The water imagery in Assam has often signified blood in the accounts of mainstream media. Rini Barman brings to you another side of the story …
“Dikhowr bukute seuji majuli
Rodot misikiyaai haahe- O’Senai o”
At the heart of Dikhow, lies green Majuli
smiling with a sunlit candour,
she says
O’senai o.
Bhupen Hazarika Dikhowr bukute seuji majuli
The monsoons have a distinctly romantic way of uniting the river valleys of Assam. While the national media presents the dismal picture of an Assam that is flooded with blood throughout the year, it misses out on some of the delightful stories drenched in the goodness of the rain. Growing up in the home of the Brahmaputra river basin, one has a lot to discuss about the history of storytelling through the rivers. Rains and rivers are fundamental in the shaping of a literary psyche; they are among other factors, the carriers of a riverine culture.
River banks and river waters signify much lyrical meaning and a vast repository of folklore, legends and myths in Assam substantiate this. A part of this legacy continues in the voices of poets writing in Assamese. The abundance of poetry here is very similar to the river banks which are flooded with the coming of the monsoons. It thus becomes important to nuance poetry associated with rivers and rainfall in Assam for an audience that cannot access the language, and hence easily succumb to the monolithic representations of flooding “red rivers”. It’s true that a large number of people lose their habitats every year, and this should prompt us to ask: what are the reasons that explain the wrath of the rivers? Were the rivers always so furious?
My mother used to tell me that the forces of water and fire are often alike in their natural functions. “You be their truest friend, and they will ensure you are happy in their company, but if you deceive them they will wash you or burn you to the ground.” Assamese poets re-imagining the rivers in the making of culture and ideology through various devices of death, sex, silence and psychoanalysis would point out that this was indeed not the case. The rains that add tranquility to the rivers shape the way the Mishings speak of their beautiful romances. Onojaal, (a Mishing word that is addressed to a loved one) is one such poem by Jiban Narah, where the rains are imagined to be in a secret dialogue with the river, revealing and concealing traditions of love, often simultaneously.
Tumi muk bhaal pale
Saari muthi halodhiya xuta kini dim
dunali noi khone najanibo
tumak xuta diya kotha
nelaage etiya dibo
borukhune koi dibo noik
muthi xuta titile
kesa rong jaabo
kesa rong kumol
If you love me
I shall buy you four strands of yellow thread
Dunali river shall not know of
the threads I gave you
No, do not give them to me now
The rains shall spill all to the river
And if the threads get wet
the fresh colour
shall fade away
as is the way of all tenderness.
In an interview with Arundhati Subramaniam, titled “The River, the boat and the world”, poet Jiban Narah talks about the multiple voices he has been able to capture as a Mishing poet writing in Assamese. Allowing tribal words to enrich the vocabulary of Assamese, he says “I’ve experienced since my early childhood all the varied chapters of suffering and misery, caused mostly by problems like floods, erosion and mass illiteracy. Poverty remains a part of the Mishing existence. But in the middle of all these issues, the Mishing tribal society has remained rich in folk dance, songs, festivity and community celebration. The river and the boat – an inseparable part of the life of a riverine community – have stayed with me and recur in my poems”.
Anubhav Tulasi is another revered name in Assamese poetry and his collections Nazma and Doron Phool are still very popular among readers. Tulasi grew up in Tulasimukh, Nagaon. His poem Boruxun (Rain) describes the fate of two lovers through the symbolism of flying kites and snapping strings. Rain guides the lover towards an invisible river bank and this ignites his dreams. In another poem Monsoon-hued Body translated by Krishna Dulal Barua, the poet pays a tribute to the monsoons that colour the varied experiences of the villagers. On a closer reading, the absorption of the female into the water displays unease with the female body.
When plantain rafts and heavy boats of tree trunks
advance lightly along the rustling water
the girls as unreluctant currents
inundate the shallows and depths
as the virility of water.
