Indira Goswami and Women’s Empowerment

"The common thread in Indira Goswami’s immensely diverse and rich oeuvre is the concern for women. . . Despite the complex interstices, I see no contradictions—only a holistic expression of India’s many challenges to women’s empowerment and a gifted writer moulding them into creative forms," writes Malashri Lal

• Deepa Mehta’s Fire came many years later and was visually far too explicit about same sex love. Mehta’s next film, Water, appeared even further in time and resorted to locked stereotypes of Hindu widowhood. Indira Goswami had nuanced the widow’s deprivation of body, passion, emotion, and woven it into a perceptive text much ahead of the rest.
  
• Hindu patriarchal traditions have often got away with justifications about oppressive gender practice by claiming that “women are worshipped as goddesses”, so “what is there to complain about.” . . . Indira probes the causes, the rituals, the unquestioned “beliefs” which perpetuate oppression.
  
• Her tools for engendering social change were the written word, and later, the spoken address in public arena.
  

“I try to write from the direct experiences of my life. I only mould these experiences with my imagination.” Indira Goswami

The first impression upon seeing Indira Goswami is one of bedazzlement. A resplendent woman wrapped in an elegant red saree bordered in gold catches the eye. A cluster of listeners cling to her words. The soft spoken creative writer, Indira, is addressing the political causes of the marginalized and the disadvantaged. She speaks about the misguided youth in Assam, the widows of Vrindavan, the women labourers in industry. In her person, Indira seems clad in an aura of genteel privilege. Her dark eyes are intense with passion; her mobile expression and modulated voice enter into the crevices of experience of the weak and the dispossessed. There is commitment and conviction—she sees social evils as few women of her class do.

Indira Goswami, to my mind, interrogates several facets of women’s empowerment in India. Foremost among these are attitudes to girl children, marriage and widowhood. Indira’s life maps crucial transitions. Born in 1942 to Umakanta Goswami, she had the good fortune to receive a high quality education in Shillong. Married at a young age to Madhaven Raisom Ayengar, an engineer, she enjoyed happy matrimony for only eighteen months. Then tragedy struck. Ayengar died in a car accident in Kashmir and Indira found herself mentally and physically destabilized. In a moving autobiography, Adhalekha Dastaveja, published in 1988, Indira recalls how she shut herself in a small room in Goalpara and contemplated suicide, and how her only sustenance was the memory of a carefree childhood and the letters of her father. In other words, the privileged past seemed over and widowhood had cast a dark shadow on Indira’s self image even more than on her external circumstances. In some confusion she accepted a suggestion to choose a life in Vrindavan, the most traditional destination of bereft Hindu widows. It is not that Indira had no other possibilities. She recounts in her memoirs that two paths were before her: she could have proceeded to London, "that land of ancient Western tradition and culture" or she could move to Vrindavan, "the centre of ancient Hindu tradition and culture." It is important to remember that English education for women from upper class families had brought an easy familiarity with the British models of education and women’s lives. Widowhood was no stigma there, and a foreign locale could have, in a sense, “liberated” a woman from the stranglehold of orthodoxy in India. However, Indira went to the land of Braja.

Was this the right “choice” or was it imposed by a powerful internal monitor called “patriarchy”? Goswami spent two years amidst the Radhaswami sect widows in Vrindavan, entering their fold as a compassionate member but also as a researcher. The ensuing novel, Neel Kanthi Braja (trans by Prafulla Katoky as Shadow of Dark God, 1986), is an amazing narrative combining fact and fiction, autobiography and reflection. As Indira Goswami introduces the novel, “I have tried to show how the mental and physical state of a young widow takes a different shape and how this change affects her life after her widowhood.” Saudamini, the protagonist, is a thinly disguised mask of the author. She volunteers to take on severe deprivations of the body, a sort of self purification by which needs are so reduced that confrontations with life’s imperatives become inevitable. Despite caring parents, and a supportive community at most times, Saudamini agitatedly probes and digs as deep as possible into the meaning of widowhood. This is the crucial point to remember about the novel’s theme. Neel Kanthi Braja is about social attitudes and the inner consciousness of a woman who has been brought up to believe that widowhood is somehow her “fault” or her “destiny, and that she should undertake “penance.”

Saudamini accepts, analyses and finally rejects the construction of the widow stereotype—this is Indira’s message—and it is also Indira’s story. The message that is further pertinent to the empowerment agenda may be read through the tripartite presentation of three women in the novel: Saudamini and her acquaintances, Shashi and Mrinalini. One is the “kept” of a temple priest, derided for accepting this option in preference to “suffering” the fate of widowhood. That Shashi suffers more severely through the loveless attachment to an impotent priest and secretly harbours lesbian desire is sufficiently built into the storyboard but seldom highlighted by critics. To me it is important that Indira in 1986 had empathetically portrayed such emotions well ahead of their utterance in public space in India. Deepa Mehta’s Fire came many years later and was visually far too explicit about same sex love. Mehta’s next film, Water, appeared even further in time and resorted to locked stereotypes of Hindu widowhood. Indira Goswami had nuanced the widow’s deprivation of body, passion, emotion, and woven it into a perceptive text much ahead of the rest.

Saudamini’s other companion is Mrinalini, daughter of a temple owner who has fallen upon poor days due to mismanagement of his fortune. Here again is a topical theme—that of a woman’s economic dependence on the father and her subjection to his ill founded financial decisions. The temple is sold off—the scion (there is no female equivalent to the word!) of an ancient family is brought to penury through no fault of hers. The point I emphasize is that Indira Goswami speaks of the politics of social construction even when she is composing what appears to be material from her experience of a cultural milieu. It is not a personal widowhood that comprises the substance of her novel, but the attendant layers of the implications of this life-condition for various women.

Vrindavan is even today a site of gender discourse and hence I link Goswami’s narrative to what I observed during visits to an ashram called Amaar Baari. The Guild of Service has created a place for elderly widows abandoned by their families and tried to rehabilitate them by giving them the dignity of a place of their own. We addressed each woman as “Ma”, and asked a few questions. Almost all the women said they had been brought to Vrindavan by a “caring male relative” and then left with a promise that they will “soon be called home.” The invitation to return never came. In this period of timeless waiting, the fortunate ones discovered the collective identity of Amaar Bari, and found their individual talents and spaces. A vignette stands out in my memory. One Ma who looked close to eighty was asked if she would sing for us, “the visitors from Delhi.” As she hobbled up from her seat and gradually straightened her curved back, I wondered why we were putting her through this display. A faint tune emerged from her wizened lips and soon gathered strength and melody. Here hands started moving to the music, her body turned to dance postures, and in a few minutes, the music and the gestures had transported us to the world of spotlights and dance halls. Clearly she had received training-taleem—in these genres of entertainment. Whom had she sung and danced for? In return, what favours were given and under what terms? These were research questions unanswered and rendered irrelevant. We saw before us that Vrindavan still beckons widows, still offers refuge. But there is a difference. Civil society organizations are aware of the plight, and are active in bringing much more than sustenance to the widows: self worth and belonging.

Let me further say that Indira Goswami’s personal narratives and her fiction offer a carefully drawn continuum of social change. Goswami’s novel Chinnamastar Manuhto (trans. by Prashant Goswami as The Man From Chinnamasta, 2006) is worth considering in this context if only because the title in English draws attention to a male centered tale. Read it and one finds the core in the man’s devotion to the Goddess Kamakhya enshrined in her famous temple in Assam. According to popular mythology, this is one of the holiest of the pitha sthana, where an intimate part of Parvati’s dismembered body is lodged. By tradition, Kamakhya is all powerful—a contrast to the helpless widows of Vrindavan. The Goddess commands blood. Animal sacrifice—frequent and ceremonial—soaks into the temple grounds. Maddened devotees smear the blood on their forehead, dance in it, trance in it. This is Woman’s other Avatar—the commandeering authority. Indira Goswami places the story in the 1930’s but the sociological implications are absolutely current. Hindu patriarchal traditions have often got away with justifications about oppressive gender practice by claiming that “women are worshipped as goddesses”, so “what is there to complain about.” The tribute to the pedestal and the brutality at home are the contradictions that show up in social space today and have led to the widespread protest against domestic violence. Indira probes the causes, the rituals, the unquestioned “beliefs” which perpetuate oppression.

Who is the man from Chinnamasta—a wandering jattadhari with matted locks who tries to stop the animal sacrifice and arouse a more sensitive conscience of co-existence? Indira’s research into history and ethnography showed no religious sanction for the blood rituals. She was appalled by the orgies of the flesh and the celebrations of frenzy. The gentle author and the social activist came together to craft a novel that is a page turner. The distance between religion and ritual is subtly debated. The polemics are so embedded that one reads for story but takes away a message of respect for an environment of which a woman, Goddess Kamakhya, is the agent. Again I am amazed by Indira’s foresightedness. Ecofeminism, Green Peace and Animal Rights are relatively new slogans.

There are many more aspects to Indira Goswami’s “womanism” but instead of entering details let me try to sketch a pattern. As a young woman she found tragedy and pain whereas she was born to happiness and privilege. Performing an act of self-withdrawal, she came out stronger with the realization of a map of social problems relating to women. Her tools for engendering social change were the written word, and later, the spoken address in public arena. I don’t mean to codify Indira Goswami’s creative journey for no gifted writer “plans” a path as such, but for the readers and critics, a pattern stands out discernibly.

To me, Indira is a composite writer endowed with a remarkable felicity with language and expression. Says Indira, “The language, to me, is a velvet dress in which I endeavour to cover the restless soul in its journey through existence.” The restlessness springs from an urge to speak out her commitment to the causes of equity and justice. No wonder then that the Ramayana, that epical tale about moral dilemma, should attract her as the platform for contemporary debates. In Vrindavan she had bought a massive volume of Tulsidas's Ramayana which continues to hold a special place and inspire her study of the 11th century Assamese Ramayana by Sri Madhava Kandali. Goswami’s views published in Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra have been expanded by many seminar presentations. Lately when I contacted Indira Goswami for her views on Sita, she generously shared her thoughts on the use of mythological women characters in shaping current ideologies. For some years now Indira has been busy in trying to bring about a Peace process in Assam through the People's Consultative Group. That the militancy in Assam caused her to abandon her writing desk and accept the role of a mediator should come as no surprise.

In Delhi too Indira Goswami has been engaged with civil concerns. When the anti Sikh riots brought the city to shame in 1984, Indira’s personal and professional life was caught in turmoil. Indira was teaching at the University of Delhi and had a residence in Shakti Nagar. Her novel The Pages Stained With Blood captures the brutality and the distrust in the cityscape where the fugitives from justice and the perpetrators of crime are difficult to distinguish. To understand the complex nature of mercenary agents of crime, Indira even visited the infamous GB Road and spoke to the sex workers.

The common thread in Indira Goswami’s immensely diverse and rich oeuvre is the concern for women. In her person and in her work this is echoed multifariously. Despite the complex interstices, I see no contradictions—only a holistic expression of India’s many challenges to women’s empowerment and a gifted writer moulding them into creative forms.

