Mamang Dai is an Indian poet, novelist, and journalist from Arunachal Pradesh who often explores the region's rich tribal folklore and ancient myths connected to nature. She sees mountains not just as landforms but as intrinsic to the collective identity of the people in Arunachal Pradesh. In her poems, nature is portrayed as both mystical and ordinary, with mountains forming a recurring motif that leads the reader to the area's primordial forests and the magical drumbeats of tribal traditions.

1. Mamang Dai is an Indian poet, novelist and journalist based in
Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh. She received Sahitya Academy
Award in 2017 for her novel The Black Hill.
Her family belongs to the Adi tribe. She completed her
schooling from Pine Mount School, Shillong, Meghalaya. She
completed her Bachelor of dairy in English literature from
Guwahati University, Assam.
She was selected for the IAS in 1979, but later she left the post
to pursue her career in journalism. She is the first woman from
her state to be selected for IAS. While working as a journalist,
she contributed to The Telegraph, Hindustan Times and The
Sentinel. She has also worked with in radio, as well as TV-AIR
and DDK, Itanagar. Where she worked as an anchor and
conducted interviews

2. Her non-fictional works include Arunachal Pradesh: The Hidden
Land (2003) and dairy farming : The Food of Arunachal (2004).
The Sky Queen and Once Upon a Moontime (2003) are
illustrated folklore texts by her. She published her first novel,
The Legends of Pensam, in 2006, which was followed by Stupid
Cupid (2008) and The Black Hill (2014) Escaping the Land
(2021). River Poems (2004), The Balm of Time (2008)
Hambreelmai's Loom (2014), Midsummer Survival Lyrics (2014)
are her poetry collection. The balm of time was also published
in Assamese as El Balsamo Del Ytiempo.

3. Dai’s poetic world is one of river, forest and mountain, a limpid
and lyrical reflection of the terrain of her home state. Nature
here is mysterious, verdant with myth, dense with sacred
memory. There is magic to be found everywhere: in the way
lilies “navigating on a heartbeat . . . are shooting up like
swordfish”, in the quiet equipoise of “cool bamboo,/ restored in
sunlight”, in the “speechless ardour” of mountains. And there is
no doubt whatsoever that “the river has a soul”.
Mamang Dai, celebrated writer from Arunachal Pradesh often glorifies nature
in its primordial form. She celebrates both the mystic as well as the
commonplace that nature radiates; exploring myths behind the ‘forces of
nature’, and thus leading the reader to ecological forests and magic drum
beats. Mountains form a leitmotif of several of her poems, and they lead us
to ancient myths and rich tribal folklore. Mountains are thus not a mere
landform, but an intrinsic part of the collective psyche of the people of
Arunachal Pradesh

4. “The Voice of the Mountain”
From where I sit on the high platform
I can see the ferry lights crossing
criss-crossing the big river.
I know the towns, the estuary mouth.
There, beyond the last bank
where the colour drains from heaven
I can outline the chapters of the world.
The other day a young man arrived from the village.
Because he could not speak
he brought a gift of fish
from the land of rivers.
It seems such acts are repeated:
We live in territories forever ancient and new,
and as we speak in changing languages.
I, also, leave my spear leaning by the tree
and try to make a sign.

5. I am an old man sipping the breeze
that is forever young.
In my life I have lived many lives.
My voice is sea waves and mountain peaks,
In the transfer of symbols
I am the chance syllable that orders the world
Instructed with history and miracles.
I am the desert and the rain.
The wild bird that sits in the west.
The past that recreates itself
and particles of life that clutch and cling
For thousands of years –
I know, I know these things
as rocks know, burning in the sun’s embrace,
about clouds, and sudden rain;
as I know a cloud is a cloud is a cloud,
A cloud is this uncertain pulse
that sits over my heart.

6. In the end the universe yields nothing
except a dream of permanence.
Peace is a falsity.
A moment of rest comes after long combat:
From the east the warrior returns
with the blood of peonies.
I am the child who died at the edge of the world,
the distance between end and hope.
The star diagram that fell from the sky,
The summer that makes men weep.
I am the woman lost in translation
who survives, with happiness to carry on.
I am the breath that opens the mouth of the canyon,
the sunlight on the tips of trees;
There, where the narrow gorge hastens the wind
I am the place where memory escapes
the myth of time,
I am the sleep in the mind of the mountain.