In Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih’s Funeral Nights (2021), the protagonist, Ap, likes to count the many names Khasis have for rain. His hometown Sohra, anglicised to Cherrapunji, is synonymous with rain, but thereby hangs a tale. The word for rain means slap, but when it pours, the rain is called lapbah; if it rains for three nights in a row, it becomes lap-lai-miet, and laymysaw is the “rain of danger, with both literal and metaphorical meanings”. Ap has a “heartrending longing” for Sohra, which is all “water, wind, cloud, darkness and terrorising tempests”.
The sheer diversity of the seven states of India’s east, so unimaginatively dismissed as the Northeast, is nowhere more visible than in its literature, oral and written. The feminist publishing house, Zubaan, has contributed to the rich layers of the region by publishing stories by women from Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Add to your bookshelves the latest in the series, Riverside Stories: Writings from Assam. Edited by Banamallika, and with illustrations by her and Fizala Tayebulla, the collection has stories, poems, drawings, mapping Assam’s astonishing landscape and myriad stories.
Plurality and its woes
“Assam as a geographical location and a concept is so diverse that there probably is not any quarter which can claim to be singular in a community, in language, in religion, caste, trade and so on. Every nook and corner of Assam is steeped in multiplicity,” Banamallika writes in the introduction. The plurality, however, rues Banamallika, “has also presented Assam with many a woe and worry; demands of states, autonomous regions and doubts about nationality and citizenship have impacted lives and relationships”. In the recent past, several writers have tried to capture the “woe and worry” of Assam in books such as Arupjyoti Saikia’s voluminous account, The Quest for Modern Assam: A History (1942-2000), Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty’s The Assamese: A Portrait of a Community, and Abhishek Saha’s No Land’s People on the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in Assam.
The stories show how the National Register of Citizens exercise in Assam has upended the lives of ordinary people in the state. | Photo Credit: Ritu Raj Konwar
At least one of the tales in Riverside Stories — ‘The Red File’ — delves into the way the NRC has upended the lives of ordinary people, many of whom are now entangled in complex policies of the state that include publishing lists of names, desperately looking for the papers that will prove they are indeed legitimate citizens. Questions like who belongs and who doesn’t also dominate Chaity Das’s ‘Joba’, where her family’s experience “of not belonging continues between India, Pakistan (east) and Bangladesh” is recreated.
Besides, there are other conflicts in the State, from the ULFA movement to the Bodo agitation, and we get a unique perspective by women, the ones who always face the brunt during strife. Maitreyee Boruah writes the poignant story of Pungbili Basumatary, whom everyone calls ‘Kheloi’ because of her running skills. Pungbili never gets to tell her own story, and once she escapes her village, she gets lost forever in the city, her dreams broken.
A teacher has to give up her only possession of worth, her bangles, for a ‘militant’ cause when a former student first cajoles, then threatens her for a contribution, in Klirni Terangpi’s story titled ‘Kaike Atomo (An Everyday Story)’.
Lest we forget
People make their way out of a waterlogged area in Guwahati, October 2023. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
But Banamallika is quick to remind readers that conflict is not the only “woe” in Assam. The other constant torment in the State is floods, and even though predictable, “they change everything when they leave”. Several stories, including Rashida Tapadar’s ‘Manowara’s Library’ catch the “ebb and flow of the water”, and its aftermath.
The stories, rooted in Assam, are also universal narratives about women, their strength and resilience, their struggles and silences. Rituparna Neog writes about the pain and suffering that follows any woman who is “different” in her poem, ‘Better Being a Scarecrow’, translated by Banamallika: Sometimes, I think/ It’s better to be a scarecrow./ No one asks — now what have you worn?/ Better to be a scarecrow,/ Nobody cares what lies beneath the clothes! Better to be a scarecrow./ No sideways glares that strip me naked./ Yes, better to be a scarecrow,/ No one will ask me — male or female?
Women are important knowledge keepers, and these stories from Assam throw light on a host of issues, from citizenship battles, floods to the pulls of everyday living.
sudipta.datta@thehindu.co.in
Riverside Stories: Writings from Assam
Ed. Banamallika
Zubaan Books
₹595
Published - September 06, 2024 09:30 am IST
