Guwahati: Women authors have contributed immensely in enriching modern Assamese literature and now 11 short stories by some eminent authors have been translated and compiled in a new book.
Echoes from the Valley: Stories by Assamese Women Writers represent evolving trends in the short story genre of modern literature and has been translated and compiled by journalist Parbina Rashid.
“After sifting through hundreds of stories, I zeroed in on these 11, not because the others were any less in terms of literary value, but because these when put together completed the picture of an intriguing culture,” she says.
This anthology is an attempt to understand the evolution of women in Assamese society through the eyes of these 11 writers, starting from Sneha Devi, who wrote in the first half of the 20th century to Nirupama Borgohain, Indira Goswami followed by Arupa Patangia Kalita, Rita Chowdhury, Anuradha Sarma Pujari to young writers like Moushumi Kandali and Juri Borah Borgohain.
“Keeping the central theme as woman and her struggle, both within and without, these stories have managed to trace how women have developed their consciousness about themselves as individuals,” Rashid says.
As the restricted ‘woman’s space’ in the family and the society has gone through a slow but gradual evolution over the years, these selected stories are put under three sub-heads to give a particular direction to that movement – mute yesterday, transitional today and abstract tomorrow.
“These stories may have been written by three generations of authors and represent several decades of socio-cultural scenario of Assam but I have tried to maintain a connection between the old and new, without the generation gap becoming too prominent,” Rashid says.
Mute yesterday represents Assamese society from the 1950s to the 80s, a period when women paid a heavy price at the altar of customs and traditions and the stories include Sneha Devi’s Katha aasil (Let’s Talk), Indira Goswami’s Sanskar (Purification) and Nirupama Borgohain’s Midasar Tragedy (Midas’ Tragedy).
The second category, ‘transitional today’ focuses on the latter half of the last century when customs and traditions still played an important role but the women protagonists of this period were confident enough to protest against injustice – both subtly and sometimes with aggression.
The stories included in this section are Rita Chowdhury’s Aadha (An Incomplete Story), Anuradha Sarma Pujari’s Banphoolar Keitaman Din as (A few days in Banphool’s life), Monikuntala Bhattacharjya’s Kachar Pyramid (The Glass Pyramid) and Arupa Patangia’s The Two Sides of the Hillock.
The third category ‘abstract tomorrow’ comprises stories from 2000 onwards by young emerging writers who are not afraid to experiment with either the narrative or the subject.
The stories included in this category are Anuradha Gogoi’s Haath (The Hand), Moushumi Kandali’s Kalindi Tumar Krishna Jalrakhi (Kalindi, Your black currents), Geetali Borah’s Darialit Jonak (The Moonlight) and Juri Borah Borgohain’s Parthivi (Urge).
Asam Sahitya Sabha president and Sahitya Akademi award winning author Dhruba Jyoti Borah says the stories in the book have an universal human appeal.
Author and editor of Assamese weekly Asom Bani Dileep Chandan says the book is a testimony to the contribution of women writers to the prose genre in Assamese literature and is sure to carve its own place in the literary arena. (PTI)
