Modern Assamese Short Stories | Upendranath Sarma

The unhurried, steady advance of the narration, the use of broken fragments of speech, and the inevitable and sudden culmination of ‘Top’ cuts a deep impression upon the mind and the sudden revelation of the sense of guilt evoking in the subconscious of ‘Haribol Koka’s mind arouses a sense of pity in the mind of the sympathetic reader.
Though poetic in tone, Bora’s descriptions bring out the very essence of the theme of the story in which they are embedded. The Romantic heritage of the poetic sensibility has been utilised by Mahim Bora to the full, though, thematically he is fully aware of the harsh realities of life. Like Syed Abdul Malik, he also follows the path of ‘Romantic Realism’.

Bora’s lastest collection of stories-Rati Phula Phool contains some stories which are eminently readable; but it is doubtful if they have matched his stories published in the age of Ramdhenu. Here he depicts a number of moral lapses of a trivial nature, the growing indiscipline and laziness of the young generation, the lost moorings of the educated unemployed and a host of such themes. He has tried to catch the chaotic and aimless life of the present time in his collection, but Bora has not recaptured his ‘first fine careless rapture’ and the stories are lacking in his former class and vitality.
Padma Borkataky is a prolific writer of fiction. His attempt at writing short stories is short minded and casual. His early collection of short stories ‘Ashlil’ exposes the lush easefulness and complacency of middle class life. Borkataky’s stories show a rare intelligence at work, and these are marked by a sense of social justice and truthfulness. But, social critism of this sort is hardly conducive to the making of the story, for you may go on peeling layers upon layers of social illusions and like an absolutely peeled onion leave nothing at the core. Modern fiction is the creation of the middle class and it depends upon the acceptance of certain values as its backdrop; This positive approach is lacking in Borkakaty’s early stories. His mastery over the Assamese language is commendable and he has a keen eye to observe the snug complacency and fleshy corruptions of the middle class upon which a healthy art of the future may find its moorings. It is healthy to note that he can depict the problems of the underdogs with passionate sympathy.

Dr. Bhaben Saikia is a prolific short story writer of the ‘Ramdhenu Age’. His stories are based on the small details, hopes and aspirations, joys and sorrows of the middle class or lower middle class life. The doubts, anxieties and conflicts and the various deeprooted problems of the common man provide the subject matter for his stories. In the Awahon times writers did not lay great stress on the delineation of mood or atmosphere and expressive gestures. In the hands of Dr. Saikia such descriptions have reached a sort of culmination. The merit of this kind of expression is that it throws light upon many dark corners of human life, state of mind and every move in a clear perspective. In stories like ‘Grahan’ the use of details of these sort has helped to clarify the sense of loneliness of the central character. The truth of Dr. Saikia’s observation renders such descriptive touches enjoyable. Besides, in some stories suggestive details of this sort may be the only means of illuminating the lives of people like the servant girls belonging to the sub-middle class. But, even though we must agree with Terence that nothing human is alien to the mind, it is the privilege of the arties to speed up and concentrate on the matter in hand and details for the sake of details may be the writer’s ‘fatal Cleopetra’. Such details often prevent the reader from close attention to the central experience and the gravity of a particular situation.
Dr. Saikia’s ‘Barnana’ gives us a good impression of his style and manner. It records the transformation of values that takes place in a growing township. Once the well on the outskirts was the life centre of the locality. Different families dependent on the well for drinking water lived in love and amity. Now most of the people had to sell their land to the ‘novoriche’. Big buildings were constructed and the place was fillied with strange faces. Barnana’s elder brother Nepal also partitioned his part of the paternal acre and got established elsewhere. Bhola, the other brother stuck to his portion and lived there with his mother and sisters. He soon fell into the clutch of the rich land holder-Jagmohan, who wrung from Bhola, the permission to erect a big building on condition that he would allow Bhola’s family to live in the three rooms in the ground floor. Soon, there was trouble in the family. Barnana’s sister Rani married Jagmohan’s brother and left the place. Barnana could not keep her moorings among the tenants of Jagmohan, who created an evil atmosphere conducive to moral corruptions. It was inevitable that under such circumstances Barnana should lose her moral stay. When she could hide her shame no longer, she commited suicide in the well. Her death uncovered the masks of many a ‘genteel’ people of the locality.

