Papon on the destructive Assam floods: Every year we dread them

Singer Papon was at the Cannes film festival, representing northeast India, and stressed about the floods back home in Assam at the same time. Connecting with us from France, he confesses that the destruction caused is ‘very disturbing’.

“We’ve been experiencing floods since childhood. It affects us and this happens every year. So every year, we dread the fact that there will be floods and we prepare to overcome them,” says the 46-year-old, adding his family is stuck too.

He shares, “Even right now, while I’m in France my family is in Assam dealing with the flood and the water that has entered in our house as we speak.”

While he grapples with the personal crisis, representing the country on a global level is something he feels deeply about. Papon says, “This year, India being the country of honour at the Cannes Film Festival is an opportunity through which the Indian Government is aggressively making efforts to get a foothold and understand its space in world cinema. I was invited by the Minister of Culture to represent Assam and be the bridge between Assam and outside to exchange ideas and more importantly to try and spread the word and bring film tourism to Assam. It was an honour to be asked to represent the state and the country at Cannes.”

But it wasn’t music only that he got to talk to people about there. He says he has been producing two films over the past four years. “Both are a work in progress, but the teasers of my films were presented at the Indian pavilion. I got a lot of encouragement from the people who saw the footage and the visuals. I am weaving the film with music and representing the heritage, culture, fabrics and beliefs of the land. One movie is called The Mystical Brahmaputra- A Musical story and the other is called Land of Sacred Beats,” he shares.