© Malashri Lal. This essay may not be reproduced in any form without the prior permission of the author.

2008 Principal Prince Claus Award to Indira Goswami

Indian writer Indira Goswami (1942, Guwahati, Assam) will be presented with this year’s Principal Prince Claus Award of €100,000 on Wednesday, 3 December 2008, in the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ in Amsterdam.

Indira Goswami, in the judgement of the Prince Claus Award jury, is an outstanding writer who reveals the lived experience of ordinary people. Through powerful graphic descriptions and haunting images she shows how central the body is in human affairs, how political, religious and cultural systems are codified through the body; and how life process, gender, age, poverty and conflict are defined physically. A woman of remarkable insight and conviction, Indira Goswami (Mamoni Roisom Goswami as she is popularly known) is honoured for the unique quality of her writing, for identifying and expressing the inscription of cultural norms in the body, and for her influential social and cultural activism through literature. Read more

Indira Goswami, popularly known as Mamoni Raisom Goswami is one of the most celebrated writers in India. Born in 1942 she has published several creative and sholarly works in Assamese and English. The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker, regarded as a classic in Assamese literature and excerpted in Mastepieces of Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi) is a novel about the plight of Brahmin widows in Sattras of Assam; The Blue Necked Braja is perhaps the first novel written on the plight of Hindu widows popularly known as Radheswamis in Vrindavan; Pages Stained with Blood is a first person account of the Sikh-riots of 1984 in Delhi; The Man from Chinnamasta, is her most controversial and subversive novel which is a protest against the practice of animal sacrifice in the ancient Kamakhya Temple, in Guwahati, Assam; Pain and Flesh is her only published poetry collection in English. She is currently busy with a new novel based on a bodo woman who took up arms against the British.

She has been honored with the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for the novel The Rusted Sword, Assam Sahitya Sabha Award 1988, Bharat Nirman Award 1989, Sauhardya Award from Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan of Government of India 1992, Katha National Award for Literature 1993, Kamal Kumari Foundation National Award 1996 and in the year 2000 she won the country’s highest literay prize the Jnanpith Award. She has honorary D Litt degress from several universities like Indira Gandhi National Open University, Rabindra Bharati University and Rajiv Gandhi University Arunachal Pradesh. For her unparalled scholarly work in the field of Ramayani Studies she was awarded the International Tulsi Award from Florida University. Her ongoing pioneering efforts to bring peace in Assam through her crucial role in the peace talks between banned militant outfit ULFA and the Indian Government has brought a ray of hope to the twenty-eight years violence ridden atmosphere of the state. Words from the Mist directed by Jahnu Barua is one of the many biographical films made on her eventful life.

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  Indira Goswami page in Wikipedia
  Indira Goswami Reads from her work, here
  'Dr Indira Goswami: Assam’s fiery pen', by Sheher Bano Khan, Dawn
  Indira Goswami makes fresh attempt at brokering peace, The Hindu, Sushanta Talukdar
  Indira Goswami is also a poet.
  Indira Goswami and militant militant Assamese poet Megan Kachari
  
  

About Guns and Green Doves

Aruni Kashyap

Megan doesn’t scream, neither yells. His poetry stems out from the intense coalescing of his radical spirit with his personal- his emotions, and it creates a unique blend which reeks of a voice against injustice and a desire to raise his voice against all odds; it also speaks about a transcendental desire to realize life through the act of writing poetry.

There can be three strains noted in his poetry, unlike most Naxalite and revolutionary poems which are simmering with a raging desire to burst out and destroy everything on its way. Megan is different from these poets and their work. Melodies and Guns edited by Mamoni Raisom Goswami and translated by Pradip Acharya and Manjeet Baruah can be categorized into three different extremely fluid compartments, difficult to retain its structure. They range from an exploration of his radical desires against an ambiguous establishment, personal poems and thirdly, another assemblage that blurs this personal and public realm.

A scene from Rabijita Gogoi's play, Memsahab Prithivi, performed in NSD, 7-10 December 2006. The title is borrowed from Megan Kachari's poem.

It reminds one of Bertold Brecht’s famous song, “Song of the Defenselessness of the Goods and the Gods” (from The Good Person of Szechwan)—a song where it is asked why don’t the Gods lodge an invasion and take away all the good people from earth, if at all the human beings have to remain good since its almost impossible to remain good in a bad world, as a minority. But Megan supercedes Brecht’s desire here. For him, digging up a grave for the Gods is not a difficult task at all. And why wont he? The Gods who are careless and nonchalant enough to fall asleep soon as night descends, actually doesn’t deserve the right to live. As if he tells us—‘Don’t you know God is dead?’ Here go the lines of that adrenaline secreting poem-

“Soon as night descends, all Gods fall asleep
Don’t you murder silence yelling for them
Instead, let’s join hands and dig a grave
For all Gods. Lets again declare war
Like people raging mad with the dark nights
(‘Soon As Night Descends’)

His animosity or disappointment whatever someone terms, is a recurring theme in his poems, each time re-defining the meaning of his radicalism. Due to its subtlety, it’s much more threatening than the poems of Naxalite poets like Bipul Chakravorty, for instance, who cries out in torture:

“Whip me again and again
So that
When you are finished with your whipping
I rise up
Looking like
A stripped tiger!”
(As quoted in The Thema Book of Naxalite Poetry, edited by Sumanta Banerjee)

Gods lurk in as unannounced even in personal poems like ‘You and I’ and ‘The Way you Wish’ and disrupts his personal sphere. This is where one can see the way how the two realms of the personal and the public—charged with radical desire—is merged. But why God again and again? Is it because of the helplessness? The paralysis of dreams? ‘Gods’ can be Gods. ‘Gods’ can be the establishment or rather the establishment who pretends like a crow in peacock’s feather to be ‘Gods’. Questions are not answered, except that there is a spiritual realization about the futility of existence. The man, who was caught in a military operation in Bhutan, just because he kept arguing to himself whether he should awaken the peacefully sleeping green doves, that he kept as pets but at the same time held arms and wrote poetry, is perhaps the most significant aspect that is to be looked in consonance to the publication of this book. An alternative perspective to a militant, -- that is exactly what this book intends to focus consciously.

Indira Goswami’s ‘Introduction’ speaks about many more such alternatives. He is not only a militant, or a ‘blood sucker’, a ‘murderer’ for her unlike thousands of other people but a poet. She recalls:

“I met Megan Kachari for the first time in Guwahati jail… A fair, handsome young man, he reminded me of the young actors from some British play. The moment I saw him, it suddenly struck me that he was the same person famous as a poet.!”

That was the sole reason behind the conscious documentation of the incident which led to his capture, the dhanesh bird and the rare green doves that he kept as pets and off course, the publication of Melodies and Guns.

If these alternatives aren’t surprising enough, Megan’s love poems perhaps serve the purpose. But the smell of fresh blood is splattered in many places in the poems! They percolate, they seep in and then they invade—‘The Throb of Life’ starts with:

“Let us go, where lies the end / Of the end of the universe”
But goes on to:
“If still on earth there is dry
Of the smell of love and care
Clean and pure
We shall come back
Come back
Again
To this smell of fresh blood.”

What about the next poem? ‘The Beastly Darkness—Light’? Blood lies clotting there also, in the petals of hibiscus flowers—

“Someone poured the red paint
The colour of the Hibiscus
Or the thick fresh blood?
Can you smell it?”

There are twenty four poems in the collection. The first four of them are translated by Pradip Acharya and the rest nineteen by Manjeet Barua. A comparison with the original Assamese poems was not possible due to their inaccessibility but the poems don’t read like translations. It’s a unique publication. Not only because Mamoni Raisom has lent her name into it but also because these poems are written by a banned militant and yet they are not only about blood and burnt flesh, about destruction and killings. Some of the poems do suggest symbols of transcendental meanings, which is very significant because the premier premise of approaching poetry written by militants and revolutionaries is that they should not be attempted to be judge by conventional aesthetic norms but from the point of view of what purpose they are serving. It makes Megan’s poems very different and stand apart. Perhaps, Assam and the team of Melodies and Guns is leading the way in this genre of poetry by militants that even satisfy subtle artistic norms, in the whole world. Released in the World Book Fair, Frankfurt, Germany 2006, it evoked a lot of curious responses and excitement to posses a book of poems written by a man who was caught due to two green doves and a beautiful pet hornbill.

A poem in the collection, ‘The Earth a Memsahib’, concludes this way: “And yet, my feet feel heavy/ Too heavy/ To dance, with you/ To be with you/ To be like you/ To be like others.” True, Megan is not ‘like others’. He is different. Very very different.

Image Courtesy:

Sadin, Rabijita Gogoi

Pain and Flesh: Poems As Footnotes to Indira Goswami’s Life and Works

by Aruni Kashyap

(First Published in The Assam Tribune on 24th November, Friday)

This is the first ever poetry collection of Mamoni Raisom Goswami, alias Indira Goswami in English. This is a significant event in many ways because, her entry into a completely new medium of literary discourse, with a new language throws open a range of possibilities. Apart from the possibility of reaching a wider audience throw the execution of English-language to write her poems, at one of the most successful junctures of her career when she has lent her name in the international platform of the World Book Fair, in Frankfurt of Germany, to three books, (Pain and Flesh, The Man from Chinnamasta and Melodies and Guns) Pain and Flesh is an important landmark in her career from various perspectives. This book of eight poems, accompanied with thirty-six full page colourful paintings by the internationally acclaimed painter Jiten Hazarika, the book is a feast for the eyes as well the mind.

The title of the collection ushers in a curious dichotomy. The author calls it her ‘footnotes’. Perhaps, footnotes could also have been an apt title too, with no challenge posed to the title given now. In the author’s note, Dr Goswami mentions, “I am not a poet. I am a novelist and a short story writer. These poems were written in my leisure. My poetry is more like footnotes to my fictional writings.” The author who described the eyes of Mark Sahab as the two setting suns on the heart of the Jogolia River in The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker, here depicys her extremely sensuous involvement with another river: her favourite river, in the first poem of the collection, "My Red River’. She writes, “I have grown up /on your bank/ My Red River! / I have slept with you/in the moonlit night! You have lain out my bed/ with Kamini flowers.” Perhaps, what she couldn’t express for the Brahmaputra in other novels and short stories is expressed here. In Jahnu Barua’s biographical film on Dr Indira Goswami, Words from the Mist it's reiterated how gazing at the Brahmaputra used to be a curious pastime for the author. In her biography too, she admits of her fascination with the Red River. The opening chapter of An Unfinished Autobiography (Adha Lekha Dostabej) speaks of her fascination, and intriguing involvement with another water body: the Crinoline waterfall near her house in Shillong where she spent her childhood. She writes, she wanted to commit suicide with an ecstatic plunge into the deepest portion of the water-body. Whatever be the case, in the whole book, it is the figure of the author which looms large overshadowing everything around it. Perhaps, the book itself is a footnote of this luminous author persona. And what about the footnotes of the poems which the author terms as footnotes, and the paintings that accompany the poems like? With the image of Goswami omnipresent everywhere, everything in her periphery turns into marvelous footnotes to the author in a spellbinding fashion.

