Sandip Roy: How Shillong's cosmopolitanism is rooted in the local

But as a writer I am embarrassed to admit I bought no books at the Shillong Literary Festival in November. My excuse was books are heavy, I was already carrying some and there was no room in my luggage. However I managed to find room for some very unliterary goodies—bottles of fruit wine carefully swaddled in T-shirts and socks.

I felt like a literary traitor. Every year I go to the Kolkata Book Fair, the world’s largest non-trade book fair. And every year I make snide remarks about how the lines for the food stalls selling biryani and fish fries are longer and busier than the lines to get into the bookstores. Now I was one of those people.

But then I remembered what IAS officer and Meghalaya commissioner D. Vijay Kumar had said at the opening of the Shillong Literary Festival. He said post-covid, the state decided the way it wanted to revive its economy was to focus on the “creative economy." The literary festival was part of it, as were the Chief Minister’s Meghalaya Grassroots Music Program (CMMGMP), films, design and food. And fruit wine.

As I walked to the festival venue past Ward’s Lake and cherry trees in pastel bloom, the food stalls were just setting up but smiling vendors already offered samples of fruit wine. “It’s barely 10 in the morning," I protested feebly. “It’s just a sample," John, a beaming young man replied as he offered a swig of dark sohiong or Meghalaya blackberry wine. It was surely wine o’clock somewhere.

Sohiong oak reserve promised “dark berry notes with a smooth finish" while the bayberry wine claimed it would deliver a “tangy berry burst and earthy depth." It was a fruit bonanza—strawberry, guava, jamun, chikoo. Everything non-grape. Maryanne Hynniewta of The Little Haven winery told me her dream is to make wine even with the bhoot jholokia chilli. A little further down Mishmi Deb at The Taste of Shillong offered ice creams in local flavours—creamy Khasi rice, sweet-tart sohiong and the state’s famous golden turmeric.

Over at the literature festival stage, a Booker winner was about to begin speaking. But the ice cream was melting and needed my urgent attention.

At this time of the year the cherry blossom is in bloom in Shillong. A literature festival framed by pink cherry blossoms next to a placid lake under clear blue skies is fairytale enough. As Booker winner Banu Mushtaq said at the inauguration, “To stand in Shillong feels like walking into a page that has been quietly waiting for me." If that page also comes with blackberry wine and chicken with bamboo shoots so much the better.

Like every state blessed with forests and natural splendour, Meghalaya grapples with thorny issues of development—deforestation and mining, for example. But it’s still heartening to see a state trying to steep in its own creative juices in so many ways.

The Chief Minister’s Meghalaya Grassroots Music Program, started in 2022, funds young aspiring musicians for small gigs at cafes just to get an ecosystem going. It helps that the chief minister Conrad Sangma is himself a musician and likes to strum a guitar and belt out Summer of ’69 on occasion. The state also funds young filmmakers. It has its own OTT platform Hello Meghalaya. At the festival, Sangma wondered whether there could be a writing competition next time to encourage more local voices and local stories.

National award-winning filmmaker Dominic Sangma grew up in the hills of Meghalaya. His school was on the top of a mountain. Every day as he went uphill he would tell himself stories to while away the time. “I wanted to go to Mumbai to make films," he said during a discussion. “After I went to the film institute, I wanted to go back home to tell stories of my people for the world."

Now those stories are in bloom. Like the cherry blossom. The cherry trees were planted here as part of a massive beautification drive in the late 1970s. These days there’s a Cherry Blossom Festival every autumn. Shillong, Scotland of the East, is now a sakura city like Kyoto in Japan. It all feels cosmopolitan in a way many big Indian cities do not.

Elsewhere, it’s all about global brands. Here it’s a cosmopolitanism that tries to remain rooted in the local. At Shad Skye, a plush bar overlooking the hustle of Police Bazar in central Shillong, the literary festival’s opening party had cocktails with familiar names like gin sling and Old Fashioned. But the bartender said they also had local infusions from Meghalaya and its sister states—drinks infused with black sesame, pinewood bitters, Khasi mandarin, bamboo shoot. They were probably hesitant to offer them at the reception, unsure how guests from other parts of the world would take to whisky with black rice.

Downstairs from Shad Skye, Nonna Mei, a new Italian restaurant, serves Italian food but with a local touch. Even the name brings together an Italian grandmother and a Khasi one though there is no real heart-warming grandmothers meeting story here. But it’s a bold way to imagine Italian food. The sweet baby carrots came roasted on a bed of mash but instead of the usual cheese, it was the local staple, khar. The waiter warned me that the blood sausage on the pizza might be an acquired taste and the red chillies would be hot. As for the negroni, he asked hesitantly “Are you okay with pork?" It’s a smoked pork negroni. For those who do not eat pork there is Lakadong turmeric. My drink arrives—a deep ruby red with a jaunty curl of crispy pork skin as garnish.

This is a very different Shillong from the town I knew on holidays as a child when Bengali families would arrive en masse to see Elephant Falls and eat pineapple soufflé at the very venerable Pinewood Hotel where a log fire burned in the fireplace. That Shillong was so picture-perfect and wholesome one could imagine it as an Enid Blyton story setting. This Shillong is flaunting the funkiness that was once kept discreetly hidden away from the “mainland". Now its infusing its cocktails with it. And fermenting its fruits.

It’s not happened organically. Wine-making is as old as the hills. Hynniewta of The Little Haven winery says her mother-in-law would make wine at home from the excess fruit in their backyard. But it was never quite legalised. In 1947 one Captain Douglas Hunt set up a winery for Mawphlang cherry wine and brandy. But this hobbyist wine has now been developed into a bona-fide tourist attraction. Excise rules were amended to legalise production and sale of homemade wines. Now the rice beer of Garo Hills can be bottled, canned and sold with smart labels at places like the lit fest. Bitchi, the rice beer, even has a GI tag. The state just extended VAT exemption on its fruit wine to 10 years to boost production. Wine tourism, like the Cherry Blossom Festival, is a thing. But it can be too much of a good thing.

Just as I feared, thanks to my bottles, I was over my allowed weight. The airline staff at the tiny Shillong airport were sympathetic but firm. “But I can’t take the wine out," I said sadly imagining myself sitting at the airport and drinking a bottle of Himalayan dark cherry wine aka te.gisim.

“Isn’t there a book or something you could take out?" she asked.

And that’s just what I did. As I returned from a lit fest, the books made room for wine in my luggage.

But then again they were all fruits of the same creative economy.

Cult Friction is a fortnightly column on issues we keep rubbing up against.

Sandip Roy is a writer, journalist and radio host. He posts @sandipr