Mamoni Raisom Goswami

Indira Goswami
Born	14 November 1942 (1942-11-14) (age 69) Guwahati, India
Occupation	Activist, editor, poet, professor and writer
Nationality	Indian
Period	Since 1956 (approximately)
Genres	Assamese literature
Subjects	Plight of the dispossessed in India and abroad
Notable work(s)	-The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker -The Man from Chinnamasta -Pages Stained With Blood
Spouse(s)	Madhaven Raisom Ayengar (deceased)
Influenced Manikuntala Bhattahcarya, Arup Kumar Nath, Jayanta Saikia, Sanjib Pol Deka, etc.

Mamoni Raisom Goswami (born 14 November 1942), popularly known as Mamoni Baideo,^[1] among the Assamese people, is an Assamese editor, poet, professor, scholar and writer.

She is the winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1982),^[2] the Jnanpith Award (2000)^[3] and is also India's first Principal Prince Claus Laureate (2008)^[4] One of the most celebrated writers of contemporary Indian literature, she is noted for her novels which include The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker, Pages Stained With Blood and The Man from Chinnamasta.

She is also well known for her attempts to structure social change, both through her writings and through her role as mediator between the banned secessionist group United Liberation Front of Asom and the central government of India. Her involvement led to the formation of the People's Consultative Group, a peace committee. She refers to herself an "observer" of the ongoing peace process rather than a mediator or initiator.

Her work has been performed on stage and in film. The film Adajya is based on her novel won international awards. Words from the Mist is a film made on her life directed by Jahnu Barua.

Early life and education

She was born Indira Goswami to a Brahmin family,in Guwahati, India; her father is Umakanta Goswami. She studied at the Pine Mount School in Shillong, which was the capital of undivided Assam. She later majored in Assamese literature at Cotton College in Guwahati.

Career

In 1962, she published her first collection of short stories, Chinaki Morom, when she was a student.

Popularly known as Mamoni Raisom Goswami in Assam, she was encouraged by Kirti Nath Hazarika who published her first short stories — when she was still in Class VIII (thirteen years old) — in a literary journal he edited.

Depression

Goswami has suffered from depression^[5] since her childhood.^[6][7] In the opening pages of her autobiography, The Unfinished Autobiography, she mentions her inclination to jump into the Crinoline Falls located near their house in Shillong.^[8] Repeated suicide attempts marred her youth. After the sudden death of her husband, Madhaven Raisom Ayengar, in a car accident in the Kashmir region of India, after only eighteen months of marriage, she became addicted to heavy doses of sleeping tablets.^[9][10] Once brought back to Assam, she joined the Goalpara Sainik School as a teacher.

At this point she went back to writing. She claims that she wrote just to live and that otherwise it would not have been possible for her to go on living. Her experiences in Kashmir and Madhya Pradesh,^[11] an Indian state where her husband had worked as an engineer, was used in her novels Ahiron and The Chehnab's Current, respectively.

Life in Vrindavan

After working at the Sainik School in Goalpara, Assam, she was persuaded by her teacher Upendra Chandra Lekharu to come to Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, and pursue research for peace of mind.

Her experiences as a widow as well as a researcher finds expression in her novel The Blue Necked Braja (1976), which is about the plight of the Radhaswamis of Vrindavan who lived in abject poverty and sexual exploitation in everyday life. One of the main issues that the novel touches upon is the plight of young widows for whom companionship beyond the confines of their ashrams and fellow widows become impossible. Their urge to live, as well as the moral dilemma that they face vis-a-vis the order of precepts of religion in this regard, are brought out with astonishing clarity and feeling in the novel. The novel exposed the uglier face of Vrindavan — the city of Krishna, an Hindu deity — inviting criticism of Goswami from conservative sections of the society.^[12] It remains a classic in modern Indian Literature. It is autobiographical in character as she says the anguish of the main character Saudamini, reflects what she had gone through after her husband had died.^[12] It was also the first novel to be written on this subject.^{[citation needed]} The novel was based on Goswami's research on the place as well as real-life experience of living in the place for several years before she joined the University of Delhi as a lecturer.

