The story of a visionary

Book title: Chowa Pitambar Shyambaran Megh Ure

Author: Jivan Narah

Publisher: G.C. Nath on behalf of Aank-Baak

Pages: 368

Price: Rs 220

Times are changing and so are the minds of people. The members of an indigenous community, who believed that their forefathers once came to earth from Heaven using two supernatural creepers, and whose members used to sacrifice pigs and hens to appease their Gods, the sun and the moon, so that the birds could keep singing, trees keep flowering and yielding fruits and human beings continue to give birth, today has a man like Pitambar who thinks differently.

There are now people among the Misings, a prominent indigenous community in Assam, who have started thinking that sacrificing animals to appease the Gods is wrong, and it seems that the number of such people is increasing.

Pitambar, the village head, and villagers like Gajen, Jadu, Nandeswar, Kayum, Appun and Miksi are some of them.

Jivan Narah’s novel revolves around the lives of these villagers and Pitambar, the protagonist who once had faith on the sun and the moon, but now has turned to Vaishnavism.

Imbued with this new belief, he stresses on setting up a namghar (community prayer hall) in his small village, Marangiyal, which simultaneously undergoes another significant change — construction of a bridge over the river Gelabil, which was beyond the imagination of the villagers.

While construction of the namghar and the bridge generates bad feelings and apprehensions among a section of villagers, others wait eagerly for the day come when the two tasks are completed.

The author captures the questions, the likes and dislikes, the anxieties and apprehensions arising out of these issues among the uneducated villagers and reveals how the changes affect their beliefs.

Embracing everything, from the positive and negative thoughts of the villagers, to the inner conflicts raging inside Pitambar since the day he decided to set up the namghar, the narrative reaches a climax with the protagonist’s last journey from the village to a hospital in Golaghat. It portrays the grief and helplessness of the villagers as they realise his greatness, a little too late.

This only holds up the instance of life and living in Assam and its indigenous communities, which, even decades after India’s independence, are still untouched by the modern ways of life.

The lack of education and modern thinking had driven Pitambar to find answers until his last breath.

Jivan Narah, by penning this tragic story of the Mising community and their superstitions and backwardness, has done an unmatchable and commendable job.

The protagonist of the story is a true hero with an open heart and undying spirit. He, who only wanted development of the village and personal growth of every villager, is left alone towards the end.

Narah, also a poet, has amalgamated two different cultures in the novel by bringing the Mising social system and the Vaishnav ways of life together. The story is an instance of conflict between the educated and uneducated, knowledge and its absence and of facts and myths.

A must read.

REVIWER: PALLABI BURAGOHAIN

Published on March 30, 2012

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