Laxminandan Borah, a popular name in the Assamese literature, was born in a village in Nagaon district of Assam in a farmer’s family on June 15, 1932. He was born to his parents after a gap of nearly 20 years since his eldest brother was born. When he was born, his parents were elderly and his brother was already married. This created a lonely world for himand he grew up without enjoying the companionship of children his age in the family. However, he received utmost care and affection from his family members. When he was in the local L.P. School, the class mates taunted him as an old man’s son. At school, Laxminandan was a favourite chap among the teachers. He often mixed with the people in the nearby villages and liked the local cultural activities. He often participated in such activities. This had a lifelong experience on his mind that is revealed through his literary works. When he joined Cotton College for B.Sc. with honours in physics, he was in the circle of some of the best minds who later became famous in their fields. Later he joined Presidency College of Calcutta University, where he got legendary teachers like SatyendraNath Bose and S.C. Chatterjee. Laxminandan remembers it with pride that he was an acquaintance with Late TarasankarBondopadhaya and Late Budhadev Bose. Typically being a student of science, Laxminandan had little interest in literature initially. But his association with the people and life in Kolkata attracted him to literature. When he was in the final year at Presidency College, the Assamese people organized a meet on Sankardeva, where he delivered a speech on Sankardeva. People lauded him for his speech and persuaded me to try creative writing. Finally, he composed his first ever story Bhawana in Kolkata. Since then his journey in writing began. After completing his education, he joined Assam Agricultural University as a teacher, although with low interest. Gradually, coming across brilliant students, he became more interested in teaching as he liked to nurture new talents. He had the grace of being the first doctorate in Agricultural Meteorology perhaps in the entire northeast India. Agricultural Meteorology was a new area of study then. He spent some time in Walt air, Visakhapatnam also where he did research on his coveted area. Laxminandan had a rich exposure to foreign countries where he contributed on several notable research projects. He was a visiting professor of Climatology in Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany and worked as a Project Director on another research scheme the very next year. He visited several European countries on different projects and academic positions. His observation is that standard of education in European countries is very high where research is given high importance. On the other hand, Laxminandan was miffed over the social life of those countries as he found the people there self-centred and marriage life lasted for a measurably short period. The young people hardly took care of their parents. No one cared about the others. This aspect of western life finds place in his novel “Kayakalpa”. Laxminandan chiefly wrote short stories for fifteen years. His stories generally reflect the rural life and simple people. He had a keen observation on how people talked and spent life, specifically the people of the Satriya culture. His novel ‘Ganga-ChilanirPakhi’ is the perfect example of his interest and handling. He was heavily influenced by Sankardevaand LaxminathBezbaruah, particularly because they both contributed a lot to the literature and had immense impact on the common people. Sankardeva, however, had a special place in his heart. He wrote the novel “Gaker iNahike Upam” eulogising these gurus, which has been a best seller since 1993 running into several editions. Laxminandan is credited to withhold the interest of novel reading among the readers. During the 1980s, when TV became an alternative source of entertainment over reading, Laxminandan introduced several new elements to the Assamese literary cannon such as modern themes, unpredictable dramatic situations, gripping story plots, and more importantly he made opium and smuggling the main story backdrops. His novel ‘PatalBhaisnavi’ revolves around such elements which not only earned him Sahitya Academy Award, but has been widely appreciated by the readers and critics alike that made the book come out inseveral editions till date. His themes in novels vary a lot like the streams of life itself. He had strong belief in the philosophy of Kayakalpa that is rejuvenation – a self-transforming power that keeps life new and fresh for ever. He practiced yoga and was an ardent admirer of Aurvedic system of medicine, although he studied the modern gerontology at the same time. His novel Kayakalpa is on such themes for which he was awarded SaraswatiSamman of K.K. Birla. The Chairman of the selection committee opined that no other Indian author attempted a novel on this theme so far. During the while he was the President of Asom Sahitya Sabha, he attended meetings throughout Assam on regular basis. This opened a wider spectrum for him to knowAssam more intimately. He came in close contact with various types of people who enriched his creativity and love for the Assamese people even more. He believed that if the immigrant Muslims and tea industry workers become the part of the main stream of the Assamese life, Assamas a nation would evolve as a great land. Laxminandan had the strong belief that Asom Sahitya Sabha has the centrifugal force to achieve this one day. His autobiography Kal Balukat Khojis a very popular composition among the people that explores such views. His contribution to his editorial journey is immense. He advocated that new voices should be encouraged and promoted. He suggests editors must understand the pulse of the contemporary people and hence new angle of writing must be recognized and given the chance to flourish. He wrote until his last days.
