ProfessorFakrul Alam brings to us Tagore songs in translation and in discussion on the season that follows the scorching heat of summer months. Clickhereto read.
“May is pretty, May is mild,
Dances like a happy child…”
Annette Wynne (Early twentieth century)
Each month is expressed in a different form by nature in various parts of the world. In the tropics, May is sweltering and hot — peak summer. In the Southern hemisphere, it is cold. However, with climate change setting in, the patterns are changing, and the temperatures are swinging to extremes. Sometimes, one wonders if this is a reflection of human minds, which seem to swing like pendulums to create dissensions and conflicts in the current world. Nothing seems constant and the winds of change have taken on a menacing appearance. If we go by Nazrul’s outlook, destruction is a part of creating a new way of life as he contends in his poem, ‘Ring Bells of Victory’ — “Why fear destruction? It’s the gateway to creation!” Is this how we will move towards ‘dancing like a happy child’?
Mitra Phukan addresses this need for change in her novel, What Will People Say — not with intensity of Nazrul nor in poetry but with a light feathery wand, more in the tradition of Jane Austen. Her narrative reflects on change at various levels to explore the destruction of old customs giving way to new that are more accepting and kinder to inclusivity, addressing issues like widow remarriage in conservative Hindu frameworks, female fellowship and ageing as Phukan tells us in her interview. Upcoming voice, Prerna Gill, lauded by names like Arundhathi Subramaniam and Chitra Divakaruni, has also been in conversation with Shantanu Ray Choudhuri on her book of verses, Meanwhile. She has refreshing perspectives on life and literature.
Devraj Singh Kalsi has written a nostalgic piece that hovers between irony and perhaps, a reformatory urge… I am not quite sure, but it is as enjoyable and compelling as Meredith Stephen’s narrative on her conservation efforts in Kangaroo Island in the Southern hemisphere and fantastic animals she meets, livened further by her photography. Ravi Shankar talks of his night hikes in the Northern hemisphere, more accurately, in the Himalayas. While trekking at night seems a risky task, trying to recreate dishes from the past is no less daunting, as Suzanne Kamata tells us in her Notes from Japan.
May hosts the birthday of a number of greats, including Tagore and Satyajit Ray. Ratnottama Sengupta’s piece on Ray’s birth anniversary celebrations with actress Jaya Bachchan recounting her experience while working for Ray in Mahanagar(Big City), a film that has been restored and was part of celebrations for the filmmaker’s 102nd Birth anniversary captures the nostalgia of a famous actress on the greatest filmmakers of our times. She has also given us an essay on Tagore and cinema in memory of the great soul, who was just sixty years older to Ray and impacted the filmmaker too. Ray had a year-long sojourn in Santiniketan during his youth.
Eulogising Rabindrasangeet and its lyrics is an essay by Professor Fakrul Alam on Tagore. Professor Alam has translated number of his songs for the essay as he has, a powerful poem from Bengali by Masud Khan. A transcreation of Tagore’s first birthday poem , a wonderful translation of Balochi poetry by Fazal Baloch of Munir Momin’s verses, another one from Korean by Ihlwha Choi rounds up the translated poetry in this edition. Stories that reach out with their poignant telling include Nadir Ali’s narrative, translated from Punjabi by his daughter, Amna Ali, and Aruna Chakravarti’s translation of a short story by Tagore. We have more stories from around the world with Julian Gallo exploring addiction, Abdullah Rayhan with a poignant narrative from Bangladesh, Sreelekha Chatterjee with a short funny tale and Paul Mirabile exploring the supernatural and horror, a sequel to ‘The Book Hunter‘, published in the April issue.
All the genres we host seem to be topped with a sprinkling of pieces on Tagore as this is his birth month. A book excerpt from Chakravarti’s Daughters of Jorasankonarrates her well-researched version of Tagore’s last birthday celebration and carries her translation of the last birthday song by the giant of Bengali literature. The other book excerpt is from Bhubaneswar@75 – Perspectives, edited by Bhaskar Parichha/ Charudutta Panigrahi. Parichha has also reviewed Journey After Midnight – A Punjabi Life: From India to Canadaby Ujjal Dosanjh, a book that starts in pre-independent India and travels with the writer to Canada via UK. Again to commemorate the maestro’s birth anniversary, Meenakshi Malhotra has revisited Radha Chakravarty’s translation of Tagore’s Farewell Song. Somdatta Mandal has critiqued KR Meera’sJezebel, translated from Malayalam by Abhirami Girija Sriram and K. S. Bijukuma. Lakshmi Kannan has introduced to us Jaydeep Sarangi’s collection of poems, letters in lower case.