The poems are also about pains and flesh; they are not only about the celebration of a Red River which she recollects while visiting other places. It’s about loosing her beloved and smelling the dust of her own bones, (‘Love’) it’s about loosing a friend called Kaikous Burjore, who died on November 10, 2004 and recollecting how this lifelong friend of her stayed with her with a 'lamp.' —“You came to me/ When I was standing near a broken bridge. / I could not cross it, / It was dark, / and the bridge was broken.” Again, “Since the day I cremated my beloved, / shot dead by the militants/ In the forest of Akhnoor! / I lost my road.”(‘A Friend Who Brought a Lamp For Me- for Kaikous Burjore…’). The book also carries the description of another friend in the poem who she met, “in the gates of Neemrana” as she mentions herself. She also writes a long poem for this new friend, ‘A Poem for Vidiyadhar Surajprasad Naipual.” The book is dedicated to her friend V S Naipaul.

It is also a collection which is very important from the autobiographical perspective. The poems serve the purpose of a parallel autobiography, even though partly, narrated through poems in a retrospective style as Pablo Neruda’s Isla Negra served for the Memoirs. Here, many questions about the 'mysterious' life of Mamoni Raisom are quenched with answers in the form of intensely emotional poems by Dr Goswami. She talks about her husband in the poem ‘Love’, about her life long friend Kaikaous in the last poem ‘A Friend Who Brought a Lamp for Me’ frankly. ‘Ode to a Whore’ is perhaps an answer to the various illogical, baseless accusations, jibes and threats aimed at her by orthodox, jealous people regarding her writings, and her character after the publication of Adha Lekha Dostabej and Tej aru Dhulire Dhusarita Pristha. The anonymous narrator’s emotional involvement with a rickshaw puller called Santokh Singh in the novel (Pages Stained With Blood) did not go uncontested at all among the orthodox sections of the Assamese society. After the publication of her fearlessly frank autobiography, comments like that the book may lead to the perpetration of the encouragement of a moral degradation of Assamese girls were also not uncommon. Ask the author, she would speak with regret. As for now, the poem ‘Ode to a Whore’ speaks for her and gags these envious sections with an intellectual weapon. Immensely satirical, charged with layered metaphors and yet it is a very sensitive poem. The metaphor of wine perhaps stands for her writing and the whore--who else? The author herself. Surprisingly, the ones who call her ‘whore’ are none other than woman—“The women from the other/ bank of the river, scream/ You are a sinner/ You will earn /a leper’s death!” This sort of unconscious self-fashioning is coupled with confessions by the author in the form of footnotes to the poems like, ‘Buffalo Sacrifice’. This poem is a must read along with the novel The Man From Chinnamasta . In the notes, she mentions, “I wrote my novel Chinnamasta, protesting against buffalo sacrifice in the Kamakhya temple of Assam, in the year, 1999. …This type of protest was unprecedented in the history of its two thousand year old temple of Kamakhya. My life remained in danger for some time because of this.” Very consciously, she provides the footnotes keeping in the mind the possibility of an international audience. In the poem, she is herself Ratnadhar, a character in the novel who witnesses the buffalo being dragged to the alter for sacrifice and feels that, “His eyes peeled my/ skin and laid it/ on its path.” It’s heart-rending! The extremely graphic description of the buffalo’s plight and fear jolts the sensitivity of any reader.

The most important aspect of the poems is the repeated use of myths, legends and history in them which apart from locating the poems in a very specific context it also throws up certain important concerns to the critical eye. To cite one important instance is the beautiful oral legend of Queen Victoria in the first poem of the collection, ‘My Red River’. The folklore uprooted meticulously from the mouths of the cowherds goes this way, “On the Eastern bank of the Red River/ the cowherds sing:/ ‘Victoria takes her birth/ in the twilight,/ becomes a damsel, in the afternoon,/ She dies in the night/ to take her birth again at dawn.” The author leaves a footnote narrating how she procured the legend to transplant it in her poems.-“This is a popular story that still prevails among the villagers of the Brahmaputra valley. It is also recorded in the autobiography of the well known writer Padma Nath Gohain Baruah. In 1960 an eighty year old lady from my village Amranga, in south Kamrup, told me that Victoria rules our country. No one can replace her crown. “

This oral story precariously problematises the way orality is viewed in the postcolonial context. If we look at Bihu songs in Prafulla Dutta Barua’s book Bohag Bihu of Assam and Bihu Songs, we find a lot of contrasting references. We see that in most cases orality---the Bihu songs with imperialist references,---is a medium, through which the colonial power is subverted, is challenged. But at another level it also shows how deep the imperial invasion has been successful in constructing the psychological reality of the people. In most cases, orality is a personal reality that stands as a threat to the dominant ideology. The painting with a pair dancing bihu in the poem, on the other hand raises another front-- the space which the author tries to depict which is the Assamese culture where she belongs to, through the poem. For this culture that the poet tries to represent, the myth is the final, concrete reality even though unreal and disturbing with its tangible realism due to the absolutely independent existence it is manifested with.

These are some of the questions that are being attempted to solve but even though these poems are called ‘footnotes’ by the author, they bear immense literary significance and value. Mamoni Raisom Goswami’s latest book is another triumph, a unique literary achievement but yet again a small footnote compared her oeuvre. It’s a must read for any person who is interested to know about Goswami, as well as takes an interest in Indian English poetry and eye-soothing, thought provoking paintings. The readers will wait eagerly for many more such footnotes.

Pain and Flesh, by Indira Goswami; B. R. Publishing Corporation, Ashok Vihar, Delhi. Price: Rs. 695.00

Pakistan

Oh Pakistan, celestial land!
Give us your heart!
And take our heart in return!
Once we shared the same sky!
Sky with the same sun!
We shared the same pain like twins on the battlefield
to remove the dust.
*
Now our flesh is ripped apart
By that meandering barbed-wire fence!
Oh they have drawn that
dividing line on a flimsy paper!
That line of agony and tears
Can anyone draw that line
In our raw flesh, inside our heart?
*
Friends! Be happy where you
are...now!
Memory never fades, poets say
distance only purifies it…
We sat under the same tree,
Enjoyed the fragrance of the
same flower
Till that time
like a dagger
cut those rivers into
several pieces! Destroyed the
mountains and flower gardens where
we had played!
*
And those banks
where we had counted those
fig-coloured waves!
Like the honey laden
lips of the damsels!
We wore the same clothes
woven by our mothers!
We shivered in winter and in summer our
sweat slid down our backs
*
We enjoyed the same wine
from the poems of Ghalib
Momin and Zauk
We cried together in pain!
Under the blood stained sky.
*
Oh Pakistan! Celestial land
Give us your heart
And take our heart in return!
No we need not speak now
Only silence speaks in a clear voice.
Oh Pakistan! Silence can bring
the fragrance of a mother’s soul
Silence can reveal.
The heavenly beauty of Sutlej,
Chenab, and the Red River
Of the East!
Silence can be loud like
a million voices
Oh Pakistan! Celestial land!
Our eyes misted by the
Smoke of blossoming gun powder!
Our soul wounded by the unknown fires!
May these eyes now witness the
new Sunrise
On the banks of Sutlej,
Chenab, and in the Red
River of the East!
Oh Pakistan, celestial land!
Give us your heart!
And take our heart in return

(From Pain and Flesh; the first ever poetry collection of Indira Goswami. First publishe in Dawn, the leading daily from in Pakistan)

The Intimate Mornings with Mamoni Baideo

Manjeet Barua

Or does it? Everyday, as I keep waiting for her governess to open the door, once the doorbell is pressed, I wonder if it isn’t the feel of relic that is enveloping the whole place. Yes, it feels so and when I sit inside, turning the pages of a magazine or a book listlessly, my eyes wander all over the ‘drawing room’ becoming more and more over the years into some static, motionless place for artifacts to live undisturbed. Paintings by Van Gogh, by Tagore, by others, and many of which are her own portraits, gifts collected from different parts of the world, antiques, photographs and pots and flower vases of different shapes and designs, everything stand quietly in some allocated positions. Is it like a museum? Probably. I can’t stop answering myself thus at times. But the very next moment, it would occur that what this atmosphere could possibly mean - a house like a museum? …Has life stopped for her then? … And soon, I would feel that my assumption has become a fact about her life and amidst all the awards and the artifacts that fill the room, this fact has become the most powerful presence of all in the space of the room. She is a famous writer. And like the paintings and the artifacts, she too has become another prized collection in the house. For me, it’s even more suffocating, suffocating to think that she too is only another artifact! And yet, it could well be my hallucination. I remember that too.

Early in the morning, the whole house is filled with the smell of burning incense sticks. There would be two in front of the bronze statue of Saraswati placed next to the ornamental sofa in the ‘drawing room’. The doors and windows shut tight, the entire atmosphere inside would feel smoky and aromatic. The thick maroon embroidered curtains would be partially open, and streaks of golden sunlight would sneak in, its brightness already mellowed while passing through the glass window panes. And it would be an utterly strange experience for me that one of the streaks of the sneaking sunlight would ever, at that point of time in the morning, fall on the feet of the bronze statue of the goddess, illuminating both the feet and the tiny heap of ash (from the burning incense sticks) that would accumulate at the feet of the goddess! What is that ash – of life turning lifeless, and whose life, mine or her’s?

Mamoni’s voice would float in amidst all of this. Everything is in order, the everyday sameness of the voice would announce to me. It would remind me of Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons, where Anna tells Bazarov that the rigour of daily order is important to prevent life from meandering. But that amounts to life becoming repetitive, Bazarov had protested. That’s precisely the backbone of life, was Anna’s quiet answer. To me, it has ever been a surprise, or more, a wonder that her voice would never fail to carry that sameness day after day, in tone, in pitch and in spirit. Where not to locate the order of sameness – in smile, in health, in gestures or in the topics of discussion? They were everywhere. Yes, there would spring inside me an admiration too for the sameness. But is it because things around my own life lack that stability, lacks any stability? Is it because of my desperate urge… wish to escape from the continuous torment of drift, of experiencing life being a haphazard collection of unknown sequences that creates that screen of admiration in my heart? How beguiling can life be! I live with this amazement that I derive a comfort out of her life, or out of an idea of her life that I have created and which I now perhaps believe to be true and that I despair and fear as well. What lies within, what lies inside her heart, do I not know of it then? … Frequently I have felt the pain of the thought that she perhaps is prodding me to ask and then only listen, just listen to her tale breaking loose, the long held waters of her heart breaking open and wash me over with it. The waters would be salty, never sweet. It would be a deluge and in it I shall never know her beginning or her end. Horizons would be lost forever.… And then, would it be the sameness once again, like stranded in the middle of an ocean, only water and water everywhere? … Ah! Why but the shadow of the idea never seems to part company! It feels like death.

