----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 3:29
AM
Subject: [Assam] About 'A Bowstring
Winter'
Hi. Read the mails about Dhruba Hazarika's "A Bowstring Winter". An
article on the book and the author by me appeared in last Sunday's Deccan
Herald newspaper. Here's the article:
| A new dawn in the East? |
|
Utpal Borpujari
|
Dhruba Hazarika is one of the few
writers to emerge from the Northeast, a region largely silent in the
realm of English literature, says Utpal Borpujari
|
| |
|
Eight rejection slips. That was all Dhruba Hazarika had to show to the
world till he touched based with Penguin, which published his first English
novel A Bowstring Winter written in time snatched from his 18-hour job
schedule that entails supervising the preparations for the long-delayed
National Games to be held in his home state Assam.
Any other writer
would have been distressed with eight rejection slips but Hazarika, with his
sports background, used his fighter spirit to rewrite the manuscript each time
he received such a slip, making more compact his novel set in the romantic
environments of Shillong. The theme of the novel has a lot to do with the
passions associated with teer, or the game of hitting a target with arrows,
which is a craze among the people in Meghalaya.
English fiction with
North-East India as the backdrop is rare, more so coming from writers with
roots in that region, though the local languages here have a rich literary
history. But Hazarika is the latest among a tribe of original writers in
English who are slowly emerging out this region inaccessible to the rest of
the country and the world not only geographically but also by mindsets.
A Bowstring Winter is no great literary breakthrough, but it evokes a
world that is genteel in its lookout, though the story it narrates is one of
passion and revenge. The story that Hazarika tells is interesting, and
gripping too, but more than that, it is his way of capturing the sights,
sounds and smells of Shillong, the beautiful hill station that the British
made the capital of an undivided Assam, that comes as a whiff of fresh air.
Set in the three months of U Naiwieng (November), U Nohprah
(December) and U Kyllalyngkot (January), the coldest and the most romantic
period for anyone who knows Shillong or the rest of Meghalaya, A Bowstring
Winter has been described as a tale of revenge and violence with the
underlying universal theme of friendship, loyalty and the inherent loneliness
of man.
The plot had been with Hazarika since over three decades now,
from around the time he was in college and was in the grip of, as he calls it,
teer fever.
Hazarika had originally written a short story on the
subject, but latter it grew into a novel, drawing some inspiration from a few
real-life street fighters and in one particular instance from that of a leader
of a gang of hoodlums who held sway over Shillongs gang world for quite a few
years. The characters I mentioned are touchstones that helped me in sorting
out my imagination, the author, who won the Katha award in 1996 for a short
story called Chicken Fever, says.
In fact, that award gave him the
confidence to move ahead with writing in English on a regular basis. As he
says, It is important for writers from the North-East, which has a strong
base of English education, to come up with more and more original English
writing. I only wish to maintain that they should not have any inhibitions nor
should they have any fear that they may do badly. One should simply write as
honestly as one can. It is only a matter of time before we have more writers
in English coming out of the North- East.
Publishing problems
Being located in Guwahati, Hazarika had tremendous problems in getting
a publisher for his novel. I do not have a reputation either as prolific
writer nor did I have exposure in any well known national or international
magazines, he says. And as someone who hates rejection slips, he never
thought of sending his writings to famous publications.
I published
my short stories in the regional papers and although a few people thought well
of them it was not as if they were masterpieces. So you see I was not really a
good ambassador for my own stories. It was only after getting the Katha award
that he began to gather more confidence.
After every rejection slip to
his novel, I remember revising, editing although the plot remained the same
the novel not less than 11 times: changing sentences, changing words, trying
for a compact realism that seemed a never ending battle. In one way,
therefore, the rejections did help me, he says.
Hazarika, who is now
planning to find a publisher for about 40 short stories that he has written
over the years, is working on another novel right now. I am in the state
sports department now for the last three years and because of the forthcoming
National Games am tied almost 18 hours a day. I will be happy the day I am
relieved of this post so that I can devote at least the next two years to my
next novel, he says.
A Bowstring Winter
Dhruba Hazarika.
Penguin. Pages
343. Rs 295
- Utpal / New Delhi
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