There are pieces that still reach out to be mentioned. Do visit our content page for May. I would like to thank Sohana Manzoor for her fantastic artwork and continued editorial support for the Tagore translations and the whole team for helping me put together this issue. Thank you. A huge thanks to our loyal readers and contributors who continue to bring in vibrant content, photography and artwork. Without you all, we would not be where we are today.
In Conversation with Mitra Phukanabout her latest novel, What Will People Say?A Novel , published by Speaking Tiger Books, March 2023
Mitra Phukan. Courtesy: Speaking Tiger Books
What will people Say? A Novel by Mitra Phukan, a well-known writer from Assam, plays out like a sonata with fugues introducing complexities into the narrative. It concludes in a crescendo of hope with an acceptance of love. At the end, Phukan writes: “It was love. A love great enough to conquer all the ‘What Will People Says’.”
What is remarkable about the novel is the light touch with which it deals with major issues like communal tensions, acceptance of love across divisive human constructs and questioning of social norms. She elucidates: “I have written What Will People Say in a conversational, everyday style, sprinkled liberally with humour, even though the themes are very serious.”
Phukan’s novel moves towards a more accepting world where social norms adapt to changing needs — perhaps an attitude we would all do well to emulate, given the need for a change in mindsets to broach not only divisive societal practices but the advancing climate crises which calls for unconventional, untried steps to create cohesive bonds among humanity.
The story is set in a small town in Assam called Tinigaon. Where the protagonist, Mihika, a widow and a professor, upends accepted social norms with her budding romance to a Muslim expat, a friend of her deceased husband. She has strong supporters among her family and friends but faces devastating social criticism and even some ostracisation. This makes her think of giving up the relationship that drew her out of the darkness of widowhood.
Suffering during widowhood is a topic that has been broached by many Indian writers ranging from Tagore, Sunil Gangopadhyay to many more. Before the advent of these writers, in 1856, the Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act was brought into play by the efforts of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, who had also written on the issue. But despite the law, has it as yet been accepted by conventional society? And how would such a society which bases its perceptions on rituals and traditions respond further to a relationship that discards marriage as a norm? These are questions that Phukan deals with not only in her novel but in the conversation that follows.
The plot showcases an interesting interplay of different perspectives. In certain senses, it has the delightful touch of a Jane Austen novel, except it is set in India in the twenty first century, where relationships are impacted by even social media. Phukan, herself, sees “ageism” and female bonding and friendship” as major issues addressed in the novel. She says that women’s bonding is a theme that “has not been focused on enough, at least in Assamese writing”, even though, it is a fact that this has been the focus in other literature like, Jane Austen’s novels written in the nineteenth century and in subsequent modern-day take-offs on her novels, like the The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler, published in 2004. In the sub-continent, Begum Rokeya described a full woman’s utopia in Sultana’s Dream(1905), though Rokeya’s story is essentially a feminist sci-fi. Unlike Rokeya’s book, Phukan’s is not an intense feminist novel. The protagonist, Mihika, has men well-wishers and men friends-cum-colleagues too. The tone is lighter and makes for a fabulous read, like Austen’s novels.
As if rising in a fugue to Mihika’s romance are two more relationships of a similar nature. One is between her daughter and a young boy from a traditional, respected, conventional home. The other, which I found more interesting, and I wish Phukan had explored a bit more, is a relationship between Mihika’s Bihari beautician, Sita, and a tribal boy. While the girl is from a traditional vegetarian strictly Hindu family, the boy is an orphan, a tribal. It is a romance that is outside the conventional affluent, middle-class circle. And is used as a contrast to Mihika’s and her daughter’s experiences. Sita’s narrative highlights how the conventional finally accept the unconventionality of a romance that in the past might have been completely rejected.
The novel rises above victimhood by looking for resolutions outside the accepted norms subtly. The plot weaves the triangular interplay of relationships with notes of harmony. The story, devoid of gender biases and darker shades of drama, delves into serious themes with a feathery touch.
The structuring of the novel arrests the reader with its seeming simplicity but each is fitted into the composition to create a fiction that touches your heart and leaves you pining for a bit more… like the strains of a composition that has the deftness and neatness of a Jane Austen novel, written in the context of twenty first century Assam.
