Assam - India in Translation: Reading Through Each of India’s 28 States
On a Wing and a Prayer by Arun Sarma
I’m returning now to one of my favorite series — Indian Novels in Translation, State by State. Other posts in this series. Tamil Nadu |Karnataka | Andhra Pradesh | Kerala | Telangana | Goa | Orissa
Part of why I'm so excited about this series is that it takes me to places that I have rarely, if ever, visited. I was fortunate to go to Assam as a teenager, to world-famous Kaziranga National Park where we saw magnificent rhinoceroses. We boated along the wide, resolute Brahmaputra river and I had a sense of the vastness and history of the land. But apart from those three or four days spent in nature, Assam is a state that I know little about.
For this recommendation, I turned to an absolute expert -- Aruni Kashyap, esteemed author and Director of the Creative Writing Program at UGA. I met Aruni only recently but was instantly struck by his warmth and generosity. Aruni writes short stories, novels, poetry in English and Assamese and has also translated between the languages. I'm excited for his latest release, The Way You Want To Be Loved, from Gaudy Boy, a really amazing, exciting press originally out of Singapore, and am proud to say that I've preordered my copy.
Today's book:
On a Wing and a Prayer
by Arun Sarma
STATE: Assam
Original Language: Assamese
Original language title: Aashirbador Rong
Publisher in English — Rupa (2013) - LINK
Translated by Maitreyee Siddhanta Chakravarty
It was with the confidence of Aruni's trustworthy recommendation that I opened A Wing and A Prayer by Arun Sarma.
I was instantly transported. The first twenty pages are vital for building a story world and creating its rules. Here, we are taken to 1935. Several Muslim boatmen are plying a difficult trade up and down the Brahmaputra river when they are stranded on a sandy bank by low water levels. There is evident authorial mastery in the nuances of the niche world. Mansoor swims out to shore for a reprieve; there, he speaks to a "well-built man coiling ropes" who tells him of a barren expanse with "no zamindar and no headman", probably because the river's flooding and receding makes cultivation difficult. Here's the description of that land:
Sloshing through the muddy grassland, Mansoor soon reached the dry riverbank. A tiny lane led through rows of silk-cotton trees and thick shrubbery, straw and thatching grass at their base. Moving along this, he eventually landed near a big river -- probably the Kuroi that merged with the Brahmaputra slightly further on. He walked on until he chanced upon a vast open space stretching right down to the river, a thick forest on one side and grasslands on the other. There was a field to one side and beyond that, far away, signs of a village. A row of tall trees etched a dark horizon. Some scattered hutments, a herd of cows or buffaloes...
Years later, Mansoor, having never forgotten this sojourn, brings his young wife, Nerisa, and his daughter, Hasina from their "unknown little village in Chittagong" to this expansive dreamland. Another former Muslim boatman joins him, and then another, until they have built for themselves a tiny Muslim village. This is the opening chapter of On A Wing And A Prayer and you realize that you are in the grip of an author confident in telling a wide-ranging story, one that covers communities and decades, even as it foregrounds the dreams and ambitions of central characters.
It is in the second chapter that we are introduced to the book's true hero, seemingly luckless Gojen whose father was imprisoned because of his opposition to the tyrannical revenue collector, and whose mother died, leaving him alone with his grandmother. But Gojen is fierce, physically strong, a young man who disdains money. Instead, he values helping his neighbors, enjoying his ganja cigarettes, and long days spent fishing the Kuroi.
It is a transition time in rural Assam where the newspapers arrive a week late. With growing rumors of independence, local thugs exaggerate their role in the freedom struggle. Arun Sarma shows, through interweaving storylines of a full cast of characters, the challenges of young India to unshackle itself from greed that threatens to co-opt the independence movement. The book manages to be an ensemble book about a village but also a hero's journey for Gojen who we increasingly come to identify with.
The book advances a moral stance but does so through its characters and their choices; this is executed seamlessly so that you actually feel through dilemmas around caste, widow remarriage, and the independence movement. At one point, Gojen's grandmother is incensed at the thought of a Muslim girl entering her house; by the end of the chapter, she's feeding her by hand. It's done so convincingly, by appealing to a simple truth. It's easy to misunderstand from a distance but when someone needs help and is at your door, could you refuse them a glass of water or a bite to eat?
Similarly, the book's 'A' plot, how the village deals with the pogrom that destroys the Muslim village built in Chapter 1, frames political, moral questions directly into the character's lives in a believable, realistic way. We see that some of the communal violence of partition was calculated as a land grab or a power consolidation move. We see how the courts and magistrates work well to an extent but, in remote villages, late at night, a machete or a gun can make a mockery of a verdict.
You have to understand that in school in India we study the independence movement every single year. You think you know it. But Gojen's moral journey truly re-framed its stakes for me and its subsequent aftermath.
Like the movie Casablanca, this book hits a different speed altogether in the final 10% and becomes a race against time. I found myself furiously skimming, dying to know what happened, needing for the characters I'd come to be fiercely protective of to end up okay. I haven't felt genuine fear while reading for quite some time. My heart rate was elevated like I was running in my bed.
This is a book written by someone with a love of Assam and a love of its people but also someone who loves them well enough to point out their vices, their shortcomings. Moral courage is easy in the abstract. Arun Sarma's characters model for us the Jungian spectrum of our inner self and ask us --- when the chips are down, who are we really?
Rating: 5/5. Without a doubt.
MISSY Pre-Order Information:
Apologies if you have already pre-ordered my book. Some people have mentioned having a hard time pre-ordering my book. The best online retailers for my book are currently Waterstones and Blackwells. Amazon US does not currently support my book because the US rights remain on submission.
Here’s the pre-order link again.
For more info about my book and why it’s currently only available for pre-order in the UK or to share it with other interested parties, please see the previous post on this subject.