Dear Friends:
The Guardian this morning (22 12 2011) published Indira Goswami's
obituary in its pages.The author is Shahnaz Habib, a freelance writer &
editor based in Brooklyn, New Work. The printable version is
reproduced below:
-bhuban
Indira Goswami obituary
Indian writer spurred on by widowhood and social injustice
Indira Goswami in 2006. She used her life as an empathetic starting
point for research. Photograph: Frank May/AFP
The writer Indira Goswami, who has died aged 69 after a long illness,
was widowed as a young woman, 18 months after her marriage. Although
education and privilege shielded her from many of the stigmas
traditionally faced by widows in India, the experience prompted her to
consider the oppressive helplessness in which many of them lived. In
her first novel, Neel Kanthi Braja (Shadow of Dark God, 1986), she
examined the social and psychological deprivations of widowhood. "I
have tried to show how the mental and physical state of a young widow
takes a different shape and how this change affects her life after her
widowhood," she stated in its introduction.
In writing this book, she did not simply project her own experience on
to others but rather used it as an empathetic starting point for
research. She lived with a sect of widows in the Hindu holy city of
Vrindavan for a couple of years. Goswami gave a candid voice to the
grief and loneliness of widowhood in her memoir, Adhalekha Dastaveja (A
Half-Written Autobiography, 1988), and in a later novel, Dontal Hatir
Une Khowa Howdah (The Moth-Eaten Howdah of the Tusker, 2004), in which
she portrayed the lives of widows in a satra (traditional monastery).
Born in Assam, north-eastern India, Goswami was raised in a Vaishnavite
family who owned a satra. Although she started writing as a child, it
was only after her husband's death in 1967 that she committed herself
to a literary career, writing in Assamese and becoming popularly known
as Mamoni Baideo (Sister Mamoni). She continually addressed social
injustices in her work and made her life as an academic in Delhi,
writing numerous short stories and novels, some published in serial
form in magazines.
Her imagination was captured by the raw reality of the streets, the
slang of the lower classes, and the incongruous intersections of urban
life. In Tej Aru Dhulire Dhushorito Prishtha (Pages Stained With Blood,
2001), a young female teacher visits the neighbourhoods of Delhi that
have been affected by anti-Sikh riots in the wake of the assassination
of Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh bodyguards. Even as the story bears
witness to the bloodshed in Delhi, it also personalises the political –
the teacher is falling in love with the Sikh rickshaw puller who is
taking her through the divided city.
In the more recent Chinnamastar Manuhto (The Man from Chinnamasta,
2005), Goswami wrote about animal sacrifice at the Kamakhya Temple. The
novel condemns the practice, and its questioning of the role of
religion provoked controversy (an increasingly familiar reaction to her
work). The recipient of the highest literary awards in India, Goswami
also received a Prince Claus award from the Netherlands in 2008 for the
cultural and social value of her work. The jury remarked that her
"powerful and lively descriptions and memorable images show how the
body is central to human affairs, how political, religious and cultural
systems affect the body and how the body determines life processes,
gender, age, poverty and conflict".
One of her lifelong passions was the Sanskrit epic the Ramayana. As a
young scholar, she conducted research comparing Goswami Tulsidas's
popular epic Ramcharitmanas with the Assamese poet Madhava Kandali's
14th-century version of the Ramayana. She subsequently published the
book Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra. Much later, bringing together
Ramayana scholars from across Asia, she founded the South-east Asia
Ramayana research institute in 2008. Goswami was especially fascinated
by the way the epic and its array of heroes and villains shapeshifted
across cultures. The first publication by the institute, Ravana: Myths,
Legends and Lore (2009), explored how the demon king of the epic is a
much more nuanced and intelligent character than is usually
acknowledged.
Perhaps it is this complex and compassionate vision of conflict that
also inspired Goswami to offer herself as a negotiator between the
government of India and the United Liberation Front of Assam, a
separatist movement. With her mediation, the banned group conducted
three rounds of talks with the government, a considerable achievement
considering that the crisis in Assam has been running for decades.
Goswami's home was always open to Assamese students in the city, and
once I accompanied a friend on a visit. It was evening and Goswami was
almost ready for bed, dressed not in the bright, splendid saris that
she was always photographed in, but a house dress. The splendidness was
all hers. Delighted to see us, she made us tea, insisted that we eat
snacks, made jokes about the writing life and asked after my friend's
family. She was a warm presence and a gracious listener, and the
meeting ended with a softly spoken invitation to return any time we
needed anything. Whether you were a nameless student or an insurgent or
a Ramayana scholar, you were welcome into her life.
• Indira Goswami, writer, teacher, and scholar, born 14 November 1942;
died 29 November 201
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