Manjeet Baruah is a research scholar in Delhi University. His Ph.D. is on the sociology of aesthetics in modern Assamese fiction. Currently he is working (research/editorial) at Women's Studies & Development Centre, Delhi University. He has been closely associated with Indira Goswami for several years. He had translated the poems in the book Melodies & Guns, edited by Indira Goswami. His other publications include a collection of translated short stories Comedy of A Spark & Other Stories (Rupa & Co.), and short stories and articles in Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi), Yatra, Women's Link and Social Action. He can be reached at manjeetbarua@gmail.com)

Window to a Culture: The Moth Eaten Howdah Of A Tusker, by Dhanakshi Buragohain

First published in The Assam Tribune, 23rd July, 2004.

A still from 'Adajya':The Film by Santana Bordoloi based on The Moth Eaten Howdah of A Tusker

Mamoni Raisom Goswami is a celebrated name in the Assamese literary world. Goswami is known for her bold spirit. She is the second Assamese recipient of the Jnanpith Award, the highest literary award in India in the year 2000. Her short stories and novels set in different locales of India, give her readers a taste of life beyond the boundaries of Assam. When talking on the tough social issues of urban life, the harsh lives of labourers, and the plight of widows in Vrindaban and Assam, Goswami displays great empathy and compassion. She has an ear for the vernacular and is able to reproduce the coarse conversations of her protagonists. Her way of expressing anger or indignation at forced rituals and oppressive social customs is very subtle and guarded. Throughout her writings, she exudes confidence, courage and determination.

Mamoni Raisom Goswami, also known as Indira Goswami, has composed many short stories (Sinaki Moram, Koina, Hridoi Ek Nadir Naam etc), novels (Chenabar Srot, Nilakantha Braja, Ahiran, Mamore Dhara Tarowal, Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hawdah, Jakhmi Jatri, Chinnamastar Manuhto, etc), a biography (Mahiyashi Kamala) and her works have been translated into many Indian languages as well as English. Mamoni Raisom Goswami has received many awards for her literary contributions. (link: complete list of awards received by Indira Goswami)

The locales of most of Goswami’s writings are outside Assam e.g. Chenabar Srot is set in Jammu and Kashmir, The Blue Necked Braja in Uttar Pradesh, Ahiran in Madhya Pradesh, The Rusted Sword (Mamore Dhara Tarowal) in Uttar Pradesh, Pages Stained With Blood (Tez Aru Dhulire Dhusharita Prishta) in Delhi, etc. Only a few of her writings are based in Assam. In this regard, we can mention, The Moth Eaten Howdah Of A Tusker (Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Howdah). The setting of The Moth Eaten… is a Satra in the South Kamrup District of Assam. The plot revolves round the lives of three Brahmin widows in the family of the Satradhikar. Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Howdah vividly brings out the superstitions, the abuse of power and oppression that widows had to confront. The theme is the socio-economic decadence of the feudal institution lingering on till the modern times on the threshold of the independence of India and the repression of widows in the orthodox Brahmin society. The novel also depicts the lives of other common folk.

The Assamese culture has been depicted in great detail in The Moth Eaten…., Mamoni Raisom Goswami has mentioned about the beliefs, customs, rituals, food habits, dress, house-pattern of Assamese people in the novel.

The widows, basically from the Assamese Brahmin community were regarded as inauspicious and had to suffer great disadvantages. They had to lead a hopeless and frustrated life and had to observe many restrictions all through the rest of their lonely lives. A widow was served a bland vegetarian diet. She couldn’t take onions, garlic, fish, meat, etc. as mentioned in the novel: “She (Durga) will not be allowed to eat cooked food. Her daily share for three days will be raw vegetables and fruits.” (Page-6)


It is mentioned that Assamese Brahmin widows cannot wear ornaments or flowers, perfumed oil or soap and cannot use mirror. She has to wear white dresses and cannot put vermilion on her forehead. In the novel Mark says “Do you know how beautiful you (Giribala) are? Have you ever seen your face in the mirror?” (Page-96). In Assamese Brahmin society, the widows were regarded as impure. It was believed that whatever the widows touched, it would become impure and nobody would use or touch those things again, as mentioned The Moth Eaten Howdah….. The widows were not allowed to go to the kitchen where food was prepared for the family, as mentioned in the novel: “She took a step towards the kitchen. Durga, from the middle of the assembled women, cried out, “Don’t got there! The stove for cooking fish is kept there.” (page -15) The Assamese society believed that due to the presence of evil stars, many unusual things happen in life as mentioned in the novel. : “Her mother-in-law suspected that Durga’s real horoscope had three papagrahas (evil stars). She was considered inauspicious because of the papagrahas... (page-6).The Assamese women were brought up with the belief that husbands were an incarnation of God. They always prayed their husbands. Even a widow offered prayers to her dead husband: “...You must offer flowers, Tulsi, and water daily to your dead husband’s wooden sandals (paduka). You know husband is the God for a woman.” (page-99).

People believed that a married woman should not touch a widow. If a married woman did so, then she too would also get widowed early, the novel mentions: “Don’t touch her! You women with sindoor! She is a widow now.” (page-15) An Assamese Brahmin widow should not touch the shadow of other person. If they do so, then they have to take a bath to purify themselves: “...All of a sudden, there was an abrupt cry from Durga, she had found to her horror that Mark Sahab’s shadow had fallen on her body! A foreigner’s shadow on a Goswami widow. She fled immediately to the well and prepared for the second bath.” (page-36)

The novel also throws light on the traditional ornaments worn by the Assamese people. Among these the dugdugi (a kind of neck ornament), gal pata (a kind of neck plate), thuriya (clove shaped ear ornament), keru (ear ornament), jon-biri (crescent shaped gold ornament), are mentioned in the novel. The houses of the Assamese people were very simple. They were generally made of thatch, bamboo and reeds and called kecha-ghar. They had a separate kitchen, drawing room, guest room, dining hall, prayer house and living rooms. There was a courtyard in front of their house where ceremonial functions were held. The courtyard was cleaned with a mud and cow-dung mixture.

The practice of having a raised bamboo structure for storing articles above the fireplace called dhowa chang has been mentioned in her novel. The dhowa chang is kept in the kitchen for keeping eatables or for drying things for future use. This is kept above the fireplace. The use of the pira, dheki, khundana (a wooden pestle for crushing betel nuts), sarai, barpira by the Assamese people are also mentioned in the novel. The food habits of the Assamese people can also be known from The Moth Eaten …. Rice is the staple food of the Assamese people. Milk, curd, chira, mithei (jaggery), chonga pitha(made from bora-rice stuffed in slim bamboo pieces and cooked in smolders) and various kinds of sweets are mentioned in the novel. Delicious preparations are made from various kinds of vegetables, fish, meat, pulses, spices etc. It is mentioned in The Moth Eaten…that Assamese Brahmin people take mutton, black dal, arhar-dal, ginger, pepper, potato, brinjal, sponge gourd, papaya, ash-gourd, etc. Another favourite and common habit of the Assamese people is the chewing of raw areca nut with betel leaf and lime. It is also mentioned that Assamese people take their food on banana leaves at social functions. In Brahmin society, girls are regarded as pure till she attains puberty. After attaining puberty, the girls are regarded as impure by the Brahmin society. It is customary in the Brahmin society for the girls to marry before she attains puberty and also that Brahmin boys are not allowed to marry an adult girl. This is seen happening in the novel, as seen in the case of Iliman and Indranath. After puberty, it becomes problematic for Iliman to marry Indranath. Being a Brahmin, Indranath could not marry Iliman though he is in love with her. The Adhikar or the head of the Satra, occupies a respectable position in Assamese society. All the members of the society honour the Adhikar.

It is mentioned in The Moth Eaten Howdah… that the Adhikar and rich merchants used to keep several elephants for their glory and pomp. These elephants did the work of timber pulling and catching other wild elephants in various mahals (depot) of south Kamrup. This was a respectable business, which the Adhikars used to run with great interest. In this process, sometimes they amassed great wealth. The depiction of rituals is found in Mamoni Raisom Goswami’s fictional writings. In The Moth Eaten…, it is mentioned that the Assamese Brahmin widows are not allowed to take non-vegetarian food and if anybody does so, then it is regarded as a sin and they have to undergo some purification rituals, determined by the society. It is believed that if a widow or a Brahmachari partakes intentionally fish and meat, they will have to go through an eight dhanu prayaschita (purification rite for expiation in which eight quarters of a rupee and other gifts are paid to the officiating priests). If they eat masoordal, betel nut, white pumpkin, they will have to practice three dhanu prayschita (purification rite for expiation in which three quarters of a rupee and other gifts are paid to the officiating priests), as mentioned in The Moth Eaten …

In Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Howdah, Giribala, who is a widow, takes non-vegetarian food(mutton) at a social function and for this she undergoes prayaschita. “There are ways to purify her? Rituals for prayaschit!”(page-76). “She was pulled towards the well. The purohit dipped dubori grass in water and sprinkled it on Giribala at intervals, uttering a Sanskrit mantra at the same time with his peculiar faulty Sanskrit accent and full of grammatical errors.” (page-77)
If an Assamese widow maintains a relation with another person, it is regarded as a sin by the society and for this they have to undergo some prayaschita, as mentioned in The Moth Eaten….. It is believed that a Brahmin widow has to undergo nineteen dhanu prayaschita for the sin of having sexual relationship with a low caste man. In the novel, Giribala develops a deep attachment for Mark Sahab,who is a Christian youth, and for this, she undergoes some purification ceremony. She was brought to a small hut, made of dry banana leaves and straw, which was meant for sacrificing a goat by burning it alive in a fire, according to the rituals done for Devi Basanti.

Depiction of various festivals find mention in Mamoni Raisom Goswami’s fictional writings. Assamese people observe different festivals in different times for different purposes. Observing of Basanti puja, puhan bia, amati, by the Assamese people are mentioned in the novel, The Moth Eaten…

Mamoni Raisom Goswami has depicted Assamese culture in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Howdah. It is true that the sole aim of the writer is not to give a detailed description of various aspects of Assamese culture only. But it is also true that reference to the culture of a people is inevitable in narrative fictional writings like novels to bring life into the story. Therefore, we get some informative references about the culture of a people in novels and short stories.

Ms. Dhanakshi Buragohain, M.A.(Cultural Studies, Tezpur University), NET (Folk Literature) and can be contacted at dhanakshi_buragohain@rediffmail.com

• Essays on Indira Goswami's Works

Mamoni Roisom Goswami’s novels- Folkloric perspective, by Ms. Dhanakshi Buragohain

Mamoni Roisom Goswami is a celebrated name in the Assamese literary world. Goswami is known for her bold spirit. She is the second Assamese recipient of the Jnanpith Award, the highest literary award in India, in the year 2000.She has composed many short stories, novels, a biography and her works have been translated into many Indian languages as well as English. Mamoni Roisom Goswami has received many awards for her literary contributions.

