Growing up in any city, it is difficult to imagine it with new eyes. Huge, horrid structures can go up within years and yet seem like permanent fixtures once residents have gotten used to them – which somehow never seems to take that long. Even the oldest living residents seem to have difficulty remembering streets without various flyovers and high-rises which are feats of architecture that are less than twenty years old.
The Guwahati of my childhood has changed as much as I have, if not more, and not just in its architecture. It is a city that is simultaneously growing older and getting younger – unlike many up-and-coming metropolises that keep getting younger and phasing out their older residents.
It is with the eye of a well-versed Guwahatian, Nirupama Barua, that author Najma Mukherjee opens the novel Chinaki Chuburi Athaba Akou Ebaar Pop Axomiya. The third installment of the Pop Axomiya Rachanavali, Mukherjee connects various stories of love, identity and humanity in the time of the Covid-19 outbreak.
Literally translating to “known neighbourhoods”, Chinaki Chuburi begins by introducing us to what is termed a war-like pandemic atmosphere in the neighbourhood where Nirupama lives.
Affectionately called Niru Baideu (elder sister) by regular fixtures around the neighbourhood, it is a shock for the entire community when Nirupama changes their name to Swargiyo Rongili – Late Rongili.
Calling oneself deceased for infamy or clout is one thing, but for Rongili it means something entirely different. Born intersex (a person with physical sex characteristics atypical of the binary male and female), Rongili aka Niru Baideu loses their first love, their youth, and all semblance of normalcy when doctors misdiagnose them at the age of 19.
With no support system other than their family, they shut themself off from the world. It is only when their brother, studying medicine, reviews their files that they realise they are intersex.
By this time, they are in their late twenties. Their world turns upside down again when they are told they could undergo gender-affirming surgery and hormone therapy to live what society calls a “normal” life. It is interesting to read how the book deals with the very idea of “normalcy” in the life of a person living as a woman.
It is evident that Mukherjee was influenced by contemporary events, for her next protagonist is inspired by India’s very first case of sologamy, Kshama Bindu. The epitome of self-love, Mukherjee’s Jonaki marries herself in the ultimate show of independence and rebellion against traditional Indian norms of marriage.
It is a thought that has likely entered the minds of many young Indians at some point, the desire for the grandeur of a wedding without the baggage of marriage. Young Indian girls are brought up play-pretending to be wives and mothers, and Jonaki’s step towards normalising such fantasies without encumbering oneself is laudable.
Once she arrives searching for Rongili, the conversation between the two becomes a study in dealing with the complications of human emotions.
As children, one of our most persistent fears is probably the sudden absence of our parents. Jonaki’s response to her father’s unexpected demise is deeply relatable – the struggles of a single daughter standing firm amidst male relatives, friends and family, and insisting on performing the funeral rites herself is something we have seen a rise of in recent years.
In patriarchal India, it is perhaps a sentiment unique to Assam and the Northeast that daughters are slowly being ceded their rights to pay their parents that final respect, rather than being sidelined for male relatives in the name of ‘culture’.
And while technology has advanced rapidly in recent years with robotics and Artificial Intelligence, Jonaki’s humanoid creation Astha – which literally translates to “Faith” – feels more like a Bollywood-inspired imagination than a truly emotionless robot.
Designed to be a companion for Jonaki’s mother Shyamali after her husband’s death, Astha first elicits an entirely negative reaction not only from Shyamali but also from the maid, as she looks eerily similar to Jonaki.
It is perhaps a very valid response, one many of us would share in such a situation. However, the romance between Champak, a neighbourhood boy, and Astha feels unrelatable and overtly post-humanist in nature.
Mukherjee, nevertheless, breaks all norms of gender non-conformity in Assamese literature.
As an avid reader, I feel this book should come with a warning: it will not be everyone’s cup of tea or coffee. This is not a book one reads to relax. While Mukherjee does a wonderful job weaving contemporary global themes into representations of pandemic-era Assamese society, the postmodern narrative styles might be too avant-garde for many Assamese language readers.
For millennial and Gen-Z readers like myself, while the themes, characters and their stories are relatable, the language presents a challenge in itself, given the decline in the quality of Assamese language teaching over the past few decades.
With its Brechtian approach to Assamese literature, this book deserves a place on every bookshelf as an example of how “local” stories can be told.
The author is currently enrolled at Birangana Sati Sadhani State University as a research scholar.
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