Author embarks on matrimonial journey

by Dilshan Boange

When reading modern Indian fiction one is bound to come across the theme of the oppressed woman in Indian society. At times the stories we read can seem larger than life which play on the heightening of friction and affliction to make the reader more empathic to the woman of India.

In this instalment about veteran Assamese journalist Sabita Goswami’s Along the Red River I would like to focus on the facet of how the autobiography of the prolific and fearless journalist gives a window to see the condition of the woman as a wife in traditional Assamese society and also to view the duty of motherhood as per the world of experience which Goswami speaks of.

Leading the first few chapters of the book which gives an account of how the author embarked on her matrimonial journey with the man she fell in love with and the oppressive in-laws that consequently take over things I couldn’t help but feel that there was in essence the ingredients which typify a story that portrays the condition of the traditional Indian wife. Goswami gives an unreserved account of what transpired in her life in terms of being a victim and a victor along the challenging journey of being a wife and mother while being a committed to her intensely demanding career of journalism.

What besieges the very talented and determined young woman as the sacrifices she makes in the name of what she believes to be love for the man she becomes wife to, is tragic in certain ways. And it unveils in the backdrop of the Sino-Indian border war as she says in the following words –“I was married in November 1962. The Chinese had just crossed over to Indian territory. The town of Tezpur, about four hours drive from Guwahati, was very tense.” Sadly for her what Goswami narrates to her readers is a life that is ripe with strife and anguish.

The central factor that made her life as a young wife and mother hellish at times was the mental condition of her husband who had been later diagnosed as schizophrenic! The irrational erratic behaviour he is characterised with, included indulgence in drink, spend thriftiness and the propensity to get into violent fits of rage and become destructive. It will seem horrendously shocking to the reader who is conscious of the fact that the narrative is biographic!

Heroism and villainy

If one were to think of the autobiography as a biopic where the polarities of heroism and villainy are juxtaposed, then Goswami’s husband will seem the constant arch-enemy. But one will see that the forbearance and the endless enduring patience shown by the protagonist shows how the husband is after all a victim of his own conditions in life and that this greatly humanistic understanding on her part prevents her from demonising him. As a writer who gives her account without reservations their moments of emotional bonding and dearness too find their due place in Goswami’s narrative.

Being clearly the more talented of the two, the authoress speaks of how she had to contend with her husband’s jealousies and the insecurity and inferiority complexes he bore within and how they manifested in the most unsightly ways that sought to discredit her publicly. To the authoress it seems that her husband who sank deeper and deeper into the pathos caused by his failures in life made her the object he loved to hate.

The taboo of divorce

A reader is bound to feel that Goswami was foolish for not divorcing her husband for all the misery he causes her. But then there is that very pragmatic vein in the authoress which speaks of how Indian society would have disempowered her as a divorcee. The state of Indian social perceptions and how they serve the spectrum of gender politics thus becomes rather telling. The need to be empowered in the eyes of society even through the nominal status of being a wife to a man, marks a key point to understand the state of a woman and her ability to forge ahead in traditional society.

The most emotionally gripping moment in respect of this theme of being a wife in my opinion is where the authoress speaks of how she performed her husband’s funeral rites after he passed away from a battle with cancer.

“After he passed away, I immersed his ashes in the Ganges, just as he desired. I am not one who believes in rites and rituals.... My husband believed in rituals. As though it was a premonition, the day before he passed away, my husband expressed his desire that his last rites be performed by our son-in-law since he believed this was something daughters were not supposed to do. On the third day after he died, as per Maharashtrian custom, I went to immerse his ashes in the pilgrimage town of Alandi –about 25 kilometres from Pune. In a vast pond, near it a concrete lotus with an extended platform, I mixed chandan powder and ghee with the ashes and immersed it into the pond with flowers. I felt as if I caressed death!” Thus speaks this courageous mother who was an undeniably dutiful wife, of how she entered the state of being a widow. Another ‘status’ a woman must occupy in traditional Asian society.

Triveni and Nandini

The role of being a mother to her two daughters Triveni and Nandini was undoubtedly the greatest calling in her life. The goal to ensure that despite all the chaos that encircled their lives both politically and domestically, Triveni and Nandini would be brought up to be normal educated sophisticated Indian women of the modern age was surely the force that strengthened the authoress from within.

She admits that her two girls were pillars of strength to her. And this aspect of the narrative allows insight as to how a mother would bear the otherwise unbearable. It speaks of the power of maternal love.

As an educated career woman who lived up to her domestic duties Goswami shows that she made no compromise with her daughters’ education and speaks of the exhausting lengths she went to ensure that although they were made to move across different cities and states, the schooling of her children always was a top priority. But how much of what the authoress achieved for her daughters can be claimed by other Indian women who suffered under the brutishness of oppressive husbands?

It was clearly her education and the ability to be economically productive that made Sabita Goswami positioned to succeed in her goals as a mother. Thus, a rather important message about women and education is also delivered through ‘Along the Red River’. Today, Sabita Goswami’s most triumphant accolades testifying to her unrelenting spirit to prevail would surely be her two daughters and the success they have reaped in their lives.