In Vrindavan she was involved in Ramayani studies. A massive volume of Tulsidas's Ramayana purchased during her stay there for just eleven rupees was a great source of inspiration in her research. This finds expression in the unparalleled comparative study of Tulsidas's Ramayana and the fourteenth-century Assamese Ramayana (the first Ramayana to be written in any modern Indian language) written by Madhava Kandali in her work Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra.

Life at the University of Delhi

After relocating to Delhi, India, to become Head of Assamese Department at the University of Delhi, the most glorious phases of her life begins. While at the university, she wrote most of her greatest works. Several short stories, including Hridoy, Nangoth Sohor, Borofor Rani, used Delhi as the background.

Her two classics — Pages Stained With Blood and The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker— were also written during this period. The other books completed while she lived in Delhi were Ahiron,The Rusted Sword, Uday Bhanu, Dasharathi's Steps and The Man from Chinnamasta.

In Pages Stained With Blood she writes about the plight of Sikhs in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India. Goswami had witnessed the riots while staying in the Shakti Nagar area of Delhi. She visited many of the other sites to complete this novel. She even went to G. B. Road, Delihi's red-light district, to depict the lives of the prostitutes who lived there which forms a part of her novel.

In The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker she writes about the plight of Assamese Brahmin widows in Satra, religious institutions of Assam. This novel was anthologised in the The Masterpieces of Indian Literature and was made into a film, Adajya, which won several national and international film-festival awards. The novel was also made into two television mini-series; Nandita Das played the role of Giribala in one of the mini-series.

At the peak of her literary career she wrote the controversial novel The Man from Chinnamasta, a critique of the thousand-years-old tradition of animal sacrifice in the famous Hindu Shakti temple to Kamakhya, a mother goddess, in Assam.^[13] Goswami reported that there was even threat to her life^{[citation needed]} after writing the novel. In this novel she quotes scriptures to authenticate the argument she puts forward in the novel — to worship the Mother Goddess with flowers rather than blood. She said in an interview, "When the novel was serialized in a popular magazine, I was threatened with dire consequences. Shortly after this, a local newspaper, Sadin, carried an appeal about animal sacrifice, which resulted in quite an uproar—the editor was gheraoed and a tantrik warned me. But when the appeal was published, the response was overwhelmingly in favour of banning animal sacrifice. I also had to contend with rejection from a publisher who was initially keen and had promised me a huge advance, but who later backtracked, offering instead to publish any other book of mine. But the rest, as they say, is history and Chinnamastar Manuhto went on to become a runaway bestseller!"^[14]

Another major piece of her fiction during the period was Jatra (The Journey), based on the problem of militancy/secessionism that has affected almost the entire North-East India frontier ever since Indian independence.

Success

She received the Sahitya Akademi Award (1982). She received the Jnanpith Award (2000), India's highest literary award, for writing about the subalterns^{[clarification needed]} and marginalised. Two of the main features in Goswami's writing has been the focus on women and the cultural and political construct of the Assamese society. However, it is also to her credit that she also created possibly one of the finest male characters in contemporary Assamese literature, viz. the character of Indranath in Datal Hantir Une Khowa Howdah (The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker). It is also to her credit that she made extensive use of the relation between different variants of the modern Assamese language as both signifiers of the politics of social and cultural differences among the various Assamese communities. But the overall emphasis remained on the unity of the Assamese identity. This may be taken as her way of dealing with the nature of contemporary politics in Assam marked by ethnic confrontation, besides the larger politics of the militant secessionism.

Bibliography

Online Works

• Short Story : "The Offspring" : http://books.google.co.in/books?id=7nfNcEiSSMEC&pg=PA104&dq=Indira+Goswami&cd=9#v=onepage&q=Indira%20Goswami&f=false

• Short Story : "The Journey" : http://www.krachtvancultuur.nl/en/current/2008/december/journey

• Poem : "Pakistan" : http://indiragoswami.blogspot.com/2006/11/pakistan-oh-pakistan-celestial-land.html

Novels

(English language title in parentheses)

Ahiron Budhasagar, Dhushar Geisa aru Mohammad Mucha (The Budha Sea, Hazy Geishas and Mohammad Mucha) Chinavar Srota (The Chenab's Current) Chinnamastar Manuhto (The Man from Chinnamasta) Dashorothir Khuj (Dashorothi's Footsteps)