Phukan herself is a trained vocalist in Indian classical, a columnist, a translator and a writer. In this conversation, she reveals more about the making and intent of her novel and her journey as a writer.
You wear a number of hats — that of an Indian classical vocalist, a columnist, a children’s writer, a translator and so much more. How does this impact your work as a novelist?
I feel everything is related; everything flows seamlessly into the other aspects. Yes, I am a trained Shastriya Sangeet[1]vocalist, though I have retired from performances now. But at one time that was my life…even now, I write extensively about music through essays and reviews. And I’m always listening to music, of many genres.
I began writing, hesitantly comparatively late, though I always enjoyed it, getting prizes in school and college. Later, I began to write stories, etc, for magazines such as Femina, Eve’s Weekly. Mainly though it was the paper The Sentinel and its editor D N Bezboruah which gave me a platform through middles, short fiction, essays and other genres. My children were very young at the time, and somehow the children’s stories came to me at that point. Now that they are grown up, those stories don’t come any more…and I regret that.
Translation happened because two stalwarts of Assamese literature, Jnanpith awardee Dr Indira Goswami and Sahitya Akdami awardee poet Dr Nirmal Prova Bordoloi encouraged me to try my hand at it by translating their work. I found I enjoyed it …and the journey continues!
Writing fiction, especially novels, needs the writer to have a wide view of life, I feel. I love storytelling. I write from observation, but also, I learn a lot about the literature of the place I come from, Assam, through the works of the greats in Assamese.
Do your other passions, especially music, impact your writing?
Music, definitely. In What Will People Say, for instance, there are so many references to songs and music, to concerts and musicians. There is an entire chapter devoted to songs in Hindi and Assamese where the theme is music. Besides, my novel A Monsoon of Music is about the lives of four practicing musicians. Many of my short stories from A Full Night’s Thievery have music as a theme …’The Tabla Player’, ‘The Choice’, ‘Spring Song’, and so on.
Also, musical metaphors seem to creep in, unbidden, to my writing…
Among the other passions that are reflected to a greater or lesser degree in my writing are gardening, and of course food!
What led you to write What Will People Say?
My stories, whether long or short, are always triggered by events, people, that I see around me. Sometimes it could even be a sentence I overhear while waiting at an airport, or maybe an expression on somebody’s face. They are based on reality, though they are fictionalised as they pass through the prism of my mind, my imagination.
What Will People Say was triggered by the fact that I see so many older women who have lost their spouses spend their lives in loneliness and sometimes despondency. Yes, their children may be caring, they may have women friends, a profession, but that is not enough. Love, finding a romantic partner, even companionship, is very unusual as a senior. There are so many unwritten codes, so many taboos and restrictions, especially in the small, peri-urban places.
And yet I find that change is coming. After all, people are exposed to other cultures, where going in for a second relationship is not seen as a betrayal of the dead husband, as it tends to be here.
The need for social change and a questioning of norms is part of the journey you take your readers through in your novel. Were these consciously woven into the story or did the story just happen? Please tell us about the journey of the novel.
This was the theme I have had in my mind for a while now. It was a conscious decision, and not always an easy one to implement, because of the binaries involved.
The place where I live, the larger society, prides itself on being “liberal”. And it is, compared to some other places on the planet, or in the country. But in the twenty first century, we are aware that there is much more that needs to be done, a much longer path to be traversed. The theme came first. After which I began to think of the storyline, the characters, the incidents that would make the theme come alive, all in a fictional way, of course.
What Will People Say, the line, is a kind of whip used to keep “straying” members of society, usually young people, within the fold. But here I have inverted it …it is the older members, those who are supposed to uphold the status quo, who are doing what, for many, would be the unthinkable.
Do you still see widow remarriage as an issue? Is it still an issue in Northeast India as your book shows?
Assam is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious society.
The community I am describing is what is known as the “caste Hindu” society, in which, traditionally, widow remarriage is not “allowed”. Even now, even in urban Assamese society, it is uncommon. There are unspoken taboos, unwritten codes of conduct. The extreme strictness of the past has lessened no doubt, but also a lot depends on the economic and social status of the woman. I never, for instance, saw my grandmother, a staunch Brahmin, wear anything but stark white after she was widowed. Her vegetarian kitchen was separate from the main kitchen …leave aside meat or fish, even onions, garlic were not allowed there. My mother wanted to follow the same route after my father passed away, but her doctor forbade her from doing that, while her children insisted, she wear colour. Today, my generation of women wear colour and eat non-vegetarian after the demise of their husbands, so things are slowly changing. But a second marriage, or a romantic relationship, in middle age is still very rare indeed.