As most people of the locality could make their own arrangement of drinking water only Bhola’s family was dependent on the well. So, the Municipality did not bother to clean the well. Now, at the death of Barnana the matter had to be taken up and the story begins with the drawing of mud from the well. Dr. Saikia here, allows the realised situation to speak for itself. Though the writer is compassionate and indignant at man’s inhumanity to man, he is free from sentimentality. His method is one of detached objectivity. The symbolic touches are also praiseworthy. He has rendered the callousness and detachment of the people looking on. He tries to throw some light on the human situation by emphasizing on the list of unnecessary things that are recovered from the well along with the mud. One might regret the author’s failure to arouse passion as Forster regretted its absence from the pages of Scott.
The troubles faced by the common man, their joys and sorrows, lonesome weariness of the old people, sufferings of people under the callous social machinery, the pain entailed through a too close adherence to traditions-all these find expression in his stories. Dr. Saikia’s understanding of life and its little ironies is deep and has a certain largeness. He would have been a great writer of Indian short story indeed, if he could throw the caution to the winds and tried to arouse the conscience of his generation against corruption and injustice.

Dr. Lakshminandan Bora has written about the lives of the people of the rural areas with an intimacy which is rare in our short story writers. He depicts the joys and sorrows, hopes and aspirations of these people with great sympathy. Had he concentrated on the lives of these people whom he knows intimately in his fiction long or short, he could be a writer of major importance in Indian literature. Bora has tried to present vividly, a fast vanishing world. Even now, while we are reading his wonderful vignettes of country life we feel that we are in a new world almost exotic; like the ‘Arabian Nights’-the pressure of ‘modern’ life has so much transformed old ways of life. The small details or incidents occurring in the lives of the Assamese fishermen, the problem their livelihood, love, affection find memorable expression of in his stories. In his great story ‘Sakha Damodar’ a young peasant Mukut has lost his land to the Mahajan and taken the job of a peon in the local hospital. He yearns for his independent life full of song and merriment and his favourite pastime like angling in the river Sonai. His anguish knows no bounds when he has to sell his bullocks to the Mahajan, as with one cultivation he cannot maintain them. On the ‘Garu Bihu’ day his sufferings become acute as he would not be able to offer the customary obeisance to his bullocks. But the bullocks escape from the shed of the Mahajan who does not know the local customs and they receive the customary attention from Mukut and his family. ‘Sakha Damodar’ returns to his house. There is poignancy in the situation, where Mukut’s little son Mani demands that he could wash them in the river. The story is redolent of life in the countryside with its dance and song and country mirth. Such descriptive touches are extremely touching.

“To-day, his mind has flown to the fields, the crystal clear waters of the Sonai dancing in the sunshine is calling him. It was there that he had washed his bullocks, since he could remember”.

“Man Birikhar Jokh” (Measuring the Tree called Mind) is more compact. Here the writer has thrown some new light on sexual love. This is a love story with a difference. Bora has thrown middle class caution to the winds and has written about the healthy love of a pair of village folk with sympathy. He has written about sex-love without inhibition, within the stylistic limits of the story form. Prabhat loves Binda. He elopes with Binda and makes her enter his father’s house though there is great hurdle in the marriage owning to a family quarrel. They make love on the way as they cross the wilderness at night. But, he has to spend the night in his friend’s house owing to his father’s hostility to their union and cannot resist when his friend’s sister makes advances, though he remains faithful to Binda in his fashion as the term goes. The story is told with great truth and insight. The writer has not tried to show any desire to suppress sexual love in the interest of Victorian morality. It is difficult to find such a strong depiction of sexual love in the modern Assamese short story.

Bora has depicted the transformations wearing out the vitality of a traditional society in the post-independence period. In some of his later stories he shows how easy money and high position have gradually degraded the modern society. Bora has not been able to show great skill in such stories. Besides, in these, we notice a waning of inspiration and loss of vitality.

Upendranath Sarma writes on Indian Review.