[Assam] The Assamese experience-Priyasha Mukhopadhyaya(The Assam Tribune, Friday, September19, 2008 )

[Buljit Buragohain]

Several issues related to Assam were discussed in the Delhi University Poetry Reading Programme, Series 8, held at Hansraj College, on August 26, 2008. Organised by the Department of English, University of Delhi, this is a monthly programme held in the Delhi University Enclave. Each programme invites two poets, usually an English poet and a Hindi poet. Famous Hindi poet Jitendra Srivastav and young English poet Aruni Kashyap from Assam read poems at this event. Scholar Anand Prakash chaired the event. 

Jitendra Srivastav teaches Hindi at the Indira Gandhi National Open University, while Aruni Kashyap is a student of MA, English Literature at St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi. Jitendra Srivastav has published three poetry collections – In Dino Halchal (2000), Anbeli Katha (2003), and Asundar Sundar (2008). He has also written critical works on Hindi literature and these include Bharatiya Samaj Ki Samasyae Aur Premchand (2002), Bharatiya Rastrabaad Aur Premchand (2004), and Sabda Mein Samay (2008). He is also the winner of the ‘Kirti Sanman (2005)’ and the ‘Ramchandra Shukla Puraskar (2006).’ In the programme, he mentioned that he is very fond of Megan Kachari’s poems since it captures the political situation of Assam so well. He has translated Assamese poet Lutfa Hanum Selima Begum’s poems into Hindi and likes to read Nilim Kumar’s poems.

Aruni Kashyap has published in Amar Asom, Sadin, Satsori, The Assam Tribune, Tehelka, and Postcolonial Text , The Daily Star of Bangladesh, Sahitya Akademi’s journal Indian Literature, Muse India and the bilingual magazine Pratilipi. This was his first major reading session, but he has read his English poems regularly in various literary gatherings of Delhi like SAARC (South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation), Open Baithak organised by the British Council, Caferati, etc. He was introduced as a ‘New Voice’ on February 19, 2008, in the ‘Poetry Symposium’ organised by the Delhi University, South Campus. Senior poets like K Satchindanandan, Keki Daruwala, Anamika, Ashok Vajpeyi, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Sukrita Paul Kumar, etc too read their poems in the convention. 

Aruni’s writing attempts to examine an Assamese experience; one that moves between the everyday betel-nut-chewing grandmother and her weaving of stories, to the river that moves through the heart of the people of the State, to the unrest and political anxieties that have ravaged it over the past years. Though in English, Aruni’s poetry therefore encapsulates all that is Assamese. On being asked after the session why he wrote in the colonial language rather than in his own mother-tongue, Aruni replied with an answer that has been repeated across the world, and been the motivation of many post-colonial writers. His poetry, as the selection he read indicated very clearly, has a definite political purpose; to represent Assam and show it before the world; in the hope of their enlightenment and also perhaps to move beyond the blood-shed and war that the insurgency in the State has given rise to. English is the language of the majority of the world
 population, English is the language in which he must write in order to give his poems the purpose that he chooses. This, of course, is compounded by the fact that there are few Assamese-English writers today. Aruni did speak, however, with a degree of regret at this necessity; for, as he explained, no culture can be entirely and truly represented in a language other than the one that creates it. His poetry therefore requires at points, footnotes for what would be easily understood by an Assamese audience. 

Aruni’s selections were primarily structured around two different themes; the political poetry, that dominated the session, his grandmother, in an attempt to look at Assam through the eyes of a child-bride. There were also some literary experiments; some odes inspired by Neruda, as well a few love poems. 

Aruni’s poetry was definitely more mature than can be expected from a student of his age; he being a second year MA English student at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. We hope, of course, that he will continue writing; in Assamese, as well as in English.

Priyasha Mukhopadhyaya



http://www.assamtribune.com/sep1908/mosaic1.html


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