Your book describes middle class liberals, conservatives as well as immigrants and tribals. What kind of impact have tribals and immigrants had in Assam over time?
There have been many waves of migration into this fertile valley of the Brahmaputra. As a result, it is a rich cultural and linguistic mosaic. Different influences are at play all the time, communities that live in proximity to each other are definitely influenced. But it is a slow process, naturally. And usually takes place over generations.
You have hinted that tribals are more liberal and out of the framework of Hindu rituals. Is that a fact?
Many tribes are, in general, indeed more liberal when it comes to widow remarriage, as are the large Muslim and also the Christian communities. It is the “caste Hindus”, especially those from the “top” of the caste pyramid, who mostly have these taboos. The original inhabitants of these valleys were different ethnic groups, which, because of the riverine, heavily forested aspects of the region, tended to remain in isolation from each other. As a result, cultural practices were unique to each one. Different waves of immigrants from both the East of the region, from Southeast Asia and beyond, and from the rest of India in the west brought in different influences, which were absorbed slowly. We see this in the food practices, the music, the weaves and clothes that we traditionally wear, and religious and social practices, among other things.
How do your characters evolve? Out of fact or are they just a figment of your imagination?
All are creations of my mind, my imagination. But I try to keep them as real as possible. It is all fiction. I love adding layers to them as I go along, till they have their own individuality, their own body language, their own ways of thinking, speaking, their food preferences, everything. By the end, they are “real” to me, though they actually exist only within the pages of a book.
What writers/ musicians/art impact you as a writer? Is there any writer who you feel impacts you more than others?
My music gurus have impacted me in many ways, beyond music. Guru Birendra Kumar Phukan, especially, taught me …through his music …what it means to be steeped in spirituality, and how to aspire higher through Shastriya music, which, to him, and sometimes to me, too, was and is prayer.
As for writers, there are so many I admire deeply. Among the Assamese writers are the scholar and creative writer of the 15th-16th Century, the Saint Srimanta Sankardev, Jnanpith awardees Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya and Indira Goswami. I am always deeply moved by their humanity. Their works, their characters, are drenched in it.
Among writers that I have read in English are the obvious ones, so many of them …but for style and humour, I think nobody can beat P G Wodehouse, and for irony, Jane Austen. And my Go To book during the pandemic was Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome, for an instant lifting of spirits.
You have written a lot of children’s stories and written columns. Have these impacted you as a novelist? How is writing a novel different from doing a fantasy-based children’s story or writing a column?
I have written biographies, short stories and essays too. Basically, I see myself as a storyteller, though I write non-fiction too. The children’s stories came from my observations of the child’s world at one time, the way they thought and reacted. My columns are commentaries on society, couched in different “rasas”, including the humorous, but are sometimes a narration in the form of a story. The practice of writing, whatever the genre, and the habit of observation, have all helped me in the marathon task of writing novels!
What can we look forward to from you next? Are you working on a new novel?
Yes. I do have a novel in the pipeline, am giving it some final touches now. But what is due to be published next is a biography of Dr Bhupen Hazarika, a monograph really. He is a musical icon and so much else for us. It is being published by Sahitya Akademi. And then there is a translation of a novella by Sahitya Akademi Awardee Dr Dhrubjyoti Borah, to be published later this year by Om Books. And then of course there are the columns which I really enjoy doing, since the paper that I write for, The Assam Tribune, reaches the deepest areas of rural Assam. Many of the readers of this column, ‘All Things Considered’ are first generation literates, and that makes me really happy.
Keith Lyons interviews Asian Australian poet Adam Aitken about cross-cultural identity, and the challenges of travel, writing, and belonging. Click here to read.
Translations
Gandhiji, a short story by Nabendu Ghosh, has been translated from Bengali by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.
Khaira, the Blind, a story by Nadir Ali, has been translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali. Click here to read.
Clothes of Spirits, a folktale, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Many Splendored Love, four poems by Masud Khan, have been translated from Bengali by Fakrul Alam. Click hereto read.
Birds are Alive, has been written and translated from Korean by Ihlwha Choi. Clickhere to read.
Nobo Borshe or on New Year, Tagore’s poem on the Bengali New Year, has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty for the occasion this April. Click here to read.
