Members of Writers Collective seen with the winners of the Short Story Writing Competition organised as part of the NLF 2025 and others on December 13. (Photo by Jabu Krocha)

‘Distinctive feature of NLF is embracing all forms of creative self-expression’

Asserting that literature is essentially a reflection of life and the most quintessential way in which human beings express their emotions, Dr Vizovono Elizabeth, General Secretary of Writers Collective Kohima remarked that the distinctive feature of Nagaland Literature Festival (NLF) is embracing all forms of creative self-expression and storytelling.

Delivering the way forward at the closing ceremony of the 5th Edition of Nagaland Literature Festival at Don Bosco Higher Secondary School Kohima on December 13, she observed that the mushrooming of literature festivals across India on big scales has become like a ‘fashion’. NLF, she added is still a very small community, and has a long way to go, but stated belief that “it is very special because it is relevant to our own context.”

She echoed the vision of the Writers’ Collective, and expressed that, “the focus is not about trying to do what other people are doing, it is not about trying to compete or be at par with others, but it is more importantly about nurturing our own talents and providing a platform especially for the young, aspiring and upcoming creative artists.”

Even while keeping it very local, she stated that they were encouraged by the support and the positive response from so many unexpected supporters drawing entries even from the international level for its short story & poetry writing competition.

Participants of the Reading Session ‘Unraveling the magic of words’ seen with Easterine Kire. (Photo by Jabu Krocha)

In this regard, she exuded hope that “the seeds that we are sowing are slowly growing and that we will continue to grow together.” She reiterated that the distinctive feature of NLF “is not just a celebration of established and now popular authors, but more importantly, it is a platform and a safe space for new and upcoming writers and creative artists.”

Not all participants are writers either, she further highlighted while revealing that, “we also have very avid readers and supporters of literature taking active part and working along with us.” Terming this as “truly wholesome”, she said that literature would be meaningless without the readers.

Looking ahead, she envisioned that they can go ahead together and continue to support, learn and grow together. Expressing that it is the dream of Writers Collective Kohima to nurture our own storytellers and provide platforms for their voices and stories to be heard, she urged the gathering to walk with them on this beautiful journey. “Let’s learn to do this by utilizing our God-given beautiful brains, not being controlled by AI, but using it only as a tool so that we do not lose our souls or our humanity”, she further articulated.

Highlights of the closing ceremony included prayer and poetry reading by Rev Azahto Kiba, Senior Pastor, New Life Church Kohima & Poet, special number by Richard Ezung and Reading of short story excerpts by Winners of NLF 2025 Short Story Writing Competition, Visemenuo Sekhose and Imnajungshi Jamir. Shyamolima Saikia was adjudged third in the competition. In the poetry writing competition, Temjenwapang Jamir won first prize while Christabel Damien and Songaror Horam won second and third prize respectively. Earlier in the day, a reading session called “Unraveling the Magic of Words” was moderated by the President of Writers Collective, Vishü Rita Krocha. The readers included K. Roselyn Miachieo, Vibeituonuo Kuotsu Solo, Imlikokla Jamir, Kelhukiesie Savino, Machipeibo Zeliang, Elongshila Jamir, Avinuo Kire, Menang Longkumer and Inaholi Asumi. 5th Edition of Nagaland Literature Festival concludes | MorungExpress | morungexpress.com

Read More........→January 01, 2026 Categories: Festival,India,Media

Samuel J Bennett, Nottingham Trent University

Within the first notes of many classic Christmas songs, we’re transported directly to the festive season. Why is it that it’s these particular pieces of music that get us thinking of the holidays?

In his book Music’s Meanings, the popular music researcher Philip Tagg explores the ways in which we as listeners construe the music that we hear. Tagg applies semiotics, the study of how we interpret signs in the world around us, to music. These signs may be viewed differently by different people and may change their meaning over time.

To illustrate this concept, Tagg cites the example of the pedal guitar, originally drawn from Hawaiian musical tradition and carrying connotations of the islands. Eventually this instrument found its way into country music, so successfully that Tagg argues at this point, we are likely to immediately think of country music when hearing the instrument, without the concept of Hawaii ever crossing our minds.

As the pedal guitar may place us immediately within the realm of country music, there is one instrument that will likely do the same for Christmas – sleigh bells.

Sleigh bells

From light orchestral pieces such as Prokofiev’s Troika (1933), right through to Ariana Grande’s Santa Tell Me (2014), sleigh bells have long acted as convenient shorthand for composers to tell their listeners that this piece belongs to the Christmas canon.

The reasons for this link stem from the non-musical world. We associate Christmas with the winter season and snowy weather. Sleighs, through their use as transport in such weather, developed a direct associative link with Christmas, and as a result, so did the bells used to warn pedestrians of their approach. As with Tagg’s pedal guitar example, we’ve reached the point where we generally link sleigh bells directly with the concept of Christmas, rather than thinking of the intermediary idea of the sleigh at all.

Santa Tell Me uses sleigh bells to evoke a Christmassy sound.

There’s a link to the wider instrument family of bells too. Through the practice of churches ringing out their bells, particularly in celebration of the birth of Christ, larger bells have also developed a presence, not only in Christmas music, but in Christmas decorations and art.

Last year, the UK Official Charts Company published a list of the “top 40 most-streamed Christmas songs”. If you were to listen to the list, you’d find bell-like sounds in the majority of them, from the glockenspiel-like introduction of Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You (1994) to the synthesised tubular bells of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas (1984).

There are other musical elements which help spread the Christmas cheer, from lyrical melodies to strident brass parts. Most of these elements though, have one thing in common. They aren’t modern sounds, or particularly common in modern pop music, and instead, they remind us of the past.

The nostalgia of Christmas

Christmas is a nostalgic holiday, in more ways than one. The word “nostalgia” initially referred to a type of homesickness, rather than the fond remembrance of a hazy past time that we more commonly use it to refer to now. But both senses of the word can be used to describe the feelings we associate with Christmas.

It’s a time where many of us travel home to family, taking not only a geographical trip, but a temporal one, immersing ourselves in a world of well-worn tradition and familiarity, where the pace of our day-to-day life doesn’t apply.

Artists know this, feeding our nostalgia through music, lyrics and visuals which evoke the past. This is possibly why most Christmas albums consist of interpretations of past holiday classics, rather than original material. It’s a straightforward appeal to the nostalgic and the familiar; if we already know a song, it’s easier to immediately latch on to this new recording. Some artists though, take the nostalgia trip one step further, emulating what is arguably the ultimate Christmas style of music – the easy listening crooner song.

Billie Eilish performs Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas in 2023.

Whether it’s Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole, the warmth of a crooning voice nestled among light orchestral instrumentation has become inextricably linked with Christmas. It’s a sound that, unless you have a personal affinity with the style, you’re unlikely to hear much outside of the festive season.

It’s telling that when Billie Eilish performed a version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas on Saturday Night Live in 2023, she eschewed her usual synthesised sounds in favour of a traditional trio of piano, drums and upright bass, and delivered the vocal in a gentle, warming tone. It all conspires to make us think of some imagined, simpler past, with chestnuts by the fire and picturesque snow settling outside.

Finally, we return to that list of the most-streamed Christmas songs. There’s one artist, and indeed one album, that makes the top 20 with two entries – Michael Bublé, with his 2011 album Christmas. Checking this album against our list of Christmas musical elements reveals a clean sweep. It’s crooned from top to bottom, features lightly orchestrated versions of classic Christmas songs, and yes, includes sleigh bells. It doesn’t get much more Christmassy than that.

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Samuel J Bennett, Senior Lecturer in Music Production, Nottingham Trent University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.