheral ‘other’.
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