Ratnottama Sengupta shows the impact of Gandhi and his call for non-violence on Nabendu Ghosh as she continues to emote over his message of Ahimsa and call for peace amidst rioting. Click here to read.
The night has nearly come to an end.
The old year is almost past.
Under this dust, it will lay down
Its worn-out life at last.
Whether friend or foe, wherever you go,
Old wrongs cast
Away. On this auspicious day,
Old grievances shed as the old year parts.
— Nobo Borshe or on New Year by Tagore
Art by Sohana Manzoor
Mid-April, Thailand celebrates Songkran and Cambodia, Thingyan — water festivals like Holi. These coincide with the celebration of multiple New Years across Asia. Sikhs celebrate Baisakhi. Kerala celebrates Bishu and Tamil Nadu, Puthandu. Nepal celebrates Nava Varsha and Bengal Nobo Borsho or Poila Boisakh. A translation of Tagore’s poem on the Bengali New Year in spirit asks us to dispense with our past angst and open our hearts to the new day — perhaps an attitude that might bring in changes that are so needed in a world torn with conflicts, hatred and anger. The poet goes on to say, “I want to tie all lives with love” but do we do that in our lives? Can we? Masud Khan’s poems on love translated by Professor Fakrul Alam explore this from a modern context. From Korea, Ihlwha Choi tells us in his translation, “Loving birds is like loving stars”. But the translation that really dwells on love bringing in changes is Nabendu Ghosh’s ‘Gandhiji’, translated by Ratnottama Sengupta, his daughter. The short story by Ghosh highlights the transformation of a murderous villain to a defender of a victim of communal violence, towering above divides drawn by politics of religion.
Another daughter who has been translating her father’s works is Amna Ali, daughter of award-winning Punjabi writer, Nadir Ali. In ‘Khaira, the Blind‘, the father-daughter duo have brought to Anglophone readers a lighter narrative highlighting the erasure of divides and inclusivity. A folktale from Balochistan, translated by Fazal Baloch, echoes in the footsteps of ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’ — a story that can found in the Andersen’s Fairy Tales published in the nineteenth century. I wonder which narrative had come first? And how did it cross cultures retaining the original ideas and yet giving it a local colour? Was it with traders or immigrants?
That such narratives or thoughts are a global phenomenon is brought to the fore by a conversation between Keith Lyons and Asian Australian poet Adam Aitken. Aitken has discussed his cross-cultural identity, the challenges of travel, writing, and belonging. Belonging is perhaps also associated with acceptance. How much do we accept a person, a writer or his works? How much do we empathise with it — is that what makes for popularity?
Cross cultural interactions are always interesting as Rhys Hughes tells us in his essay titled ‘My Love for RK Narayan’. He writes: “Narayan is able to do two contradictory things simultaneously, namely (1) show that we are all the same throughout the world, and (2) show how cultures and people around the world differ from each other.” The underlying emotions that tie us together in a bond of empathy and commonality are compassion and love, something that many great writers have found it necessary to emphasise.
Mitra Phukan’sWhat Will People say?: A Novel is built around such feelings of love, compassion and patience that can gently change narrow norms which draw terrifying borders of hate and unacceptance. We carry an excerpt this time from her ‘Prologue’. Somdatta Mandal has reviewed Chitra Banerjee Divakurni’s latest , Independence. Starting from around the time of the Indian Independence too is Song of the Golden Sparrow – A Novel History of Free India by Nilanjan P. Choudhary, which has been discussed by Rakhi Dalal. The Partition seems to colour narratives often as does the Holocaust. Sometimes, one wonders if humanity will ever get over the negative emotions set into play in the last century.
Closer to our times, when mingling of diverse cultures is becoming more acceptable in arts, Basudhara Roy introduces us to Bina Sarkar Ellias’s Ukiyo-e Days…Haiku Moments, a book that links poetry to a Japanese art-form. While a non-fiction that highlights the suffering of workers by enforcing unacceptable work ethics, Japanese Management, Indian Resistance: The Struggles of the Maruti Suzuki Workersby Anjali Deshpande and Nandita Haksar has been reviewed by Bhaskar Parichha. The narrative, he writes, “tells the story of the biggest car manufacturer in India through the voices of the workers, interviewed over three years. They give us an understanding that the Maruti Suzuki revolution wasn’t the unmitigated success it was touted to be when they tell us about their resistance to being turned into robots by uncompromising management.” That lack of human touch creates distress in people’s hearts, even if we have an efficient system of management and mass production is well elucidated in the review.
