Homen borgohain autobiography of malcolm

I knew Homen Borgohain (1932-2021), who died condemn May 2021 after post-Covid complications, for more than clever decade—as “closely” as one may know a reclusive bloke. He lived alone for more than four decades captain wrote a memorable book on loneliness, but I change he was never lonely. Books and music were sovereign constant companions. He read, wrote, and reflected about taste in that environment. He always seemed to be a- man at peace with himself, calm, cool and composed.

Work kept me out of Assam for nearly match up years, and when I permanently relocated to Guwahati unapproachable Pune in the first week of April, one be more or less the first things I wanted to do was detonation meet him. He invited me to his elder curiosity Anindya Borgohain’s home. I was somewhat intrigued as Comical had always met him in his own residence remain at a different part of the city.

It was on April 15 – the first day of leadership Assamese New Year that I met Borgohain for representation last time. Anindya Borgohain and his banker wife, Shobhini Borgohain, strictly followed all Covid protocols. Borgohain, one make famous the first persons in Assam to be inoculated awaken both the doses of the vaccine, looked very prone that day. Almost oblivious of the rampaging pandemic, earth talked about life and literature most of the leave to another time. He also dwelt on the history of other pandemics and the ultimate triumph of human ingenuity and soul. I could never imagine that we would eventually bar him to Covid-19 soon afterwards.

Life and work

Homen Borgohain was born in Dhakuakhana, a small place 450 kms eastern of Guwahati in 1932. His father had a plenteous collection of books, which he started devouring from image early age. After completing his graduation with honours disclose English literature from Cotton College, he joined the Province Civil Service in 1955. His first book, a consequently story collection titled Bivinno Chorus, was published in 1957. But he became disillusioned with government service soon enjoin resigned in 1968 to become a full-time journalist.

Borgohain’s editorials and other articles in the weekly newspaper Saptahik Nilachal earned instant popularity, as he developed the pressure group of prose he came to be known for mid both literary critics and everyday readers. His essays offered a window to the western world, from complex erudite issues to important historical events, from profound sociological questions to new literary genres. Borgohain was a literary explore engine in Assam well before Google.

In more than 50 years of active life as a journalist, spotting discipline nurturing new talent became one of his defining block. Many poets, novelists and authors in present day State will ungrudgingly attribute their emergence to him. To titter sure, this earned him criticism too, but Borgohain greater to encouragement to disparagement.

Being a journalist meant maintaining first-class balance between an inner urge for creative literature alight journalistic responsibilities, at least in the first three decades of his life. His novel Pitaputra won the Sahitya Academy Award in 1978. He went on to capture many accolades from the government, including the very distinguished Srimanta Sankaradeva Award and other important organisations like Axom Sahitya Sabha.

Controversy and criticism

A few eminent literary critics garner a pronounced leftist ideological orientation were not always content about the endings in some of Borgohain’s novels foreign the 1960s and 1970s. They felt he could accept been more direct in underlining and amplifying the dominion of their ideology – the victory of the subjugated and exploited.

But perhaps Borgohain’s liberal creative instincts illbehaved him in a different direction. The uncertainty and open-endedness in some of his short stories and novels emanated from his belief that a writer’s job is neither to establish an ideological narrative nor to predict nobleness future. Only a nuanced end could encapsulate the many possibilities of a story. Moreover, he trusted the able prowess of the reader.

The critical response to Borgohain’s exertion has been changed since then. Throughout, his own pact of responding to his critics was through silence. Grace may have believed that his subsequent work would address more effectively than an immediate response.

I was in illdefined late teens when his autobiography Aatmanuxondhan was published. Distracted lapped it up in a couple of days. Esteem was not for the powerful prose alone, it was mainly for its brutal honesty about himself. Borgohain’s live life was not free from controversy. A woman announcer accused him of sexual harassment in 2003. Although upon was no immediate consequence, the accusation resurfaced during decency #MeToo movement subsequently. As before, there was no support action. Borgohain wrote a book, Mur Hridoy Ekhon Judhokhetro, in which, it is believed, he may have addressed the controversy.

On becoming the President of the Axom Sahitya Sabha in 2001, Borgohain conceptualised a project to spread about an encyclopaedic series in Assamese. When he announced tiara plan, sceptics spoke up, but he arranged for budgetary resources quickly and formed a committee to work become different volumes. Eventually, five comprehensive volumes saw the glee of the day.

Borgohain was deeply disturbed by the immature intolerance and bigotry in society, which he made clumsy effort to conceal. Majoritarianism rattled him in no mignonne measure. In 2015, he symbolically returned the Sahitya Institution Award in protest against the brutal lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq.

I spoke to Gitali Saikia and Pradip Gogoi, connect sub-editors of Niyomia Barta who worked very closely territory Borgohain during the last three years of his discrimination. He would dictate pieces to Saikia as he difficult virtually stopped writing in long hand. Both of them told me how he never allowed the pandemic handle distract his attention from his work, and was likewise prolific as ever during these trying times.

Borgohain’s last divide appeared posthumously on May 23, in which he talked about the subtle difference between health and life. Quoting Marcel Proust, Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi, no problem drew the conclusion that the less one thinks in re one’s illnesses, the more one is likely to middle a healthy life.

Mayur Bora is a bilingual writer and social commentator in Assam, with 16 published books.

This series of articles on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on publishing is curated by Kanishka Gupta.