Treasure Trove

(Select Assamese literary works in English)
Compiled and edited by
Abhigyan Anurag

Treasure Trove
(Select Assamese literary works in English)

                   

Vol I






Compiled and edited by
Abhigyan Anurag








Pandu College Golden Jubilee
Celebration Committee, 2011-12

Treasure Trove
A collection of Assamese short stories, poems and essays in English translation, edited by Abhigyan Anurag,
Pandu College, Guwahati 781 012

First Edition: 23rd October, 2011

Published by
 Pandu College Golden Jubilee Celebration Committee
(PCGJCC), Pandu College, Guwahati, Assam, India

Distributor:
Bhabani Print & Publication, Guwahati

@ Copyright: PCGJCC, Pandu College

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a reprieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means without the prior permission in writing of Pandu College, Guwahati, Assam, or as expressively permitted by law.

ISBN: 978-81-922432-1-4

Cover Design:
Manjit Rajkhowa

Price Rs.: 500.00/-
Printed at:
 Bhabani Print & Publication
Hatishila Panikhaiti, Guwahati-781 026
Ph: (0361) 2132315 Fax: (0361) 2450797
E-mail: books@bhabani.com

Acknowledgements

 
    I remember with gratitude the esteemed authors and translators who permit me to include their works in this anthology. I am also glad to take this opportunity of recalling all the help and cooperation that the office bearers of the Pandu College Golden Jubilee Celebration Committee (PCGJCC) so generously bestowed on this work. I owe my heartfelt thanks to my poet friend Bipuljyoti Saikia for his helpful suggestions and for supporting this project. Finally, I am grateful to Dr Bibhas Chandra Das Purakayastha, Dr Bhubaneswar Bora, Navajyoti Borah, Prof Madan Sarma, Bhaskarjyoti Goswami, Nirendra Nath Thakuria, Dr Jovial Kalita, Dr Mrinal Kalita, Sanjib Barman, Mridul Das, Biman Arandhara, Martin Kashyap, Evana Kashyap, Manashi Deka, and others for their help and unstinting support in this venture.
A. Anurag                                                    


Contents
Publisher’s foreword              8
Prelude to Treasure Trove       9
Fiction
Lakshminath Bezbaroa          13
Patmugi
Sayed Abdul Malik           21
Love
Sheelabhadra                  28
A Good man
Mahim Bora                    32
Bait
Saurav Saikia                  46
Oasis
Lakshminandan Bora         55
Bihu Gift
Debasement
Nagen Saikia                  66
Storm in a Closed Chamber
Harekrishna Deka            72
Why Yudhisthir’s Story Cannot Be Told
Devabrata Das                 89
One Night for Arpita
Madan Sarma                  96
Butterfly
Three Assassins and a Teenager
Bhupendra Narayan Bhattacharyya                113
Fallen Leaf
Bipul Khataniar                120
Lore of the Teak Forest
Phanindra Kumar Devchoudhury                   134
Love in Vain
Arupa Patangia Kalita         140
The Invitation
Kula Saikia                   151
The Bridge
Rabin Sarma                  158
The Mask
Bonti Senchowa              170
Beyond Satiety
Aradhana Patangia
Goswami                      200
Music of the Sphere
Jayanta Chakravarty        229
Prayer by the Pond
Monoj Kr Goswami         239 
Journey to the Last Station
Anuradha Sarmapujari     247
Exploring a Colloquy
Abhigyan Anurag            260
The Discharge
Imran Hussain               269
The Slaughter
Manikuntala
Bhattacharyya                285
Bogori Barua