Datal Hatir Une Khowa Howda (The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker) Mamore Dhora Tarowal aru Dukhon Uponyas (The Rusted Sword and Two Other Novels) Nilakanthi Braja (The Blue-Necked Braja) Tej Aru Dhulire Dhusarita Prishta (Pages Stained With Blood) Udaybhanur Choritro (Udaybhanu)

Autobiography

• An Unfinished Autobiography

Short stories

Beasts Dwarka and His Gun Parasu's Well The Journey

Sanskar To Break a Begging Bowl Udang Bakach

Poetry collection

• Pain and Flesh

Others

• Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra, Delhi 1996. (Research work on Kotha Ramayana)

Awards

1982 — Sahitya Akademi Award (for Mamore Dhora Tarowal) 1988 — Asam Sahitya Sabha Award 1989 — Bharat Nirman Award 1992 — Sauhardya Award of Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan of Government of India. 1993 — Katha National Award for Literature 1996 — Kamal Kumari Foundation National Award in 1996 2000 — Jnanpith Award 2002 — D Litt Degree from Rabindra Bharati University, West Bengal 2002 — Mahiyoshi Jaymati Award with a citation in gold by Ahom Court of Assam 2002 — Padma Shri (refused)

2007 — D Litt Degree from Rajiv Gandhi University Arunachal Pradesh 2008 — D Litt Degree from Indira Gandhi National Open University 2008 — Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar Gold Plate from Asiatic Society 2008 — Principal Prince Claus Award[15] 2009 — Krishnakanta Handique Award, Asom Sahitya Sabha Awarded the Ambassador for Peace from the Inter Religious and International Federation for World Peace The International Tulsi Award from Florida International University for her book, Ramayana From Ganga To Brahmaputra

See also

1984 anti-Sikh riots Assamese literature Bhabananda Deka Jyoti Prasad Agarwala Krishna Kanta Handique

Laxminath Bezbarua Literature from North East India Mahapurusha Srimanta Sankardeva Music of Assam People's Consultative Group

References

1. ^ Intimate Mornings with Mamoni Baideo
2. ^ A History of Indian Literature
3. ^ Jnanpith Award Presented, The Hindu, 25 February 2002.
4. ^ [http://www.assamtimes.org/hot-news/2432.html Principal Prince Claus Award for Indira Goswami In a rare honour, Dr Indira Goswami (Mamoni Raisom) has been conferred the title of Professor Emeritus by Delhi University on 12th november 2009 and offered the job of teaching at her old Modern Indian Language Department. In an exceptional departure from past practice, the Department of Modern Indian Language and Literary Studies of Delhi University also organised a seminar on works of a living author. , Assam Times 1 December 2008]
5. ^ Assam's Fiery Pen
6. ^ The Unfinished Autobiography, Sterling Publishers, Delhi
7. ^ AUTHOR: Dr Indira Goswami: Assam’s fiery pen
8. ^ Adha Lekha Dastabej, 1983, Students' Stores, Guwahati
9. ^ Indira Goswami
10. ^ Confessions : Indira Goswami
11. ^ Prince Clasu Award Citation
12. ^ ^{a b} AUTHOR: Dr Indira Goswami: Assam’s fiery pen
13. ^ Struggle for Change
14. ^ "The Man from Chinnamasta" comes to Chennai
15. ^ "Indira Goswami: India". Prince Claus Award website. http://www.princeclausfund.org/nl/what_we_do/awards/PrinceClasuAwardIndiraGoswami.shtml. 

External links

Principal Prince Claus Award 2008 Citation Indira Goswami receiving Jnanpith Award from V S Naipaul [1] Chronicles of Courage Ramayana research institute to come up in Guwahati http://www.newstrackindia.com/news-article/features

[2] [An Interview with hridayananda gogoi] A dream come true: article by ditimoni gogoi http://www.assamtribune.com/oct0408/horizon.html An Interview with Puravee Kalita hridayanandagogoi blogs asianviews.net

Persondata
Name	Goswami, Mamoni Raisom
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	14 November 1942
Place of birth	Guwahati, India
Date of death
Place of death