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Seasons of Life
A film by Dolly Kikon
Speakers
11 minutes 47 seconds/ Lotha Naga with English subtitles/ 2020
Director and Producer: Dolly Kikon
Editor: Hirak Jyoti Pathak
Sound: Trihangku Lakhar
Music: Ren Merry
Cinematographers: P. Menangnichet and Mhademo Kikon
Synopsis:
On a summer morning in August, Tsumungi and Pithunglo are off to the bamboo groves in the forests of Ralan, a village in Wokha District of Nagaland. They call out to Yanchano to join them to harvest fresh bamboo shoots along with them. They are a team.
Thousands of women in Northeast India forage and ferment food such as herbs, beans, and tender bamboo shoot. The months for foraging tender bamboo shoot depends on the elevations in this part of the Himalayan region. Foragers from mountaintop villages enter the forest by June looking for tender shoots to harvest, while across the middle and lower elevation the bamboo shoot season extends until August.
Fermented bamboo shoot is a delicacy as well as an everyday staple for many communities across Northeast India. It is an integral part of the food culture and links the region to its Southeast Asian and East Asian neighbours. In Nagaland and its neighbouring states like Manipur, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya, Sikkim, and Mizoram, bamboo shoot is used in various forms: fresh, soaked in brine, and dried. As Pithunglo tells us, “Bambooshoot is like a spice to the Lotha Nagas.”
Seasons of Life follows Tsumungi, Pithunglo, and Yanchano, as they labour to forage and ferment tender bamboo shoot, a food item cherished across several Himalayan households in South Asia.
Part of PHYTOPIA, in collaboration with Science Gallery Bengaluru
Speakers
Dolly Kikon
Dolly Kikon is a Senior Lecturer in the Anthropology and Development Studies Program at the University of Melbourne. She received her PhD from the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University in 2013, and was a Post-Doctoral fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University from 2013-2015. Prior to that she received her Bachelors in Law (LLB) from the Faculty of Law at University of Delhi in 2001 and practised in the Supreme Court of India and the Gauhati High Court in Assam. Her legal advocacy work and research continue to focus on land ownership and resource management in Northeast India, including extra constitutional regulations like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (1958).
Connecting Reading:
On Dolly Kikon’s research leading up to the filming of Seasons of Life