(Monsoon-hued body)
What happens when poets use fantastical forms of creatures to portray their inner psyche? River water allows an agency that paves the road to articulate on real life sexual matters. Lutfa Hanum Selima Begum uses this trope in her poems often. She has also written a series of prose-poems called Panir maajere baat eta (The passage through water) in her collection.
Xeujiya Baat Eta Bisarise Xorapaat burey
The fallen leaves want a green passage.
Paanit bur gol beli
maatir purushar xote
ki tumar
gupon sukti
The sun has drowned in water
O’water mermaid,
secretly scheming
with men of flesh
(Jalkuwari by Lutfa Hanum Selima Begum)
The recurrence of river mermaids is remarkable in Assamese poetry. Lutfa’s Jolkuwari is a poem filled with sensuousness and mystery, but very different from the early poets’ mysticism involving mermaids and sea nymphs. Women poets who write about creatures inhabiting other worlds question very subtly the notion of the “submissive feminine”. The sexual promiscuity of the mermaid lends these poets a kind of anxiety because independent sexuality is yet to become a reality. Also, both these traits – the anxiety and the independent sexuality – are often represented in world literature through physical mutation. For example, think of popular Western stories like Beauty and the Beast or Alice in Wonderland (Queen of Hearts). Perhaps that explains a similar angst that can be found in Dorothy Hewett’s (1923-2002) poem Forsaken Mermaid.
“With her we cannot identify
she is the self gone free
the wild girl in the heart
tied to no man, no child
but haunts the sea”
This phenomenon of the river as a receptor of sexual/regional identity is complicated somewhat by the Brahmaputra. The name means son of Brahma and it is the only river with a male name in the country. But it is fondly called Luit and in popular culture its reverence has rather been gender-neutral. Bhupen Hazarika’s compositions have borrowed much from the river imageries and he has creatively knit them to comment on the turbulent politics of the region. Evoking Luit as Mahabahu, the strong armed son of Brahma, he talks about the river’s witness to a mega conclave of pilgrimages. The series of events he refers to in this composition predate written histories. This is significant because the tradition of the retelling of the multicultural past of Assam has been highly obfuscated. Poetry can help us bridge these fissures if rightly presented, and one can connect with the condition of humanity in general, unhindered by linguistic barriers. Hazarika has also composed poems on lesser known rivers like Kopili, Dihang Gadadhar amongst others and in each of his compositions, rivers are born anew. The force of the river is at times connected with the feminine power of fertility. In Gouriporia Gabhuru Dekhilu (I saw a damsel from Gauripur), there is a fascinating blend of Goalpara folk beats and Bihu geet. A romantic journey from the banks of Gadadhar to Dikhow river, the poet woes the damsel waiting alone near the palace. Rivers unite the two cultures;. Hazarika’s work show his enormous zeal in integrating the common folk.
The waters of Kopili, Dikhow, Subansiri, Pagladia bind the above mentioned poets in a common harmony, an attitude that brings them closer to the romantic idealist poets of 19th century Assam in like Chandra Kumar Agarwala, Lakhsminath Bezbarua, Padmanath Gohain Barua and Ambikagiri Roychaudhuri. The rural landscape is visualised as fleeting and it is preserved as the idyll. The presence of the overarching Luit is visualised in the making of a distinct identity that doesn’t submerge those living by smaller riversides. It connects memories shared by those domiciled in the region, as well as those who are haunted by the fact that they might never see these banks again. The rapid modernisation of the rivers via dams and so on, screamed that this might just turn out to be true.
The idea of home may not always bring happy memories, because the rains have also washed away civilisations in Assam. But at the same time, this doesn’t stop me from sharing memories of river waters and looking at the rich oeuvre that poetry is. Perhaps there is no running away from home, just because the monsoons have been cruel time and again. Contemporary poets from Assam (writing in Assamese and English) will tell you that you carry memories of monsoons wherever you go.