Prasanta Kumar Das       293
The Downtown
Arup Kumar Nath            301
A Dish for the Dead
Mrinal Kalita                313
Mein Do Litre Dudh Pita Hun
Moushumi Kandali         323
The Eye
Monalisa Saikia              334
Roots Beckon
Chandana Pathak             341
Deuta, Will You Buy Me A Doll?
Anamika Bora                343
A Song of Life
Atanu Bhattacharyya       363
Futile Pursuit
Apu Bharadwaj              374
A Mathematical Problem and an Old Man
Monica Devee                381
Victory in Turmoil
Sanjeeb Pol Deka            391
The Trap
Manima Goswami           408
A Night of Heavy Downpour
Poetry
Navakanta Barua            414
The Belt of the Spinning Wheel
Valmiki in Bhupal
The First Code of Life
Palestine
Nirmalprabha Bordoloi    418
Dawning
Sorrow
Song of Darkness
Bireswar Barua               420
Lily’s afternoon
We Do Not Know
Burning Charcoals of My Hearth
I Do Not Know When You Would Return
Hiren Bhattacharyya        422
Seed
Flute-Note
Nilmani Phookan            424
Poem 
I am Going Down the Hill
Shepherd Boy
Not a Word to Speak
Harekrishna Deka           430
Posterity
Me, My Umbrella and He
Towards Freedom
Door
Anis Uz Zaman               435
Their Sighs, Their Griefs
Poems
Rofiqul Hoosain              438
The Flute
Love
Sananta Tanti                441
Like Trees That are Dead
I Live on Your Whiteness
Sameer Tanti                 444
Time
I Want to Gaze for Ages at a Snake Slaughing its Skin
This Way They Came One Day
Anubhav Tulasi              447
Canine
Rain
I would Not Go Shopping  But Go
Toshaprabha Kalita         451
Sita
Poetry
Jiban Narah                   456
Death
Hands Are Flowers
The Fires are Descending on the Waters
Bipuljyoti Saikia            459
The River unto Man
Reading the Geeta—I
The Path the Soldiers March Along
Nilim Kumar                 465
Waters
Pregnant
Fox
This Is Radha
M. Kamaluddin Ahmed      471
Abiding Dream
Postcolonial
At the Book Fair
Atanu Bhattacharyya       474
Profligate Tears
Setting Out
Saurav Saikia                476
A Fishing Village
A Golden Feast
A Shadow in the Rain
Pranjal Sharma
Bashishtha                    479
In the Shady Pond
Bubbles
The Underwater World
Hemanga Kr. Dutta         481
Poem of the Night
An Untitled Poem
Prisoners
Bipul Kr. Dutta              483
Final Decision
The Rat
Love
Anupama Basumatary      486
Snail
Mother
Sculptor
Debaprasad Talukdar      489
Circularity of Search
The Noon When Old Memories Jostled
Paniram
Prem Narayan Nath         493
Matchless
The Temple Bells Clang at Dusk
Lutfa Hanum
Selima Begum                495
The Cresset
Poem
Kamal Kumar Tanti        497
A poem of Love
Post Colonial Poems
Bijoy Sankar Barman       500
Kite
Spook
Bapa, the Stone Blind
Rousan Ara Begum          506
When the Moon Falls Ill
Like the Man Who Was Put on a Ping
Phukan Basumatary         508
Let’s Proceed towards the Cave
The Victim Days
Purandar Patgiri             513
The Golden Dreams
Miscellany
Satyanath Bora               514
Of Studies
Hiren Gohain                 517
Literary Movements in Assam
Birendranath Dutta           531
Songs of Devotion
Koustavmoni Saikia           536
Yellow Journalism
Dhirendranath Chakravorty 540
In Close Association with an Extraordinary Man
Adeep Kr Phukan             543
Bhabendranath Saikia: A pride of Assam
Arindom Barkotoky          546
Of Woman and Creativity
Nirmalprabha Bordoloi      553
A Beautiful Hand

