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Mamoni Raisom Goswami (1942-), also Indira Goswami and popularly Mamoni Baideo, is a well known writer from Assam. She teaches Assamese literature at the University of Delhi with a research interest on the Ramayana. One of her novels, "The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker" was made into an Assamese film by Swantana Bordoloi in 1996 starring Tom Alter - Adajya which won international awards. Several biographical films have been made on her highly turbulent life and notable among them are "Words from the Mist" by Jahnu Barua and "Aparajita" by Kuntala Sharma. In the arena of modern Indian literature, she is one of the most powerful voices and one of the very few who has attempted to use literary tool as a means for social change. Since several years she has kept herself busy in bring the banned ULFA militants of Assam and the central government of India to the discussion with the purpose of ending the twenty-seven years old bloodshed in Assam. Her involvement has given the problem adequate focus and a peace committee has been formed in the name of People's Consultative Group to take forward the task. She modestly claims herself as an "observer" of the whole peace process rather than a mediator or initiator.

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Life

Born in Guwahati on 14th November, 1942 on Children's Day, the birthday of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, she was named Indira Goswami by her father Umakanta Goswami. She studied in Pine Mount School, Shillong, which was a part of undivided Assam then. After that she completed her studies from Cotton College, Guwahati with a major in Assamese Literature. In 1962, she published her first collection of short stories called Chinaki Morom while she was a student.

Indira Goswami, popularly known as Mamoni Raisom Goswami in Assam started writing from a very early age. She was encouraged by Kirti Nath Hazarika who published her first short stories in the journal he edited right from about class VIII. In this period, she wrote about six-hundred short stories. Most of these are lost due to lack of proper archival measures.

Indira Goswami suffered from perennial depression right from her childhood. In the opening pages of her autobiography The Unfinished Autobiography translated into English by Prafulla Kataki, she mentions that she always had the inclination to jump into the Crinoline waterfall located near her house in Shillong. She was extremely attached to her father and was broken mentally after his death. Repeated suicide attempts studded her eventful life. After the death of her husband Madhaven Raisom Ayengar, just after eighteen months of marriage in a car accident in Kashmir, Gardinel sleeping tablets were what she kept herself alive with. Brought back home, she joined the Goalpara Sainik School, as a teacher in Assam.

Being a widow, and that too a young widow, her life was not easy.

At this point she went back to writing. She claims, she wrote just to live, otherwise it wouldn't have been possible for her to go on living. Her experiences in Madhya Pradesh and Kashmir, where her husband worked as an engineer was used in her novels Ahiron and Chenabor Srota, respectively. After working in Goalpara Sainik School, she was persuaded by her teacher Upendra Chandra Lekharu to come to Vrindavan and indulge in research work as well as for peace of mind. Her experiences as a widow as well as a researcher finds expression in her novel The Blue Necked Braja, which is about the plight of the Radheswamis of Vrindavan who lived hand to mouth and carried money sacrificing on their daily food so that they receive a decent, ritualised cremation after their death. But most of them were denied even of this and the bodies never received cremation according to Hindu rites and the money snatched. Indira exposed this face of Vrindavan, the city of Lord Krishna ruthlessly in her novel. It remains as a classic in Indian Literature and also was the first novel to be written on this subject.

In Vrindavana she got involved in Ramayani studies. A massive volume of Tulsidas's Ramayana bought during her stay there for just eleven rupees was the source of this inspiration. Later this finds expression in the unparalleled comparative study of Tulsidas's Ramayana and the 11th century Assamese Ramayana, (the first Ramayana to be written in a regional language) written by SriMadhava Kandali in her work Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra. She joined Delhi Universitydepartment of Modern Indian Languages and Literature and started her life again with the strong suggestion of her teacher and family friend Upendra Chandra Lekharu. Thus begins one of the most glorious phases of Indira Goswami's life. Here she wrote one of her best works. Several short stories like "Hidoy", "Nangoth Sohor" , "Borofor Rani" were written with Delhias the background. Her two classics. ''The Pages Stained With Blood'' and ''The Moth Eaten Howdah of a Tusker'' were written during her Delhi-phase. In ''The Pages Stained With Blood'' she writes about the plight of Sikhs in the Anti-Sikh riots of 1984 after the assassination of Indira Gandhi which she witnessed herself while staying in Delhi, Shakti Nagar as a faculty member of Delhi University. She herself went to the sites to complete this novel. She even went to G B Road, the famous red-light area of Delhi 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 the religious institutions of Assam called Satra. This novel had been anthologised in the ''The Masterpieces of Indian Literature'' and has been made into a film called Adajya which won international awards in various film festivals and also into two mini-series for the television. In one of them the famous actor Nandita Das acted in the role of Giribala.

In the peak of her literary career she wrote two important novels after The Pages Stained With Blood. Namely, Dasharathir Khoj and ''The Man from Chinnamasta''. The next novel turned out to be highly controversial since it tried to subvert the thousand years old tradition of animal sacrifice in the famous Hindu temple Kamakhya. She was even threatened of death due to this audacious act. In this novel translated into English by Prasanta Goswami and published by Katha, she quotes scriptures to authentic the argument she puts forward — to worship the Mother Goddess with flowers rather than blood.

At a very early age she received the Sahitya Akademi Award and then in 2000 she received India's highest literary award Jnanpith Award for writing for the subalterns and marginalisedd.

Works

Novels

• Chinavar Srota (The Stream of Chenab)
• Nilakanthi Braja (The Blue-Necked Braja)
• Chinnamastar Manuhto (The Man of Chinnamasta)
• Mamore Dhora Tarowal (The Rusted Sword)
• Datal Hitir Une Khowa Howda (The Moth Eaten Howdah of A Tusker)
• Tej Aru Dhulire Dhusarita Prishta (Pages Stained With Blood) The Plight of Sikhs:A Review

Autobiography

• Adhalikha Dastabej (An unfinished autobiography)

Read a Review Contours of a Modernity

Short stories

• Sanskar
• Udang Bakach
• The Journey
• To Break a Begging Bowl
• Dwarka and His Gun
• Parasu's Well
• Beasts

Poetry Collection

• Pain and Flesh

Others

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

Awards

• 2008 - Principal Prince Claus Award 2008
• 2008 - Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar Gold Plate from Asiatic Society.
• 2008 - D Litt Degree from Indira Gandhi National Open University
• 2007 - D Litt Degree from Rajiv Gandhi University Arunachal Pradesh
• Awarded the Ambassador for Peace from the Inter Religious and International Federation for World Peace
• 2002 - Mahiyoshi Jaymati Award with a citation in gold by Ahom Court of Assam
• 2002 - D Litt Degree from Rabindra Bharati University, West Bengal
• 2002 - Padma Shri (refused)
• 2000 - Jnanpith Award
• 1996 - Kamal Kumari Foundation National Award in 1996.
• 1993 - Katha National Award for Literature.
• 1992 - Sauhardya Award of Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan of Government of India.
• 1989 - Bharat Nirman Award
• 1988 - Asam Sahitya Sabha Award
• 1983 - Sahitya Akademi Award (for Mamore Dhora Tarowal)
• The International Tulsi Award from Florida International University for her book, Ramayana From Ganga To Brahmaputra.

External links

• Chronicles of Courage
• Ramayana research institute to come up in Guwahati

http://www.newstrackindia.com/news-article/features A dream come true: article by ditimoni gogoi