These changes are reflected in our musings too. Sengupta has written on how change is wrought on a murderous villain by the charisma of Gandhi in her father’s fiction, as well as this world leader’s impact on Ghosh and her. Devraj Singh Kalsi addresses food fads with a pinch of sarcasm. From Japan, Suzanne Kamata has written of a little island with Greek influences, a result of cultural ties brought in by the emperor Hirohito. Ravi Shankar takes us to Pokhara, Nepal, and Meredith Stephen expresses surprise on meeting a shipload of people from Colorado in the far reaches of the Southern Hemisphere while on her sailing adventures with beautiful photographs. Stories by moderns reflect diverse nuances depicting change. While Brindley Hallam Dennis writes of the passing of an era, PG Thomas integrates the past into the present to reflect how they have a symbiotic structure in the scheme of creating or recreating natural movements through changes wrought over time in his story. Paul Mirabile explores the darker recesses of the human existence in his fiction. As if in continuation, the excerpt from Rhys Hughes’ The Wistful Wanderings of Perceval Pitthelmseems to step out of darker facets of humanity with a soupçon of wit at its best.
To create a world that endures, one looks for values that create inclusivity as reflected in these lines from Charles Chaplin’s My Autobiography, “Mother illuminated to me the kindliest light this world has ever known, which has endowed literature and the theatre with their greatest themes: love, pity and humanity.” This quote starts off a wonderful essay from film-buff Nirupama Kotru. Her narrative carries the tenor of Chaplin’s ‘themes’ to highlight not only her visit to the actor’s last home in Switzerland but also glances at his philosophy and his contributions to cinema across borders.
Our issue rotates around changes and the need for love and compassion to rise in a choral crescendo whirling with the voices of Tagore, Charles Chaplin as well as that of twenty-first century writers. Perhaps this new year, we can move towards a world – at least an imagined world — where love will wipe away weapons and war, where love will take us towards a future filled with the acceptance of myriad colours, where events like the Partition and the Holocaust will be history, just like dinosaurs.
Huge thanks to all our readers and contributors, some of whom may not have been mentioned here but are an integral and necessary part of the issue. Do pause by our April edition. I would also like to give my thanks to our indefatigable team whose efforts breathe life into our journal every month. Sohana Manzoor needs a special mention for her lovely artwork.
There were many Tinigaons within the city of this name. ‘Three Villages’ was the meaning in the local language. A small city in the folds of a valley in the middle of Assam. There was the Tinigaon that was still a small town, not in terms of size, but in the attitudes of the people. It was not just the middle-aged and older people who clung to tradition. Quite a few younger people did, too. And it was not always bad, this conservatism. Indeed, sometimes this unshakeable belief in the sanctity of the past was beautiful and illuminating. It was this conservatism that preserved the precious heritage of the past and kept it alive, preventing it from passing into oblivion.
But at other times, when conservatism became rigid, and sought to impose its beliefs on those who had a different mindset, dictating how they should behave, dress, what relationships they could or could not have, it could become a prison that prevented any kind of progress from taking place. As with much conservatism, the greatest restrictions were placed on women. There were strict codes of conduct for women and girls, codes that varied from age group to age group, but were authoritarian, nevertheless. Individual freedoms were always secondary to the ‘expected’ modes of conduct. ‘It’s always been like this,’ was a refrain often heard to justify the many rules which had lost all relevance in a swiftly changing world. If, indeed, they had ever been relevant at all.
The rules for girls and young women, though unyielding, at least took into account the rebelliousness of youth. ‘You are young, that’s why you think like this,’ was a sentence that was spoken grudgingly by parents or uncles and aunts, to people who were, in their eyes, guilty of ‘errant’ behaviour. But young people went outside the city, outside the state, to study, to work, and who knew what their lifestyles were there? Preferring to turn a blind eye to many rumoured ‘goings-on’ in the metro cities, goings-on in which their children were willing, even enthusiastic participants, they were for the most part relieved that at least when they came home, they behaved in ways ‘expected’ of them.
