In the first story in this collection, ‘Andolan’, the narrator returns to the small town of Barbari where once her father and other community leaders reclaimed forest and wasteland to become zamindars. Barbari saw an influx of new migrant labourers and the town took on a cosmopolitan character, which was harmonious on the surface, masking simmering discontent. When these hidden conflicts erupt, the narrator finds herself a virtual prisoner in a town that is engulfed in the flames of a deadly ethnic riot.
Migrants, women, children and other vulnerable people appear in the rest of the stories constantly faced with violence, both political and personal. In ‘This is How We Lived’, when a woman disappears for a day or two, and returns to wash herself several times in the river, no one in the village protests. It is after all, a trade-off between them and the soldiers—the rape of one woman for the lives of the rest. Ethnic violence is at its most horrifying in ‘Sin and Retribution’ when a young militant learns too late what it is to kill another human being. In ‘I Thought I Knew My Ma’ and ‘I Do Not Love Sam’, love takes on different hues when it is between a high-born Assamese and an Adivasi, a Brahmin and a Muslim.
Folk narratives weave themselves into the stories like ‘Beloved of Flowers’ and ‘The Women Who Would Not Die’, revealing a sense of hope, resilience, and restoration, despite hate and terror.
In this stunning collection, Uddipana Goswami chronicles a deeply fragmented society where people live, love and lose amidst everyday war and violence, but still find ways to cope and heal. In prose that is both poetic and powerful, she conveys through a novelist’s pen a picture of Assam that is more searing and vivid than even the most rigorous reportage.
