Why is Indira Goswami ‘great’? - Aruni Kashyap

Writer Aruni Kashyap says the greatness of Indira Goswami cannot be questioned and tells us exactly why

The author 
who made us dream 
of distant lands 
was also a figure 
of extreme
curiosity  for us.
Assam listens when she speaks

In 2004, a friend of mine asked me a question in Delhi: “Why is Indira Goswami so great a writer?” His introduction to Mamoni baideo’s works was through her English translations – Pages Stained with Blood, The Man from Chinnamasta and The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker. I found myself fumbling for a reply. I tried defending my weak statement – she has influenced the style of many budding writers, it is she who has introduced themes that were never before explored in Assamese literature, and she is difficult to translate.

He expected a literary reply –  how she has modified the tradition of Assamese literature, and what is behind her undisputed position in Indian literature that her name is taken with the likes of Mahasweta Devi and UR Ananthamurthy. In a single or series of statements, it is difficult to capture the life of an author who is to Assamese literature what Bhupen Hazarika is to the cultural domain of Assam. She is what Toni Morrison is to America: when she speaks, Assam listens.

Mamoni Goswami’s works were not my first introduction to Assamese fiction. I read, from a very early age, forbidden novels as I used to grope around in the book shelves in the almirahs of my parents. I remember, when I picked up Nirupoma Borgohain’s Iparor Ghor Xiparor Ghor, my mother confiscated it because it has stories about women that a fifth-grader was not supposed to read. I rebelled and read everything in the Assamese edition of The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker, without knowing what a howdah was. I had not asked anybody if the author was Assamese. What I inquired was: how come I never heard of the title ‘Raisom’ before? Raisom made me curious, and even more curious was the word howdah. I remember crying for a long time when Giribala burnt herself to death. It took that boy of sixth grade a long time to recuperate from the shock. I was annoyed with the author because she ‘killed’ Giribala.

Mamoni Raisom Goswami brought the worlds outside Assam to the realm of Assamese literature, the way Bhupen Hazarika made us dream about the grave of Mark Twain, the banks of the Mississippi and of Paris and Austria with his songs. We have Dhirendranath Borthakur’s Bai Saheba set in Jhansi against the Sepoy Mutiny, Deben Acharya’s Jongom located in the forests of Burma and Syed Abdul Malik’s novel Dukhan Nadi aru Ekhon Marubhumi set in Lucknow. But Goswami’s novels didn’t exoticise distant lands like her precursors: she brought the horrors home in evocative language. Her novel set in Vrindavan is a critical look at Hinduism filtered through the life of abandoned widows, known as Radheshyamis. Chehnabar Sot is set against the beautiful locale of Kashmir, but only to narrate a tale of the hapless condition of the working class people of the 1960’s hired by different companies to build aqueducts in the then peaceful Kashmir Valley. Similar in tone and theme is Mamore Dhora Tarowal. After the publication of her autobiography, it has become next to impossible to separate her fiction from her life. Both look like two facets of the same coin. The woman who had risen like the phoenix: the two suicide attempts she describes in her autobiography are often compared with the depressive streaks that her rebellious and complex self met with. Saudamini’s suicide mentioned in Nilakanthi Braja seems to mirror her desires when she lived as a widow in Vrindavan.

Critical reputation came undisputed to Goswami after she won the Sahitya Akademi award, but popularity started chasing her when books were written on her tragic and eventful life and articles were published on her life.

The author who made us dream of distant lands was also a figure of extreme curiosity for the residents of Assam. Perhaps that is why Assam listens when she speaks. Perhaps that is why Assam felt that if the reigns of the peace process remained with her, the process would remain untainted even within the murky alleys of Indian politics. As someone from the generation who never knew what it is to live outside the shadow of the gun, I did not know why Mamoni baideo is so great till the time I moved to Delhi. I got my artillery to argue about her greatness only in subsequent years. I wonder what my friend had thought when he saw my expression – because it was so obvious to me that she is a great author. There is no need to question the fact.