And so, even though they spoke viciously of that girl, WhatWasHerName, who was now living in with some boyfriend in Delhi, they preferred to keep silent about their own daughter who was doing the same. Grateful for small mercies, they pretended not to know anything when they visited her in the flat she rented in Gurgaon. They kept a deadpan face when they came across a shirt in size 42 hanging, forgotten in the cupboard in the second bedroom. They tried not to notice the other telltale signs that their daughter had been ‘cohabiting’ with a male, and refrained from asking where he had gone, now that they were here for three weeks. They did not ask about the long phone conversations that stretched to well past midnight and were only grateful that their daughter had been ‘considerate’ enough to spare them the trauma of meeting some unknown boy with whom she had been sleeping for the past so many months. They even pushed into a dark recess that worry of pregnancy, and the even greater worry of ‘WhatWillPeopleSay?’
Yes, in these changing times, people were learning, slowly, to ‘adjust’ to the fact that the younger people now were prone to living their lives in ways that were different from what was deemed to be ‘allowed’. But when it came to older people, things still remained as rigid as they had been for centuries. Especially for women. And especially, very especially, for widows.
True, Hindu widows were no longer expected to live a life that was, virtually, a death sentence. Younger widows, especially, ate non-vegetarian food, though their mothers, after the deaths of their husbands, still did not. They wore coloured clothes, though again, their mothers wore pale, traditional clothes, even though during the lifetimes of their husbands they had worn the most vibrant colours under the sun.
But there were, still, many restrictions on single women, widows, even divorcees or never-marrieds, in Tinigaon. They could go out in mixed groups, but never in a twosome with a man not closely related. They could not ‘date’ a man, and go out with him, even if it was as innocent as an outing to a theatre, or a music concert, or having a meal at a restaurant. There were always prying and peering eyes around who would ‘see’ what was happening, magnify it many times, load it with all kinds of intent, and then broadcast it with relish to salivating friends at the next kitty party that took place.
Mihika remembered the time a recently divorced forty-something mother of two had accepted a lift, two days running, from her superior, a married, fifty-plus man. Without a car at that time just after her divorce, she had been waiting on the pavement, in pouring rain, for a bus or auto or ricksha to take her home. As time passed and no vehicle stopped for her, she was growing increasingly desperate. The nanny who looked after the children would be leaving at six-thirty, and it was almost six already. She was greatly relieved, therefore, when her boss’s boss, whom she knew only slightly, stopped and asked her if he could drop her anywhere. It turned out her apartment was on the way to his house and she had gladly accepted the offer of the lift.
(Extracted from What Will People Say? A Novel by Mitra Phukan. Published by Speaking Tiger Books, 2023)
About the Book
When Mihika, 56 and a widow, gets drawn into a relationship with Zuhayr, a 60-year-old divorcee who was her late husband Aditya’s friend, it doesn’t seem to her like an event that should cause more than a raised eyebrow or two. Not in the twenty-first century, and not when their grown-up children are happy that their parents have found a second chance at happiness. But inTinigaon—a small town in Assam—it is just not done for a woman of Mihika’s age to have a romantic relationship—that, too, with a man from the Other Religion: a Muslim.Tinigaon’s Old Guard is scandalized as Mihika and Zuhayr are seen together in restaurants and cinema halls,‘flaunting’ their affair. And a nosy neighbour, Ranjana, keeps the moral brigade busy with juicy details of Zuhayr’s late-night comings and goings from Mihika’s house. Mihika decides to ignore the gossipmongering and slander and remain true to her relationship with Zuhayr, who has filled a void in her life after Aditya’s death five years ago.As long as her four closest friends,Tara,Triveni, Shagufta and Pallavi, stand by her, she doesn’t care if others turn away. But when the gossip turns into something more sinister that could threaten her daughterVeda’s happiness, Mihika is forced to take a call—should she give up the man she loves for her daughter’s sake, or is there an alternative that could give them both what they want? Writing with great sensitivity and gentle humour, Mitra Phukan proves once again that she is an extraordinary chronicler of the human heart. Rooted, like all her fiction, in the culture and sensibilities of Assam, What Will People Say? speaks to all of us, wherever we are, whoever we are.
About the Author
Mitra Phukan is an Assamese author, translator and columnist who writes in English. Her published works, fourteen so far, include children’s books, biographies, two novels, The Collector’s Wife and A Monsoon of Music, several volumes of translations from Assamese to English and a collection of her columns, Guwahati Gaze. Her most recent works are a volume of her own short stories, A Full Night’s Thievery, and a translation of a volume of short stories, by Sahitya Akademi Award-winning author, Harekrishna Deka, Guilt and Other Stories, both published by SpeakingTiger.
Borderless 