Salam Tomba's 'D C gee Loynabee'
- Mitra Phukan's 'The Collector's Wife' and its Translation into Manipuri -

JC Sanasam (JCB Digs) *

- The Collector's Wife - Penguin Books India & Zubaan Books- 2005 - D C gee Loynabee
Rinda Publications Imphal,2012

I read the original English novel 'The Collector's Wife' of Mitra Phukan about two and a half years back. I loved the book; I thought the author had a brilliant ability of writing; and the twists and insinuating course of the story intrigued me, subtle in the beginning, eventually crashing to a crushing effect and ultimately ending in a grinding halt of everything.

Mitra Phukan is a renowned Assamese writer who contributes also intellectual write-ups to prominent English dailies in Assam. She is a committed member of the North East Writers' Forum, one of the chief editors of its literary journal the NEWFrontiers; I suppose NEWFrontiers stands for North East Writers' Frontiers. She is now the President of this forum of writers of the North East. She has written a number of books especially for children. It is a surprise, if I am permitted to say so, not to let down the writers of children's books, that a novel of such a far reaching, mature, intelligent rather intellectual and sophisticated creative writing that breaths out time's tumultuous socio-ethno-politico-racial conflict in Assam, came out from a writer of children's literature.

She has done also a fine job in editing a collection of short stories of Assam not so long ago. It will not surprise me anymore this time because I have seen her rich resource of words, her play of words and expressions, and her command over English language with clean straight idioms and demure but unflinching dictums. The nuance of English language is pretty palpable in her writing.

The translator Salam Tomba is no less; he is a prolific writer; impressively good in any form of writing; may it be drama, novel, short stories, poetry, shoomaang-leela, translation work or critical write-up; you name it; he will be there in all genres. We know this too very well that he had successfully shown his worth in his earlier translation works: Naapeenaa Eeshei Shakli translated from the English novel The Grass is Singing written by Doris Lacing, Eesheeng translated from Bapsi Sidhwa's English novel, The Water, and also Thanapol Chadchaidi's Fascinating Folk Tales of Thailand.

I would like to appreciate Salam Tomba for his selection of this novel this time. Yes, we better get acquainted with international literature, no doubt there. But what we need more now is to get more familiar with the literature of the various languages in this region, to know more about the tradition, culture, so and so forth of the abutting terrains of this section of our country and the people around. Translation is the only means to get to know it. The story in this novel, its spirit and tenor, the setting, above all the interweaving part of the militant youths are so characteristic of the things which have been happening in Manipur for the last three/four decades. Manipuri readers will feel this is more like a story that took place in Manipur itself.

Talking about the original English version I must say it is a state-of-the-art model of telling a story. The story runs down with a natural flow, the chapters sorted out as if on their own, and the episodes again on their own natural courses falling off one after another along with the incidents and dialogues without much of an intentional narration or description. Phukan's crisp shots of analytical remarks about the characters of her novel are full of insight, depth and wits.

The story-line centres on a protagonist lady Rukmini, the educated, good-looking lady of an admirable temperament and cool demeanour and of a good up-bringing, the wife of a DC by the name of Siddarth Bezbaruah, posted at a district known as Parbatpuri, a station at the extreme east of Assam, a terrain of a mixture of hills and plain areas which extend in the north as part of the range of the Himalayan Mountains. While reading I had the impression, although it might be a creation of the author on her own, that the setting of the story must be around the border between Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

The name of Luit River, the Red River in this context is mentioned. So I was thinking it might be some place near Khamti (because I remember a popular song of Bhupen Hazarika on Arunachal Pradesh, rather on the earstwhile NEFA, 'Siangore Galong, Luitore Khamti'); but as most of the characters are of Assamese names and are of a town, touched by the British during British Raj, I again thought it might be Digboi or some other town around there. I may be wrong of course.

This collector's wife Rukmini grew up perhaps in a well-to-do family; she had her education from a good English school, and aimed no more of anything further after her MA English because perhaps she had to marry this IAS officer. Her parents moved to Trinidad on the other side of the globe; she didn't mind much that she was almost to be left alone with her husband and her future world.