The locales of most of Goswami’s writings are outside Assam. Only a few of her writings are based on Assam. In this regard, we can mention, Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda (The Moth Eaten Howdah of A Tusker)and Chinnamastar Manuhto.(The Man of Chinnamasta)

The setting of Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda is a satra (Vaishnavite Monastic institute of Assam)in the South Kamrup District of Assam. The plot revolves round the lives of three Brahmin windows in the family of the Satradhikar (Head of the Monastic institute). Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda vividly brings out the superstitions, the abuse of power and oppression that windows had to confront. The theme is the socio-economic decadence of the feudal institution lingering on till the modern times on the threshold of the independence of India and the repression of windows in the orthodox Brahmin society .The novel also depicts the lives of other common folk.

The locale of Chinnamastar Manuhto is Kamakhya temple; one of the famous pithasthans,situated on Nilachal Hill, at Guwahati, in Assam. The author holds up a picture of the Kamakhya temple in the novel and has depicted the beliefs, modes of worshipping, rites and rituals, fairs and festivals and the origin of Kamakhya temple.
The Assamese culture has depicted in great detail in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda and Chinnamastar Manuhto.The author mentioned about the belief, customs and rituals of the Assamese people in these novels.
The widows, basically from the Assamese Brahmin community were regarded as inauspicious and had to suffer great disadvantages. They had to lead a hopeless and frustrated life. They had to observe many restrictions all through the rest of their lonely lives. A widow had to partake a bland vegetarian diet. She cannot take onions, garlic, fish, meat, etc. as mentioned in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda: “She (Durga) will not be allowed to eat cooked food. Her daily share for three days will be raw vegetables and fruits”. (page-6)
It is mentioned that Assamese Brahmin widows cannot wear ornaments or flowers, perfumed oil or soap and cannot look at herself in the mirror. She has to wear white dresses and cannot put vermilion on her forehead. In the novel, Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda, Mark says “Do you know how beautiful you (Giribala) are? Have you ever seen your face in the mirror?” (page-96).

In Assamese Brahmin society, the widows were regarded as impure. It was believed that whatever the widows touched, it would become impure and nobody would use or touch those things again, as mentioned in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Houda.The widows were not allowed to go to the kitchen where food was prepared for the family, as mentioned in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda: “She took a step towards the kitchen. Durga, from the middle of the assembled women, cried out, “Don’t go there! The stove for cooking fish is kept there.” (page -15) The Assamese people believed that due to the presence of evil stars, many unusual things happened in life as mentioned in the novel, Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Houda, “Her mother-in-law suspected that Durga’s real horoscope had three papagrahas (evil stars). She was considered inauspicious because of the papagrahas...” (page-6).

The Assamese women believed that their husbands were an incarnation of God. They always prayed to their husbands. Even a widow offered prayers to her dead husband: “...You must offer flowers, Tulsi, and water daily to your dead husband’s wooden sandals. You know husband is the God for a woman.” (page-99).
Assamese people believed that a married woman should not touch a widow. If a married woman did so, then she too would get widowed early, as the novel Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Houda mentions:“Don’t touch her! You women with sindoor! She is a widow now.” (page-15) An Assamese Brahmin widow should not touch the shadow of other person. If they do so, then they have to take a bath to purify themselves: “...All of a sudden, there was an abrupt cry from Durga, she had found to her horror that Mark Sahab’s shadow had fallen on her body! A foreigner’s shadow on a Goswami widow. She fled immediately to the well and prepared for the second bath.” (page-36)

In the novel Chinnamastar Manuhto, the author also has depicted about the beliefs and customs of the Assamese people. It is mentioned in the novel that Mother Goddess Kamakhya can fulfill all the desired of human beings. Certain rituals are performed to propitiate Her. Animals such as goat, buffalo, pig, bulls and birds are sacrificed to propitiate Mother Goddess Kamakhya. “The buffalo, which was taken to sacrifice, did not want to go, he tried to come down” (page-10).It is believed that human sacrifice is of more avail than anything else. Blood drawn from one’s own body may be also offered “If devotee sacrifices their own blood, even if it is equal to a till then his all desires will be fulfilled within six months” (page-32).
It is believed, that if devotees enter to the Kamakhya temple through east direction, then they will gain money and through the North-South direction, they will attain salvation and Kingdom. And the path of South direction is the path of death, mentioned in Chinnamastar Manuhto: “Most of the devotees come through east door continuously... nobody comes through South direction....” (page-92).
One should not touch the residue of sacrificed animal or other things, which were offered to Mother Goddess Kamakhya, mentioned in Chinnamastar Manuhto. If anybody touches it, and then they have to undergo some rituals. “One devotee brings one bronze and one bowl which were offered to Mother Goddess Kamakhya, to me. Read the 16th chapter of Kalika Purana,then it will be pure.” (page-21)

The depiction of rituals is found in Mamoni Roisom Goswami’s fictional writings. In Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda, it is mentioned that the Assamese Brahmin widows are not allowed to take non-vegetarian food and if anybody does so, then it is regarded as a sin and they have to undergo some purification rituals, determined by the society. It is believed that if a widow or a Brahmachari partakes knowingly fish and meat, they will have to go through an eight dhanu prayaschita (purification rite for expiation in which eight quarters of a rupee and other gifts are paid to the officiating priests). If they eat masoordal, betel nut, white pumpkin, they will have to practice three dhanu prayschita (purification rite for expiation in which three quarters of a rupee and other gifts are paid to the officiating priests), as mentioned in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda. In Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda, Giribala, who is a widow, takes non-vegetarian food at a social function and for this she undergoes some prayaschita.

“There are ways to purify her? Rituals for prayaschit!” (page-76). “She was pulled towards the well. The purohit dipped dubori grass in water and sprinkled it on Giribala at intervals, uttering a Sanskrit mantra at the same time with his peculiar faulty Sanskrit accent and full of grammatical errors”. (page-77) If an Assamese widow maintains a relation with another person, it is regarded as a sin by the society and for this they have to undergo some prayaschita, as mentioned in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda. It is believed that a Brahmin widow has to undergo nineteen dhanu prayaschita for the sin of having sexual relationship with a low caste man. In the novel, Giribala develops a deep attachment for Mark Sahab, who is a Christian youth, and for this, she undergoes some purification ceremony. She was brought to a small hut, made of dry banana leaves and straw, which was meant for sacrificing a goat by burning it alive in a fire, according to the rituals done for Devi Basanti.

In Assamese Brahmin society, girls were regarded as pure till she attains puberty. After attaining puberty, the girls are regarded as impure by the Brahmin society. It was customary in the Brahmin society for the girls to marry before she attains puberty and also that Brahmin boys are not allowed to marry an adult girl. This is seen happening in the novel, Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda, in the case of Iliman and Indranath. After puberty, it becomes problematic for Iliman to marry Indranath. Being a Brahmin, Indranath could not marry Iliman though he is in love with her.

The Adhikar or the head of the Satra, occupies a respectable position in Assamese society. All the members of the society honour the Adhikar. It is mentioned in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda that the Adhikar and rich merchants used to keep several elephants for their glory and pomp. These elephants did the work of timber pulling and catching other wild elephants in various mahals (depot) of South Kamrup. This was a respectable business, which the Adhikars used to run with great interest. In this process, sometimes they amassed great wealth.

The food habits of the Assamese people can be known from Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda. Rice is the staple food of the Assamese people. Milk, curd, chira (one kind of traditional Assamese dish, made of rice), mithei(one kind of ladhu), chonga pitha (a kind of cake, prepared in bamboo tubes)and various kinds of sweets are mentioned in the novel. It is also mentioned that Assamese Brahmin people take mutton, black dal, arhardal, ginger, pepper, potato, brinjal, sponge gourd, papaya, ashgourd, etc. It is mentioned in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda that Assamese people take their food on banana leaves at social functions. The practice of having a raised bamboo structure for storing articles above the fireplace called dhowa chang has been mentioned in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda. The dhowa chang is kept in the kitchen for keeping eatables or for drying things for future use. This is kept above the fireplace. The use of the pira (small stool, made of wood, used for sitting), dheki (one kind of instrument, made of wood, used for preparing various kind of eatable things), khundana (a wooden pestle for crushing betel nuts), sarai (traditional Assamese tray), barpira (one kind of wooden stool), by the Assamese people are also mentioned in the novel. In Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda the author also depicts about the traditional ornaments and the house pattern of the Assamese people.

Depiction of various festivals is found on Mamoni Roisom Goswami’s novels. Assamese people observe different festivals in different times for different purposes. Observing of Basanti Puja, Puhan Bia, Amati, by the Assamese people are mentioned in the novel, Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda. Ambubachi mela, Durga puja, Nawanna, Madan Chatuwali, Rajrajwari puja, Sathe brat, Devadhani, Kumari puja, Puhan Bia are observed at Kamakhya temple, mentioned in Chinnamastar Manuhto. ”Many festivals Durga puja,Nawanna,Madan Chatuwali,Rajrajwari puja,Sathe rat,Devadhani etc.had observed ,but Bidhibala did not come to attend these festival” (pages, 48-49). Depiction of Ambubachi fair is found in the novel, Chinnamastar Manuhto. The Ambubachi fair is organized every year during monsoon in the Kamakhya temple. The fair attracts thousands of devotees from all over the country and abroad .It is believed that, once in a year Mother Earth becomes “impure”, this impurity is the same as the impurity of women due to menses. It lasts as in the human world for three days, and the temple’s doors are closed from outside view during these days. ”For Ambubachi mela, the door of the temple has closed”. (page-92)

The temple doors are flung open on the fourth day, and the pilgrims, gathered for the occasion, are allowed a darshan. ”Tomorrow is the pure day, in Ambubachi lots of Sadhu, Sannyashi....” (page-91)
It is mentioned in Chinnamastar Manuhto that Devadhani festivel is observed at Kamakhya temple. In this festival, Mother Goddess Manasa is worshipped. Manasa is a Goddess of snake, depicted in Chinnamastar Manuhto.:”Two snakes are present on the shoulder of Goddress and other two are on the head of Goddress Mnasa.” (page-159.)Manasa Devi is worshipped with vermillion, turmeric, papal, bamboo, coconut etc., mentioned in the novel. Animals such as buffaloes, goats, pigs and birds are sacrificed to propitiate the goddess as mentioned in Chinnamastar Manuhto: ”The sacrified heads of goat make a hill on the feet of Goddess Manasa”(page-165).There are some special agents known as deodhas, to find out the spirit causing serious diseases and misfortunes. Every God and Goddess has his or her own deodha, as like deodha of Tara, deodha of Chinnamasta, deodha of Siva, deodha of Ganesh, deodha of Kuber etc. Accompanied by the rhythm of drum and music, each deodha performs dance with own style, as mentioned in the novel: ”Deodha of Goddess Kli start dancing by raising hand near the Ayati.” The deodha wears a garland of Tulshi and holds a sword while dancing. ”They come one by one with flower and Tushi garland in their head and neck and start dancing”(page-174).It is mentioned in Chinnamastar Manuhto, through worshipping of deodha, devotee can reach to God and Goddess and if deodha gets disturbance then the God and Goddess will be unsatisfied. Kumari puja (vergin worship) is observed at Kamakhya temple, mentioned in the novel Chinnamastar Manuhto. It is believed that at Kamakhya, the Goddess appears in the form of a virgin. So, some of the pilgrims worship the living virgins as Goddess in this temple.