Literature is highly indebted to Laxminandan who breathed last on June 3, 2021. Laxminandan Bora was a versatile writer and this ability is manifest in almost all of his novels. Accordingly to the Franco-Czech novelist Milan Kundera, a novel that does not explore a hitherto unexplored realm of human experience is not at all a novel. This comment is true in case of Laxminanda Bora who never repeated himself in any of his novel or short stories. The famous Norweigian dramatist Henrik Ibsen once said “Living means fighting within you the ghosts of dark power; writing means putting on trial your inmost self”. In each of Laxminanda Bora’s fictional piece we find this tussle, he was a master of ‘reading plot according to the demand of the narrative and he knew exactly how to deal with the raw materials of his fiction and turn those into diamond. T.S. Eliot once said in context of his poetry that there is always a deference between the mind that creates and the man who suffers. Laxminanda Bora lived with this fissure in his fictional world. One interesting aspect of Laxminanda Bora; writing is that he began with short stories in the 1950s but came to write novel in a mature stage in 1963. Ganga ChilonirPakhi was published in 1963 and since then he never looked back. The backdrop of this particular novel is a rural family but Bora’s credit lies in the fact that he could immortalize both the setting and the characters. The female protagonist of the novel is quite a mentally agile character and she ultimately is able to control the life around him, Another interesting point is that Bora had a gap between his short stories and his debut novel. One can conjecture that during this long gap Laxminanda Bora was preparing himself with his unique plot and language to write novels. Laxminandan Bora excelled none other than himself in writing novelist biographies and in this respect he showed his expertise in novels like JakeriNahikeUpam, Hehi Gunonidhi, Hehisalyasachi, JasionGaganBiopi and GotiMotiBhakoti. In some of these novels he dealt with the lives of the saints of Assam, all of whom were campaigning of Bhakti cult. It is known that during the medieval period in India there was the rise of Bhakti Movement and Srimanta Sankardeva was also participant in that religious and cultural upsurge. Bora’s special and spectacular ability make him portray the lives of Sankardeva and his disciple Madhabdeva is a humane manner. In Assamese literature Syed Abdul Malik wrote a fictional biography of Sankardeva lilted Dhanyo Nara TanuBhal where he exotisized the characters of the saint Sankardeva. But Laxminanda Bora, in each of his fictional biography of the saints, avoided hagiography and created the saints in a real flesh and blood human manner. Bora’s novel PatalVairavi which fetched him the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award deals with bleak and fearful under world of corruption, black Marketing, smuggling, Illegal transportation of opium and above all murder and mayhem. The novel is racy, full of incident and is able to offer the reader a key to a darker world. Bora’s novel Kaykalpa, for which he won the covetous Saraswati Samman is actually a combination of modern gerontology and ancient Ayurvedic from of treatment which can prolong human life on earth. This is very dynamic novel which he portrays the eternal human yeaning to avoid death and the narrative becomes littered with mention of different life-force enhancing herbs. This is the only novel of Laxminanda Bora that was translated into English by Biman Arandhara. Laxminanda Bora started his literary sojourn with short stories. A short story should be reasonably short, it must arrest the attention of the readers since the inception and must sustain the interest till the end, a short story must have one single aim and it must produce one single vivid impression. Bora succeeded in doing all of that and he added to the Assamese short story a unique rural atmospheric charm. Most of his initial stories stem from his experiences of growing up in rural area and he was brought up in a village adjacent to a river. His story Sampttir Bapek reveals through the consciousness of a first person narrator his return to his native village after the gap of one long year. Nostalgia plays a major role in the story as we came to know that the narrator is excited at the prospect of returning to his home on the eve of puja vacation and he wants to meet his near and dear ones before returning to town again. In this story we find a yearning for home, a concern for living in a community, concern for friends and friendship, a typical village life style and above all, a tendency to climb the social leader. The narrator is flabbergasted as he finds his childhood friend deciding to leave his native village because under the present context he is treated as a mad man by a large number of people in the village. The protagonist is moved to find that his friend is inextricably bound to his wife and the wife also attends to the whims of her husband. Laxminandan was a master of using village proverbs which he does abundantly in this story and it takes the reader to a different existential realm. His last collection of short stories titled Bahanti Bhakhonarevels his alert attitude towards contemporary society. He writes about the loss of human values and the crumbling of joint families. His mesmerizing language in his stories and novel sweeps away the readers to an extraordinary height. True art lies in concealing art and Bora excels in that. He worked for one decade as the edition of the prestigious magazine Goriohi. His autobiography Kal Bolukat Khuj gives an honest and candid account of his life. Laxminandan Bora’s physical death will not lee able to take away his literary excellence and he will be immortal in the realm of Assamese literature. It is a matter of regret that we have only one novel of him being translated into English. Bereaved and bereft of Laxminandan Bora, his readers would feel bewildered now.
(The author an author of 14 books in English is an Assistant Professor at the Department of English at Bongaigaon College Asam. Views are his own)
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