She followed her husband everywhere, rather wherever he moved with his postings, so she couldn't possess a permanent regular job of her own. Now at Parbatpuri, at the end of about 10 years of their marriage, unlike her former days in the previous postings of her husband elsewhere, she found her life in a dilemma splashed with a cumulative wear and tear of their marriage life, the shameful brand of being a barren woman more talked about, (a childless woman, implicating sort of a sense of bad omen in the Assamese or Indian traditional society, as well as in Manipur, built up by women themselves), a terror reigning in the district with the foreigners issue and violence that perhaps rocked the district very hard, complicated with a new vulnerable invigorating experience in her life; challenging, but her name at stake in the traditional norms; however finally winning her price in realizing that she was after all not barren; but at the cost of losing everything else that she had.

She picked the job of a lecturer in the English department of an up-coming local college. She spent her days as part of a home maker, not a difficult task for her, as plenty of office-personals were posted at her husband's residential office; and she tried her best to get her life mingled in the lives of her colleagues at the college, of the district officials and their wives at the Planters' Club and Parbatpuri's Ladies' Club, maybe kind of in a humdrum way on her part; and to be aptly in the ethos of the town and the local populace.

But an uneasy strain in the relationship, a feeling of distancing away from each other, kind of lack of communication between the husband and wife crept in, gradually at the start but menacingly later. She didn't take it seriously in the beginning in consideration of the bad law and order situation in the district which was haunted by death in every direction: the students' movement, the crimes in terms of kidnapping, extortions, murders, bomb blasts, mass killing and all sorts of devilish activities supposedly planted by MOFEH, (Movement for an Exclusive Homeland) or by fraud criminal organizations, hand in hand, in the name of protection of the homeland; and on the other hand the arduous tasks her husband had to take up to keep at bay all those fears, instability and dangers around the town.

After months and months of monotonous days a short interlude of a reclusive solace, an escape from the drabbing life at the hill-top DC bungalow happened to Rukmini. She landed into an outing trip with one Manoj Mahanta, an incidental male-friend, an affable handsome gentleman, a marketing representative of a tire manufacturing company, who happened to take her to another's friend's place at a tea garden. As luck would have it an unexpected storm slashed down on their way of the trip and they were forced to take shelter at the Ranijan Tea Club, a spot only a short distance left to reach their destination. Inadvertently, but surely inevitably, they had sex. Starved of such human affections from her indifferent husband Rukmini also yielded willingly.

In the days following this incident she had some feeling of guilt and remorse; but over time she brushed it off reassuring herself that it was not a matter of infidelity, not an affair because she knew her heart was not involved. Days after that, she and her companion Mahanta one day happened to be in the midst of a confrontation between a students' rally and security forces. She incurred then a head injury for which she had to be hospitalized and there she got shocked when the doctors revealed to her that she was pregnant.

She went to a Obstetrician Gynecologist-Specialist who also confirmed positive. She had mixed feelings, a joy with the revelation that she after all was not barren but the vexing problem persisted to torment her - how she would tell her husband about it. For she knew it was not from him and she knew he would know it. She however was determined that she would bear the child whatever it took. In the midst of the melodrama came another twist in quick turn when she found her husband having illicit relationship with some other woman; caught red handed; that too, with none other than her own colleague in the college.

Everything started to crumble down around them; yet the couple, intelligent on their own way, tried to patch up. At the point of this critical time, in a couple of days after this patch-up, the climax of the story came when a hunt down on the MOFEH cadres was carried out. The MOFEH militants took hostage of a tea garden manager along with her incidental friend Manoj. The hunt-down resulted into a confrontation shoot-out between the militant youths and the government force. During this action both the fathers of the child in her womb - the real father and the would-be foster father, as well, ended their lives. And that was it, which ended everything in a grinding halt.

The pacing of the story, then the plots building up slowly, eventually all rushing in, riding on kind of centripetal forces from several directions and hitting the head of the nail of a climax, this novel has all there is to it for a good novel. While telling this story the novelist deals with many aspects of life: of humanity, of human traits and culture, about the irony of fate, on the hypocrisy of moralist-chauvinists, the futility of homeland fighters, women's rights so on. The overture the author brings in when Rukmini got humiliated on the score that her presence, rather the presence of a barren woman, near a bride during a marriage ceremony was sort of a taboo is well projected.