------------

Prelude to Treasure Trove

We believe that the creations of Assamese writers are never lacking in excellence, but they are long waiting for due recognition and adoration of the global readers. From the time of Hema Saraswati, the author of Prahlada Charitra (13th century AD), who is considered one of the earliest writers in Assamese, to the recent years, Assamese literature has passed through several literary movements and trends in tune with other regional literatures of the country, capturing various facets of social, cultural, economic, religious and psychological conditions of life and affairs. Could we ever consign to oblivion the glorious texts written on the bark of the Saanchi trees long before the invention of the printing press? The rich oral literature, the Charyapadas (cryptic lyrics steeped in Buddhist mysticism), pre-Vaishnavite and Vaishnavite literature under the aegis of great personalities like Sankardeva (1449–1568), Madhavdeva (1498–1596), Haribaravipra, Kabiratna Saraswati from the 16th century and the prose records of the Ahom court from the 17th to 19th century leave an indelible mark on Assamese literature. Bhattadeva (1558–1638) enriched Assamese prose literature in the 16th century with his superb works Katha Geeta and Katha Bhagavata. Oroonodoi (1846–83), a monthly journal of Assamese Renaissance, helped Anandaram Dhekial Phukan (1829–59), Hemchandra Barua (1835–97), Gunabhiram Barua (1837–94) and others to make their literary contributions with much enthusiasm. The first flush of romanticism through Jonaki  (1889–1893), an Assamese  journal, came along with Bholanath Das (1858–1929), Chandrakumar Agarwala (1867–1938), Lakshminath Bezbaroa, and others. Modernity is felt in the writings of Assamese writers like Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, Birinchi Kumar Barua, Hem Barua, Navakanta Barua and others. Amulya Barua, Bhabananda Dutta and others launched a progressive movement in Assamese literature.
Hence, would it be overstating to presume that a good number of writers of the Assamese language could claim the exalted seats in the global authors’ forum? Or could we list the great Assamese literary intellectuals and their ingenuity, invigorating works that someday, somewhere, someone could breathe its pure serene and express their wonderment after having read these texts? (May we remember John Keats’ poem “On first looking into Chapman’s Homer”?) Yes, we have a unanimous decree in this debate with affirmative claps. This lovely anticipation has, of course, a ground. It is our wonderful experience that Assamese literature has already arrived with full brilliance along with the other literatures in other regional languages of the country. Critics have already discovered various modes or motifs of representation in classy rhetoric in Assamese literary texts. Say fiction, say prose, say rhymes or any other form, a lot of talents we have.
With this in mind, Treasure Trove is designed to accomplish a humble job making the select works of a good number of writers from Assam accessible to global readership. Till recent years, the dearth of quality translated works from Assamese into English has dismayed Assamese readers. Translating cultures during the days of the Vaishnavite apostles Sankardeva and Madhavdeva flourished and made the foundation of Assamese literature strong and stable. But this cannot be said about the subsequent periods. In recent years, a learned section with a good command of both Assamese and English has done a laudable job in translating Assamese literary works into English. The output, of course, has not been proportionate to the increasing volume in literary creations in Assamese. To help non-Assamese readers breathe the pure serene of Assamese literature, we need, as we all prop up, an enormous amount of translations from Assamese into English. In comparison with other countries, India has lagged behind in this field. The idea that literary translation can help participate in cultural experience among different nations has 
not been adequately concretized in India as in the West, though urgency has been genuinely felt here.
But what has happened now remains to be seen. The ‘creations’ of the Assamese writers must be translated into other languages with the original flavour and equivalent impact. If we talk of translation and its achievement, we must remember that the translation of the Buddhist texts into literary Chinese and the Latinization of the Bible in the first millennium are the two cases in point of celebrated achievements in the long history of translation. Hence, it is high time to see our literary grandeur in other tongues and establish glories of ours in the hallowed precincts of world culture. In the global context of today, translation studies have acquired new dimensions and immense significance. It is not a time now to believe, as was mostly assumed in India just after Independence, that translation corrupts originality, imagination and richness of a work of art. Agnes Whitfield, modern Canadian poet, fiction writer and a professional translator (Canadian Secretary of State Translation Bureau) rightly contends that literary translation boosts up intercultural understanding and it fills the gap, and opens up new worlds to explore. (York University, Newswire letter, 13 August, 2007).
Translation has been proved, time and again, to be the right kind of correspondence between the source language and the target language. We must bear in mind that an excellent translation is a near perfect rendering of the meaning of a text. One has to decode the meaning of the source text and then it is to be re-encoded in the target language. Chinese translation theorist Ma Jianzhong identifies certain requirements for good translation in his On Establishing a Translation Institution (1894). A translator, possessing a good mastery of the two languages, is required to know their differences and similarities. He or she, Ma Jianzhong says, should have a full understanding of the meaning, style and spirit of the source text and convey them exactly into the target language. There should be no discrepancy between the source text and the target text. The target text should carry equivalent amount of impact on the reader as the source text does.
The opening of the Global Cultural Initiative by Laura Bush in 2006 at a White House ceremony in Washington is a noteworthy event in the field of literary translation. The programme under this initiative, aiming at enhancing and expanding the United States’ cultural diplomacy, is a series of international literary exchanges that sponsor translations and publications affording Americans and readers in other nations access to the best of each other’s literature. The Banff International Literary Translation Centre (BILTC), North America, has also been initiating residency program to afford literary translators a period of continuous work on a current project, within an international community of translators. These are just two instances of the recent developments that may open up our eyes towards launching some programs in our places.
Therefore, an action plan to encourage, organize and increase literary translation in Assam on a platform, assembled by a good number of connoisseurs of the discipline is the crying need of the hour. While making contacts with the writers for translated version of their texts for this anthology, we gather, almost unpredictably, a common disenchantment with the Assamese writers about non-availability of a permanent literary forum for translation purpose and an impulse upon which they may be enthused to resort to their literary activities. This is, we believe, a deficiency that arises out of having not an inclination to the subject, but a lack of a tendency to organize the motifs. Treasure Trove may prove a flash in the darkness and a flicker that can fire the imagination of the aspiring translators.
We could not intimate each of the writers, established and promising, for this single publication. Works of a good number of distinguished authors could not be included here because translated texts of their works did not reach in time. Only the translated texts received in the fixed dateline have been published here. We hope readers would never think it to be an anthology of reprentation of Assamese authors. We feel sorry that we could not include here translated works of a large number of established writers for the reason mentioned above. Finally we decide to  bring out some other volumes from Pandu College in the near future to accommodate not the fictions and poems alone but a large amount of Assamese non-fictional prose, children literature and many more.
Last but not the least, the board of editors of this book would like to humbly acknowledge the invaluable contributions of the translators and would also like to tender its unqualified apologies for any inadvertent mistakes that might have crept in at the time of copy editing and printing. Furthermore, the board also tenders its apologies if it has been found to be wanting in acknowledging the help and cooperation that it has readily got from everyone involved in the monumental process of compiling this book. We welcome any constructive suggestions with regard to this venture from our readers to join hands for a better tomorrow for Assamese literary translation.    

A. Anurag

( treasure trove is available at Bhabani Publishers, Guwahati