A myth associated with the Kamakhya temple is depicted in Chinnamastar Manuhto, “The light comes from the east direction. The pieces of clouds gather on dhasmachal. These pieces are as if the body pieces of Sati on the shoulder of Siva, which were cut by a Bishnu Sani; yes, yes, these body pieces have fallen down in various places....” (page 147). The Kalika Purana, an ancient work in Sanskrit, describes Kamakhya as the yielder of all desires, the young bride of Shiva, and the giver of salvation. Myth has it that following the destruction of Daksha’s sacrifice and the Rudra Tandava of Shiva, parts of Sati’s body fell at several places throughout India, and these places are revered as Shakti Peethas. The reproductive organ of Sati (the yoni) is said to have fallen at Kamakhya. Myth also has it that Shakti, the Mother Goddess, challenged the supreme creative power of Brahma and that Brahma could thereafter create, only with the blessings of the yoni, as the soul creative principle. After mass penance, Brahma brought down a luminous body of light from space and placed it with in the yoni circle, which was created by the Goddess and placed at Kamarupa.

Mamoni Roisom Goswami has depicted Assamese culture in Datal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Hauda and Chinnamastar Manuhto. It is true that the soul aim of the writer is not to give a detailed description of various aspects of Assamese culture only. But it is also true that reference to the culture of a people is inevitable in narrative fictional writings like novels to bring life in to the story. Therefore, we get some informative references about the culture of a people in novels and short stories.

Ms. Dhanakshi Buragohain, M.A.(Cultural Studies, Tezpur University),NET (Folk Literature)

The Raddheshyamis : Destitute Widows of India

First published in Sunday Observer, May 07, 2000, in Sri LaTnaka
By Padma EdiriSinghe

The Raddeshyamis! No, I have never seen my eyes on them as a single group, singing away their Bhajan’s in the temple of Brindavan by the banks of Yamuna just to collect a few cents to eke out a living till kind death put an end to it all. In fact around their waist hanging on a dirty string is said to be a pile of coins meant to be expended on the Grand Exit. But even that, according to Indira Goswami, author of a remarkable book, An Unfinished Autobiography does not ensure a decent burial. Very often the dead bodies are found floating on the Yamuna robbed of the miserable hoard on their waistline collected over the years.

Social Status:
It was on my last visit to the great sub-continent of India to participate in the India-Sri Lanka Writers Colloquium held this year that Indira Goswami who sat in the audience and never knew me personally presented me with this book of hers after my presentation. And what a book! Te author herself has been a widow, according to this book (I do not know what her martial status is now and never cared to ask). Widowed in her 20s she had once been walking the roads in sleeping pills in her handbag to put an end to her young life, but has come back full circle not only as a professor of Delhi university but also as an award winning writer, in fact “a celebrity in modern Assamese literature” as Amrita Pritam, another female star in India’s writing world informs. Indira Goswami’s life story is another story by itself.

She had the means and the social status to come back. Her grandfather was a wealthy Assamese who even owned elephants and her father had been the state director of education. In fact it was a friend of her father who saved her from the utter despondent mood she had got into, by sheltering her at his home in Brindavan where she engaged herself in a research on the City of God that brought her back to the professional arena and to the limelight.

The epithet “City of God” seems to be misnomer in some instances. But the Raddheshyamis, a sad species with which she is much preoccupied in her great book never had such luck or means. Her first reference to widows in India is with regard to her aunt who had got widowed in the early years of marriage.
“The Brahmin women who had gone to console her on the day of her bereavement had warned her daughters to keep away from the widowed women. Touch her not! She caries in her the poison of sin!”
That young widow, goes on the author spent three whole days seated on a wooden plank during the days of ‘ambubachi’ when the Earth Mother is supposed to be in her periods. There was no end to her fasts. The practices she was required to observe were not only cruel but also unhygienic. She was allowed only on meal a day, nor tea or any other drink or even a betel chew.

However it was the Crindawana or Brindavan of Geet Govind fame that Indira Goswami had met the destitute widows of India in their hundreds. Due to some intriguing quirk of history Krishna, that historical and legendary figure who once endeared himself to the poor shepherdesses of Gopis of India has again become the patron god of these widows. Writes the author: “in the vicinity of my quarters in the temple precincts there lived a number of Raddheshayamis – destitute widows who earned their living by singing bhajans. They passed their days in small dark rooms and came from far of places as Dinejpur, Rajshali, East Bengal and Varanasi (Benaeres).”
Young widows still undergoing menopause are not allowed inside temples to sing bhajans but to collect that all important dough they would sneak in somehow often braving wrath of authorities if discovered. Most of them sought shelter there to find an escape from the woes of their private lives.

Dismal Scenario:
But there is a silver line in the dark dismal scenario of Indian widows thus painted. That is the advise of Holy Men to them. “Why escape from this world? This world itself is the Garden of Heaven and these trees and shrubs are wishing trees. Work without attactment, work without desire for the fruit of your action. Know that whoever is averse to work invites ruin upon himself.” (and herself).

Writes Goswami: “even the illiterate ignorant dregs of humanity, the Raddheshaymis have picked up these pearls of wisdom. They have accepted life as it is. They have not jumped into the Yamuna. They have accepted life with all its pitfalls and all its struggles. I have seen their splashes of blood but never seen surrender to despair.”
Anyway, keeping one’s head in such a context, especially a delicate female head, is indeed a challenging task.

Difficult Days:
Blessed with barins a writers inch, a solid social social background and contacts Indira Goswami came full circle to shine like a star in the literary and academic firmament of that great sub-continent of Bharatbarsha but none of the Raddheshyamis would have that luck.

The most they can hope is to achieve is not to get caught red-handed and red-blooded while sneaking into the temples in a women’s difficult days and not to have their corpses put into the Yamuna with that bundle on the waistline ripped off. It only goes to illustrate how far mere circumstantial factors influence a human’s destiny.

After the Last Page is Read : The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker

from The Telegraph
Friday, October 22, 2004.
The Moth Eaten Howdah of A Tusker
By Indira Goswami
Rupa, Rs.395

Jhelum Biswas

It is true that much is lost through translation. But if a work is rich in its content, its essence will be conveyed even after being translated. Indira Goswami’s The Moth Eaten Howdah of A Tusker is one such work that impresses inspite of the tranalation. Reading her novel, as Bhisham Sahni puts it, “ an unforgettable experience.” The bok captivates the reader, evokes a sense of awe and continues to haunt and probe the mind, long after the last page is turned.

The novel is set at the dawn of independence in a sattra, a vaishnavite monastery, in south Kamrup in Assam. In the narrative, Goswami portrays the religios and spiritual heads sattras being threatened of their rising popularity of the Communists. Indranath, the future satradhikar( head of the sattra), is a sensitive youth who is caught between this tragic moment of transition, a tussle between tradition and modernity. The howdah and the majestic tusker here are the symbols of the Gossain’s tradition and authority. The moth eaten howdah and the death of the sattra’s last tusker, Jaganath, work as a powerful image in expressing the laten tragedy of the tale.
Interwoven with the main narrative is a poignant tale of the miseries of women, especially the widows in a sattra.

The tragedies of Durga, Giribala and Saru gossainee are the different threads of the narative . Once woven together, they work as a commentand critique of the pliht of the Brahmin widows. The widows are forced to follow mindless rituals---and their life becomes an endless process of killing desires until their entity is, as it were erased. Giribala’s death in a way invokes the agniparisha of Sita. The women is forced to purify herself at every stage until she consigns herself to fire.

The narrative has a tragic quality, enhanced with the sensuous and poignant descriptions of nature. Descriptions like “… the colur of mud walls seemed to him the same dull, brownish gary colour of vultures feathers. The pulp of red pumpkins with their seeds lay rotting and drying on the tattered roofs like blothes of dried reddish-brown blood. He could smell the odor of paan leaves being fried over a fire. Indranath had a feeling of walking in a graveyard.”, reveal a kind of primeval beauty in the decay that overbears the atmosphere.

Numerous words used in the narrative are from the Kamrupi dialect. And the reader has to refer to the notes to understand the text. This does not interrupt smooth reading but adds to a lilt to the narrative, thereby making the language a perfect mediu for the unfolding of a tragedy. Goswami, uses both native words and almost archaic English words like “espied”---however this style is not jarring. In fact, this curious usags makes the language appear distant. This effect in turn ehances the tragic environment.

Goswami creates before us a world that is distant, but one which becomes a part of the reader’s life Not only the story but also the words and pharases from her narrative are thought-provoking. To take an example, “only the one who goes alone, who walks alone, can find out whatver he wants to know,” is rich in meaning even when taken out of the context of the novel.

A masterpiece re-launched:The novel is a breathtaking narrative of crumbling orthodoxy and the creeping in of modernity.

Doctoral dissertations on Indira Goswami's works

Home Page

1. Women in Mamoni Raisom Goswami’s Writings: Sailendra Nath Thakuria, Deptt. Of Assamese, Guwahati University.
2. Society in Indira Goswami (Mamoni Raisom Goswami)’s Novels: An Analysis: Purneshwar Nath, Deptt. Of Assamese, Guwahati University.
3. A Comparatives Study of Women In the Novels of Nirupama Borgohain and Mamoni Raisom Goswami(Indira Goswami):Lavanya Hazarika, Deptt. Of Assamese, Guwahati University.
4. Protest of Women Characters in the Novels of Mamoni Raisom Goswami (Indira Goswami):Nayan Jyoti Das, Deptt. Of Assamese, Guwahati University.
5. The Assamese Culture as Depicted in the Fictional Writings of Mamoni Raisom Goswami (Indira Goswami) with Special Reference to The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker and The Man of Chinnamasta: Ms Dhanakshi Burhagohain, Deptt. Of Cultural Studies, Tezpur University, Assam.
6. Translating Indira Goswami’s Assamese Novel Ahiron and a Study of the Problems Concerning Translatability:Baharul Islam, Deptt of English and Modern European Languages, Jamia Milia Ismalia University, Delhi
7. The Worm Eaten Lives in The Saga of South Kamrup* Vinaya V.S., Deptt of Englsih Mar Evanos College, Thiruvanantapuram.
8. Voicing the Silence: A Study of Marginal Voices in the Moth Eaten Howdah of the Tusker and Ahiron by Indira Goswami:Debojit Borah, Deptt. Of English and Modern European Languages, Jamia Milia Ismalia University.
9. The Writings of Mamoni Raisom Goswami: A Critical Appraisal: Tutumoni Baruah, Deptt. Of Assamese, Dibrugarh University.
10. Women in Conflicted Situation:A Study of Nalbari District of Assam: Sanghamitra Chaudhary, Deptt of Law and Governence, Jawaharlal Nehru University
11. Exploration of 'Self' in the Writings of Indira Goswami and Lalithambika Antharjanam: by Shyno Baby K, Deptt of Modern Indian Languages, University of Delhi.
12. Representation of Women in Indira Goswami (Mamoni Raisom Goswami)’s Novels: Mitali Barman, Deptt. Of Modern Indian Languages, University of Delhi.

