RIP Angel Chakma. More stories from the North-East

News from across India and the world has overwhelmed the media — and an incident from December has quietly vanished from the headlines. Barely a month back, a young man from Tripura, Angel Chakma died as a result of wounds he suffered during an attack by thugs in Dehradun, putting the focus back on the discrimination that many from the North-East continue to face whenever they step out of their safe spaces, be it at home or in the areas where they now happen to live.

Angel Chakma appears to have been forgotten.

Yet, in this short space of time — the Trumpian threat to Greenland, a Canadian Premier building a strategic partnership with China, the strange spectacle of the legal struggle of stray dogs in India and one of their own, the peace dog Aloka trotting with Buddhist monks in the US — all these incidents have taken over the front pages, headlines and social media reels that inform and define us these days.

But apart from the angry and anguished calls for justice, the rage that pours from newspaper columns and studio discussions, which seem to have limited impact on people going about their daily lives (not to speak of governments), there are different responses shared by people from the region on a daily basis.

Many of them have either embedded themselves in other states and also are seen or heard on a regular basis. They are visible because they are good at what they do in their chosen professions.

They include teachers and sportspersons, singers and artists, chefs, actors, film directors and writers. I think of two here who are making a mark. They don't have to self-advertise or hit the streets, because their chosen works are statements in themselves.

I met Dhiraj Rabha for the first time last year. He's a young installation artist from Assam's Goalpara district, just 30, with a smiling countenance and a relaxed air. Behind that exterior, lies a complex story, rooted in a troubled past that is reflective of the challenges that Assam itself faced in the 1990s and 2002. In the past years, Dhiraj has made a mark at Goa's Serendipity Festival, in the Bengal Biennale, in an intense workshop held in Guwahati on a boat on the Brahmaputra and on land.

Most recently, we met at the Kochi Biennale which draws artists from across the world, not just India or South Asia, over a three-month period. Lakhs of visitors including artists, art connoisseurs and tourists, meet, mingle and share experiences as they converse and learn from each other.

Dhiraj's father Dhananjay Rabha was a member of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the group that espoused separation from India and was subsequently banned by the Central government.

After 14 years or so in ULFA, with both his children having been born in exile, Dhananjay returned in a wave of surrenders by former rebels. He and his family were given space in a camp set up in rural Goalpara. They never received any financial compensation and it is the only home that Dhiraj has known and which has shaped his life and thinking.

Most of his experiences that have translated into art have been influenced both by the suffering that his mother, Kaushalya, went through and the 25 years that he's been based in the camp. She was the one who fled from home to home, from one hiding space to another, protecting her small children when the security forces came hunting for them.

Dhiraj says, with a gentle laugh, that his elder sister is affectionately called Army buri (old woman) because she was born during such a time of flight and fear. Their living place is simply known locally as the SULFA (Surrendered ULFA) camp.

On a whim, Dhiraj, who was always interested in drawing, applied at the Santiniketan in West Bengal and got admission to a four-year undergraduate course followed by two years in a master's programme.

He made friends, honed in-born talent and learned new skills. As he developed the idea of an installation based on his life experience, he decided to hold the first exhibition in the camp among the people who were his neighbours and friends.

People from the village, who often wondered what lay behind those walls, and former camp inmates came to watch. The audience was captivated, deeply moved. In the early years, he says, there were some 400 people in that camp, today there are barely four families.

As he researched the project, poetically called The Quiet Weight of Shadows, he extensively interviewed former militants to understand their lives and found that their stories were a resistance to and a contradiction of imposed narratives by the State and the establishment media. “Many left to join (ULFA) at the time out of emotion, they had no idea about the ideology, they left because others were going and risking their lives, they had no political convictions,” he remarked, acknowledging that those who took up arms “at times went out of control.”

As a visual and installation storyteller, Dhiraj's powerful work is not just a reflection on the past but a multi-layered effort to address the trauma of those times. A field of glowing, speaking, carnivorous flowers shares history and underlines the point that revolutions and states devour their own while a broken and burnt house could be representative of the loss of memory and the harm.

“I wanted to collect stories, I did not try to apportion blame or say what is right and wrong — there are enough people doing that.” He is now thinking about a new project — he does not want to be stuck with a “ULFA” artist tag — and is looking at how greedy corporate and political forces have cast covetous eyes on the rich natural resources (especially minerals) of the North-East.

Others too are making different statements.

In Goa, there's Monalisa Baruah and her husband Saurav, whose restaurant Soul Chef — which serves North-East cuisine — has been a runaway hit for over a decade.

Through nuanced and, at times, spicy entrees and dishes that include black sesame chicken, the beloved masor tenga (Assamese sour fish in a tomato gravy), the smoked pork with bamboo shoots, the savoury Shillong pork noodles and the aromatic joha rice of Assam, Monalisa has brought the region on a platter to Goa.

In the spirit of transparency, I will say that she’s my niece and I’m exceptionally proud of her.

Also, please note, Soul Chef serves no dal.