Politics draws lines, stories erase them: Subi Taba on her debut 'Tales from the Dawn-Lit Mountains'

Some books seep into us like mist over a ridge at dawn, quiet, steady, and unforgettable. Subi Taba’s debut, Tales from the Dawn-Lit Mountains, is one such book from Arunachal Pradesh that is making waves. Excerpts from an interview

Your stories let the land speak. Do you see yourself as its translator?

When I think of a story or any story in my mind, it starts with land, because the land is the primary realm where every story originates and is the constant backdrop of everyday life. I like playing with the imagery of geography. Sometimes the land speaks through people too — through the old woman grinding pumpkin seeds, or a shaman chanting beside the fireplace, and I try to record that listening.

Does working with soil and seeds shape how you write myths and memories?

Perhaps, because agriculture is an exhaustive field that encompasses many aspects of land, people and society. And in my stories, the setting is mostly rural villages, and agriculture is a very integral part of the culture that I grew up watching. All our myths and memories are intertwined with various facets of nature, community, and survival. 

Serpents, curses, transformations, do you ever feel the need to explain them to outsiders?

Sometimes, yes, to bridge cultural gaps. But I don’t feel the need to reduce or rationalise them. These stories are not meant to be decoded like puzzles; they are meant to be understood within a cultural context.

They carry the sensibilities and ethos of people who have lived in close relationship with their environment for centuries. In sharing these tales, I invite readers not just to interpret them, but to experience a worldview where serpents speak, curses carry weight, and transformations reveal deeper truths.

What does land mean to you, as a writer and as someone who works with it daily?

Land is a part of our ancestry. Every ridge holds a story; every river has a lineage. For me, land is both home and text — something you cultivate and read.

Working with it daily, I realise how alive it is, how watchful. Writing from the land is an act of gratitude and accountability.

In your book, forests and rivers feel like moral agents. Do you write them as characters in themselves?

I did not set out to write them as characters initially, but eventually they carved out a niche for themselves.

A priest preserving rituals amid fading traditions, do you see folklore as resistance?

Yes, folklore can be used as a resistance. Folklore is quiet resistance. It resists forgetting. In a world eager to rename and reclassify everything, oral traditions insist on remembering differently — through rhythm, repetition, and community. The priest in my story isn’t nostalgic; he’s safeguarding imagination itself. To remember in our own words is an act of defiance.

How do you reimagine women’s roles in myths that often silence them?

By returning them to the centre. Many myths were reshaped over time by male narrators, yet in their origins, women were the keepers of lore, the storytellers around hearths. I reimagine them not as passive symbols but as witnesses, healers, transgressors. Myths can evolve, just like rivers change course. Writing is my way of letting women reclaim the fire.

Do you think literature can remap Arunachal more truthfully than politics or borders?

Yes, because literature listens to what borders erase, the songs that travel across them, the languages that refuse to die. Politics draws lines; stories dissolve them. A folktale told in a Tagin village can echo in a Monpa monastery or a Mishmi field. That fluidity is our truest map.

Silence is strong in your prose. Do you think silence has its own grammar?

Yes, silence punctuates meaning. In our oral traditions, pauses carry weight; they let memory breathe. Silence can hold mourning, reverence, or resistance. In my writing, I try to make silence visible — as a kind of syntax the land understands better than words.

If one image or sound from your book must stay with readers, which would you choose?

The image of the Puroik woman enslaved with a lappa in a small hut in the distant Puroik mountains, who is in a half-dream, half-prayer, half-hope. I hope that when she wakes up, she will find the courage to walk out of that life.