The Offspring

Pitambar Mahajan was sitting in front of his house. His shoes were covered with a thick layer of mud, but he did not remove them. He looked at them with pride-only he and the Gossain of the Satra possessed shoes in this remote village.
Pitambar was in his early fifties. Once a robust man, his worries had slowly emaciated his healthy body. Folds of skin hung loose beneath his chin. He talked to others with eyes averted and head bowed. His gaze was always directed to the ground beneath his feet as if he were looking for something.
Heavy rain had soaked the ground and water had collected on both sides of the village. Half naked children played in the water or stood here and there, fishing with bamboo poles in their hands. With the rains, there was a rank growth everywhere of all sorts of plants and creepers like halechi and nalakochu. Flying frogs leapt from puddle to puddle and sometimes hit against the legs of passers by.
Pitambar was staring intently at a chubby, naked boy trying to disentangle his fishing line from the leaves of a nalokochu plant. Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by the grating voice of the village priest, Krishnakanta: " You have no child to call your own! Why do you devour that child with envious eyes? Each time I have gone to and returned from the temple, I have seen you sitting there like this! What about your wife? Is she better now?"
Pitambar replied hesitantly, " Several times I have taken her to Civil Hospital at Gauhati but it is useless. Her whole body is swelling up now."
"So there is no hope of an issue, is it? Very sad, indeed. There will be no one to continue your family line."
Pitambar remained silent. The priest stood near him for some time. He was wearing an old dhoti well above his knees, and a punjabi made of endi cloth, the colour of dried sheepskin. His shoulders were covered with a cotton chaddar. As Krishnakanta had only two teeth left in his mouth, his cheeks had caved in and created two hollows in his face. When he spoke, his face presented a peculiarly comic expression. His small eyes always shone with a cunning glint. His sparse hair was parted in the middle. He bent down and whispered in Pitambar's ears, " What about another marriage, eh?"
Pitambar removed his chaddar and wiped his face with one end. Before he could reply, the eyes of the two men were drawn towards a young woman passing by. She was Damayanti, the widow of a young priest from the Satra.
Her rain drenched clothes clung to her body. The colour of her skin was like the dazzling foam of boiling sugarcane juice. Though her figure was rather ample, she was immensely attractive. People said all sorts of things about her. Some even called her a prostitute. Perhaps the first Brahmin prostitute of the Satra!
Krishnakanta called out, " Hey, Damayanti, where are you coming from?"
"Can't you see these cocoons?"
"So, now you have started mixing with that crowd of Marwari merchants, eh! When the need arises, one stoops to washing even goat's legs as the saying goes, is it not?"
Damayanti did not reply, but bent down to squeeze out the water from the wet folds of her mekhala. Her blouse had stretched tight and was pulled up, revealing the white flesh which, to the two men, looked as tempting as the meat dressed and hung up on iron hooks in a butcher's shop! Krishnakanta turned his eyes away almost immediately, a little self-consciously, but Pitambar kept looking, enthralled by the sight. Damayanti straightened up and, without glancing at them, walked away, her mekhala rustling.
" I hear that she eats meat, fish, everything."
Krishnakanta nodded and said, " This girl has brought disgrace to Bangara Brahmins. She has thrown to the winds all restrictions and rituals prescribed for widows."
As Krishnakanta went on, Pitambar did not say one word either of assent or dissent. All the while, his mind hovered about the brief glimpse he had had of Damayanti's white flesh. He had never seen such soft burnished flesh before. It was not as if he had not seen or touched a woman's flesh. There was his first wife, then he had brought a second one with the hope of getting a child. Now she lay bedridden with rheumatism. Her whole body had become rickety - she was like a bundle of bones dumped in a corner of the bed. He had trodden the road to the hospital at Gauhati so many times that the soles of his shoes had worn out. He was numbed by the fear that he might have to die without an issue to continue the family line.
This gnawing fear had been further heightened by the constant nagging of the priest and others, rubbing salt into his wounds. All this had upset his mental balance.
Pitambar's ailing wife, lying in bed in the mud-walled house, could see the priest standing outside. She signalled with a movement of her eyes to a servant standing nearby, that he should carry one of the mooras outside for the priest to sit on. Pitambar, absorbed in himself, neither noticed the moora nor knew when and how it came to be there.
Krishnakanta stood up and said, "People of the village are gossiping about you, that you have gone off your head. What do you think? Don’t you know that there are many people in this world who are childless like you? Just try to look at it in a different way. After all, it is all maya, illusion!"
Pitambar's head drooped. The priest could see the grey hair on it. His clothes looked worn and untended. Only his shoes, though muddy, were intact. He felt a kind of pity for this man. Once upon a time he was so handsome that people called him gora paltan. Now he had money, a granary full of paddy, everything. Still he was not happy! Suddenly Krishnakanta was struck by a thought. He looked around. He could see the open door of Pitambar's bedroom and the reclining body of his wife. He could even see her eyes, burning like those of an animal in a dark jungle, as if she were straining with all her might to catch what he was saying to her husband. The intensity of those glowing eyes, even after traversing that long distance, was heartrending! The priest would not have believed it possible.
He made up his mind. Bending down, he whispered into Pitambar's ear, " I can help you out of this agony."
" Another solution again?"
" Yes, this time it is absolutely pakka!"
" I don’t understand you…"
" This time there is no question of an unsuccessful pregnancy! She has gone through four abortions and every time she has buried those evil things in the bamboo grove behind her house."
Startled, Pitambar cried out, " Are you talking about Damayanti?"
" Yes! Yes! Nowadays Brahmin girls are even marrying fishermen. The daughter of the Gossain on the Dhaneshwari riverbank married a Muslim Boy! Gandhi Maharaj has shown us the path. That’s why I am telling you.."
Pitambar exclaimed in a surge of excitement, " What is it you are saying?"
" If you want, you can make Damayanti your own?"
Krishnakanta again cast a glance at the invalid woman. This time her eyes were shut tight probably in a spasm of pain. Pitambar knelt down near the priest's feet and entreated him earnestly, " Only you can do it! Please help me with this girl! She is a Brahmin. I will keep her in all comfort."
A cunning smile played for a moment on Krishnakanta's toothless mouth. " Hum, well.. er! I'll see about it. I'll have to come again a couple of times. Then there are two little daughters to be taken care of."
Pitambar got up with confused emotions and made his way to the bedroom. When he entered, he saw his wife open her eyes and look at him. She now saw him opening the wooden box where they kept money and other valuables. A little later, he closed the box and went back to the priest.
Krishnakanta took the money, Rs. 20 in cash, and went away humming under his breath.
A week had passed. Pitambar waited anxiously for the priest, his whole being on tenterhooks. In these past seven days, he had seen Damayanti passing by his house on her way to Gossain's place, carrying cotton for making sacred threads. The sight of her body heightened the turmoil in his mind. His obsession for her created strange hallucinations. Before his maddened eyes, Damayanti's clothes seemed to disappear each time revealing more and more of her beautiful white fleshed body.
Pitambar started sitting outside his house every day. At this time of the year, Damayanti came regularly to gather kollmu and other vegetables which grew wild along the drains bordering the road. Her two little daughters, skinny and naked, usually trailed behind her. Their thin and undernourished bodies looked incongruous against their mother's healthy and voluptuous body. Damayanti's long and reddish brown hair often caught Pitambar's eyes.
One day, Pitambar gathered enough courage to go near her when she was plucking green leaves and said, " You will catch cold if you stand like this in muddy water every day."
Damayanti looked back, her eyes opening wide with astonishment. But she did not reply.
Pitambar said again, " I'll send the servant. You tell him to collect as many greens as you want and…"
But his sentence remained unfinished. She looked back and Pitambar's eyes fell before her intense, disdainful gaze. He left the place hurriedly and went and sat down on the tree stump in front of his house.
Pitambar got up to go inside and give her the medicine. He removed his shoes and placed them in a corner. As he was about to cross the threshold, he heard a coughing behind him. Krishnakanta at last! He ran back and put on his shoes. His wife's eyes had followed him, expecting her medicine, but now she closed them wearily again. The fire in her eyes was extinguished, only the ashes remained.
Pitambar asked impatiently, " Bapu! What news have you brought for me? Tell me quickly!"
In his excitement he even forgot to offer him a seat.
" Tell me! What is the news?"
He whispered into Pitambar's ears, " Just listen! I have dug up some information. Right now her womb is empty - it is not even one month since she buried the evil fruit of her last adventure. Her little daughter said that this time her mother had used a crow bar given by that student who goes to Saraili college on bicycle, to dig the grave. He is a boy without character from a very rich household. During college hours, he used to go straight to Damayanti's place and hide his textbooks in the basket of rice. His college fees went for her cosmetics."
The priest lowered his voice still further and barely whispered, " On the bare floor! In front of the little girls! Hari! Hari! They copulated shamelessly. This time it was obviously that student's child."
Pitambar heard everything in cold silence.
The priest continued, "I told her about you. She was infuriated! She spat out. "That pariah! How dare he send this proposal to me! Doesn’t he know that I am from the jajamani Brahmin caste and he, the vermin, is a low caste Mahajan? I told her that when she was wallowing in the slime of sin, how could she talk of high caste or low caste? She was not getting any proposals for marriage from Brahmin boys. Who will marry a widow? That too with daughters? At least you are prepared to marry her, who is like a piece of sugarcane, chewed and thrown away. I told her straightaway that you would take the Panchayat's consent, arrange a havan and marry her with due formalities. She questioned me about your wife. I told her that your wife was like a straw which may be blown away any time; that you would keep her in great comfort. I even told her you were the only man in the Satra who wears a pair of costly shoes! Suddenly she started crying. I don’t know why she cried. Then she wiped away her tears with her chaddar and said, ' Nowadays, I don’t keep well. I would like to lean on something solid and permanent.' I told her, "How can you remain in good health? I have heard that you have got rid of those evil things from your womb four or five times. If the Panchayat takes up this matter, it will be terrible thing for the Satra. Even if somebody goes to the door for a glass of water, he will be fined twenty rupees. You have been spared only because you are a Brahmin. But for how long? She replied, 'What can I do? I had to live. They even stopped their orders for sacred threads and puffed rice. They considered me impure, contaminated! And those tenants! They have turned thieves and don’t give me my share of paddy. They take advantage of my helplessness. In these circumstances, where should I have gone with my two tiny daughters? I have not paid the land revenue. The land, too, will be auctioned off! What can I do?"
Pitambar grew impatient. "What about my proposal?"
"Yes,yes! I am coming to that. She wants to meet you. On the full moon night. At her dhekal, the room in the backyard for pounding the paddy."
Damayanti was observing his movements from the dhekal. She called out, "Hey! Here! This way!"
Like a duty bound soldier, he turned round on the quick and went towards her. A clay lamp of mustard oil was burning near the pounding horse. She was leaning against a ramshackle wall. Pitambar did not dare look into her eyes : he was afraid. Suddenly it struck him that it was all an illusion! Her figure before him in the dim light was also an illusion. But his thoughts were cut short. He heard her say, "Have you brought some money?"
He was stunned. He did not expect her first question to be this. He said quickly, "Here! Take this! Whatever I have is yours now." He took out a small string purse from his waist and put it in her hand. Damayanti thrust the purse into the cleavage of her blouse. Damayanti then took Pitambar to an adjacent room, damp and dark. In it was a low cot, made of guava wood. It had been given to her deceased husband at the time of Gossain's funeral ceremony. She blew out the lamp…
Two months had passed. It was late evening. Pitambar left the dark in haste to get back to his house. Damayanti went to the well languidly and started to take a bath. Just then, the priest entered the courtyard. He remarked sarcastically, "You never used to take a bath after sleeping with the Brahmin boy. What has happened now?"
Damayanti did not reply.
"Eh! He is from the lower caste, is that it…?"
Suddenly Damayanti came rushing out as she saw, in drenched clothes, and rushed to the far corner of the courtyard. She bent over and started vomiting. Krishnakanta stood still for a moment, stupefied. Then he shuffled up to her and said gently, "This must surely be Pitambar's…"
Damayanti still remained silent. "Ah! This is good news indeed! That man was yearning for a child."
Even now she did not say a word.
"So I will go and give him the good news. He can now wed you openly."
He came up to her and whispered, "People are shocked and horrified by what is going on in this house. There was talk, off and on, of calling a meeting of the Panchayat. And listen! There was another thing. Something very serious! That three-month-old foetus you buried behind the bijulee bamboos..one day a fox dug it out, swallowed part of it and left a half-eaten limb in the Gossain's priest's courtyard. You know, the one who washes the Gossain's Murlidhar. He had a hard time getting himself purified - had to swallow two glasses of cowdung water."
Damayanti started vomiting again making sounds of auk, auk, her mouth wide open.
The priest continued, "Knowing all this, Pitambar is prepared to marry you. Listen, with my hands on the sacred thread, I tell you, this time if you do not save yourself from sin by taking this chance, you will surely burn in hell-fire!"
After giving the best news of his life to Pitambar, Krishnakanta said, "So, at last, your dreams may come true. If she does not destroy this child, then you can rest assured that she will marry you."
Pitambar was sitting on the tree stump in front of his house, as usual, wearing his prized possession-his shoes. When he heard Krishnakanta's words, his whole body trembled. Was it really true? Could it be his own, his very own child in that woman's womb? It must be the truth! This Brahmin could not possibly utter lies. It is really my child!
He stood up, restless and agitated, and started pacing up and down in front of his house.
Krishnakanta said, "At this age! To become a father! It's really a fortune, a miracle!"
Pitambar knelt at the priest's feet and entreated, "Please, Bapu! Don’t let my hopes be shattered. You know my background. My forefathers were brave warriors. They fought those Burmese invaders. You know that! If this lineage is snapped, if there is no son to carry it forward, only this doomed sufferer knows what tortures my soul will go through. And now this seductive sorceress holds my life in her fist. Oh Bapu, tell me! What should I do?"
Krishnakanta lifted one hand in consolation and said, "Like the vulture keeping vigil over a corpse. I'll guard that woman. Not only that, I'll issue a strict warning to that old hag not to give her any of her evil herbs and roots for an abortion. But all this is not possible without money. I'll require lots of money!"
Three months passed. Now almost every day Pitambar strolled along the banks of the Dhaneshwari with the youthful son of his hallucinations. The dream pursued him persistently, day and night.
It was the month of August. The storm had broken in the afternoon and it was raining heavily. Pitambar went to the room near the dhekal to close the door. His wife was staring at him. He stood still. The wide open eyes were like shining snakes in the dark. Suddenly, the storm lashed out. All the oil lamps flickered and died out. It was pitch black. Over the roar of the storm, he heard crashing sounds. What was that? Surely lighting had struck a tree in his courtyard and split it in two. Which tree was it, he wondered? He rushed out helter-skelter. His servants were already there shifting the heap of coconuts from the verandah to the dhekal.
Gradually the thunder and lightning abated but the rain continued to come down in sheets. Suddenly Pitambar heard somebody calling out to him. Lantern in hand, he rushed out to see who it was. A figure loomed into view, completely drenched, dhoti held high above his knees. He had an old torn umbrella in his hands. The man was very thin, almost skeletal. He came towards Pitambar. What was it now? Holding the lantern higher, Pitambar looked closely at him. It was Krishnakanta! Pitambar who exclaimed. "Bapu, you? What is it? What have you come in this foul weather?"
With great difficulty the priest reached the verandah and shut his umbrella. His hands were trembling. He looked extremely agitated. He squeezed out the water from his dhoti and said, "Your first wife died under an inauspicious star, Pitambar. That must be the reason for what has happened now."
"What? What did you say? What is wrong now?"
"It is said in the Shastras that when a person dies under this star even the shortest blade of grass in the courtyard burns to ashes. For you now, everything has become ashes!"
Pitambar cried out in alarm, "What has happened? For God's sake, tell me quickly!"
"Alas! She has destroyed it. She has got rid of the unborn child. She will not carry the seed of a low caste. She is a Brahmin of Shandilya Gotra. Oh, Pitambar! Pitambar! She has destroyed your child!"
The youth walking along the Dhaneshwari had suddenly slipped and fallen into the river….
One day, in the middle of the night, Damayanti woke up with a start, disturbed by some sounds coming from the backyard, as if someone was digging up the earth. Alarmed and frightened, she woke up her elder daughter. Both strained their ears. Yes, yes, there were distinct sounds of digging coming from the direction of the bamboo grove behind the house. That was the very spot where both mother and daughter had, some nights before, dug a pit for the aborted child! Yes, that was the night when both mother and daughter were terrified by the frequent howling of the foxes as the daughter held the earthen lamp and Damayanti dug the earth with a crow bar in jerking movements and scooped out the loose earth with nervous hands.
Thuk! Thuk! Thuk!
They opened the window cautiously and looked out. They saw a man digging in the dim light of a lantern hung from a bamboo tree nearby.
Damayanti's heart started beating fast. Was it Pitambar out there? Yes, it was! He was digging the earth with single-minded determination. Gradually, the tempo of the digging increased. The Mahajan's whole body and face assumed a terrible, violent aspect. He dug and clawed the earth frantically with frenzied energy.
Damayanti's body started trembling from head to foot. Her heart beat violently. What should she do? Should she shout? Should she keep quiet? A terrible thing was happening!
"Mahajan! Mahajan!"
There was no repsonse!
Thuk! Thuk! Thuk! Thuk!
"Why are you digging, Mahajan?"
Pitambar looked up, but did not reply.
Thuk! Thuk! Thuk! Thuk!
Damayanti became frantic. She shouted furiously, "What will you get from there? Yes, I have buried it! It was a boy! But he is just a lump of flesh, blood and mud! Stop it! Stop it!"
Pitambar raised his head. His eyes were burning. "I'll touch that flesh with these hands of mine. He was the scion of my lineage, a part of my flesh and blood! I will touch him!"