Her mockery at the thick traditional attire of the Assamese ladies during a wedding ceremony on a sweltering evening is a good satirical touch. The way she paints on the monsoon-flood around Parbatpuri and the angry red river appears with real visibility in front of the reader's eyes. The constant, but transient, sojourn at the surrounding nature on the pages, throughout the book, makes the reading afresh and aesthetic from time to time. As the translator himself says, we the readers feel a sensation of fulfillment when the revelation came out that Rukmini got pregnant from kind of a stranger, not from her husband; instead of accusing her of an immoral offence. That is the ability of the story teller. Phukan unveils in Priyam's nature fine significant touches which define for themselves so well.

I am not a wide reader of classic and award winner novels; but I had a habit of gulping down best seller novels from book shops. I can't recall any novel of a similar story line. However, as I ploughed through the first few pages and came to know that it was going to be a story pivoting around a township and a community named Parbatpuri; I couldn't but remember a novel entitled, The Peyton Place, written by some Grace Metalius which I read about 50 years ago just after my matriculation exam.

Mitra Phukan's book reads with a special flavour and taste as she interlaces therein plenty of witty, sometimes mischievous humors at unexpected areas but snugly fitting. She seems to enjoy a selective cheer citing funny, funny words and terms displayed on the signs in our Indian townships, like the one at Rita's wedding 'Rita Weds Moron in place of Rita Weds Mohon' caused by a flower hung askew over the tip of the upright part of the 'h'; and the various signs in front of the shops on the roadsides of the MG Road of Parbatpuri, 'Free Trial Welcome' attached to a commode displayed for sale; 'Hodge Podge Tailoring' in front of a Tailoring Shop; 'Down with Terrorism Up with Petriotism' with 'e' in place of 'a' in the word patriotism; then the rustling and screeching noise beneath the mattresses made by the plastic bags which housewives collect and store there but which the husbands resent during their night life on the bed. There are quite a number of such which make the readers irresistible to laugh under the breath while reading. I congratulate her that she for a lady is able to say what she wants to say, so bold, courageous and transparent in her words and expressions.

I need not speak about the ins and outs of translation work. We have had enough of seminars and workshops on this, that too only recently. My own experience is, translation is much tougher than creative writing or writing of any other kind or genres. We can pick up examples from Mitra Phukan's story itself; some more of her humors: All of us see many kinds of slogans or quotes, written on the back of auto rickshaws; in one of those on the MG Road of Parbatpuri there was one which read God is my behind; and on another God is in my behind.

Perhaps they wanted to say God is behind me, meaning God is always following me or with me or maybe they wanted to say the passenger behind them was like their God, whatever. But see, just altering the position of the preposition or pronoun in a sentence another meaning that too an aghast meaning can come out. Such incidents may take in translations too if one is not careful. Let us see another sitcom. It was very hot in Parbatpuri during summer.

A lecturer in the DS College was taking his class and it became too hot inside. Then do you know what he said? He said something like this to his students, 'Hey open the windows, let us pass wind.' Aghast! Again. Let us pass wind in Manipuri. She cracks many humorous lines of such kind. Please read the translated text; you will find there too; it is interesting. This reminds me of one lady clerk who wrote a leave application to her boss, 'I am requesting you to enjoy me leave on July 22, 2012'.

What I mean to say is poor translation can be dangerous. However Salam Tomba has done it very cleverly and intelligently. In the rich vocabulary of Mitra Phukan there are a number of idioms peculiar for English language only and in order to translate them one could be left rather to explain with lengthy terms or phrases instead of translating. However Tomba has done it very shrewdly, he has not taken the help of too many words in the form of explanation; somehow or other he translates; and he is very miser of his words. Sometimes he gets through the linguistic concepts like bullets do, but without any breach of the heart, lungs, liver and breathing and pulsation of the story and I believe Manipuri readers may not feel, it is a translation work.

I would say Tomba's story is a Manipuri replica of Mitra Phukan's novel with all the spirits, character and colour there is to it. Read it, you will enjoy.