Translated from the Assamese original, “Sanskar” by the author. Anthologized in The Shadow of Kamakhya, Rupa and Co, Ansari Road, New Delhi, 2005.(Second Edition)

Courtesy: Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature

List of Awards.

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1. Sahitya Akademi Award, 1983

2. Assam Sahitya Sabha Award in 1988.

3. Bharat Nirmaan Award in 1989.

4. Sauhardya Award of Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan of Government of India, 1992.

5. Katha National Award for Literature in 1993.

6. Kamal Kumari Foundation National Award in 1996.

7. International Jury’s Award for the film “Adajya” based on her novel The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker, directed by Santana Bordoloi in 1997.

8. The International Tulsi Award from Florida International University for her book, Ramayana From Ganga To Brahmaputra

9. Jnanpith Award for Literature, 2000.

10. Padmashri (which she refused)

11. D Litt Degree from Rabindra Bharati University, West Bengal in the year 2002.

12. Mahiyoshi Jaymati Award with a citation in gold by Ahom Court of Assam, 2002.

13. Honoured by the Govt of Assam for winning the Jnanpith Award, the highest literary award of India.

14. Awarded the Ambassador for Peace from the Inter Religious and International Federation for World Peace.

Indira Goswami: In the View of Critics

“Blessed with brains a writer’s inch and social background, Indira Goswami came into full circle to shine like a star in the literary and academic firmament of that great Sub-continent of Bhratbarsha…”
Sunday Observer, in Sri Lanka


“I feel that with the publication of the book Dantal Hatir Uwe Khuwa Howda( The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker) a great writer has emerged amidst us. Mamoni tells a wonderful story, a story of disintegration of power, of unbelievable suffering of men and women, and also of tremendous courage and the tremendous pain that love brings. The characters so Assamese and yet so universally alive and kicking real and exciting, to say the least, kept me haunting for many days. It’s an unforgettable work.”
Professor Sisir kumar Das, Delhi Univrsity.


“…its reading is an unforgettable experience.Whenever my mind wandered back to this sombre, penumbral and horrid atmosphere, I feel overpowered by awe.”
On The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker, Bhishma Sahni, New delhi, August 12 2000.


“Indira Goswami is one of those rare souls who have been able to get an insight into the great power which is working behind this universe. In turn the endeavor to grapple with that finds reflection in this book and lends strength to it…This power that this metamorphosis has bestowed upon her has now became a matter of pride for every Assamese women.”
On The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker, Amrita Pritom

“….But lke a phoenix, Indira rose---writer fictionalizing the experiences of bliss and blessedness, her sorrow and bitterness. Literature was her refuge, writing was her new passion.
Indira comfortably weaves fascinating novels against the backdrop of human deprivations, exploration of the weak and laces them with revolutionary ideology for sweeping away the decadent and ushering in the emancipated human being.”
Sunday Herald: May 27, 1990.

“….it is extraordinarily captivating, as well disquieting both fascinating and repelling in its naïve openness and uninhibited nature… The singularly most honest and transparently sincere character that Indira Goswami possesses—a novel—it touches and sounds one’s heart. It can be said that such autobiographies are rarely written in Indian languages. It is really a wonderful and unique work. The translation is so good that it appears as if it’s not a translated work, but an original one. Publication is also equally praiseworthy. The work will go a long way in the world of literature.”
Saptahik Hindustan: March 29-April 4, 1992.