Mothers Daughters and Others is the outcome of a project undertaken by the Department of English in 2001, the year the new postgraduate Semester curriculum in English was introduced. Several rounds of debates and discussions involving the planning and development of newer courses for the semester programme had earlier facilitated the identification of certain thrust areas like representation, ideology, narrativity and women for the draft curriculum. Indeed, these deliberations served as an impetus not only for getting over, and replacing, an old constrictive curriculum privileging a narrowly "English" (read Anglo-Saxon) culture, canon and values, but for initiating relevant studies of our own locations in the light of fresh insights derived from contemporary theory. The book thus signals a new beginning in this department, a modest attempt at bridging the gulf between English Literature and culture studies.
We thank the authorities of the Anundoram Borooah Institute of Language, Art and Culture (ABILAC) for sponsoring the project with a generous grant that enabled us to complete the work. We owe a special debt of gratitude to the Director, ABILAC, for his unstinting help and support, his understanding and goodwill, his unfailing good humour, and, of course, tolerance.
This collection of tales is the result of a translation project undertaken by the Department of English, Gauhati University, and funded by ABILAC (Anundoram Barooah Institute for Language, Art and Culture), Assam. We are happy to record here our deep appreciation of the encouragement and help extended to us by the then Director, ABILAC, Dr. Prafulla Mahanta.
We are grateful to Professor H.L. Duorah, former Vice- Chancellor, Gauhati University, who took a keen interest in the project and helped in facilitating the collaboration with ABILAC.
Our translations were mostly from the Assamese - from collections of tales already rendered into Assamese from the seven language groups. We must however acknowledge the work done by Ms Bonani Hojai, an ex-student of the department, who collected several folktales directly from traditional storytellers and translated them into English for us.
We would also here like to mention Mr Sanjeev Sahoo, who translated the tale 'Jangreso' from the original Karbi, besides making available to us from his own library and through personal contacts in the district of Karbi Anglong, books on Karbi society and culture and collections of tales.
As part of our effort to hear at least some of the tales from the storytellers themselves we had made a trip to a village in the Morigaon district. We are grateful to Ms Krishna Barua, then Senior BDO (Block Development Officer), who facilitated our meetings with groups of women in the village and also arranged for us to meet Shri Bolairam Senapati and Shri Ganesh Senapati.
In 1911, Lakshminath Bezbaroa's popular collection of Assamese folk tales, Burhi Aair Sadhu (Grandmother's Tales) was published. In his preface to the collection Lakshminath Bezbaroa refers to the common origin of the Indo-Aryan races, the compilation of tales told by old women in all these cultures and the similarity of tales across cultures, countries, and across different linguistic groups in India-tracing the similarity of tales not only to influence and commonality but to their antiquity. "These stories are so old that they were composed when the Aryans were all living together" (Bezbaroa 2).
In describing his own work Bezbaroa makes a confession: "I collected stories written in many ways, from a number of people, and I read, combined and selected, excluded and included and then wrote them anew. Actually, the language, in which these tales were written and sent to me, has been almost completely changed". (Bezbaroa 3. Editor's translation). In many ways Bezbaroa's collection/compilation /rewriting has been unique. It has slipped into circulation and into the psyche of the people so comprehensively that it is difficult to determine whether these tales, when retold, come from this collection or from an oral corpus. In our conversations with people from the Assamese community as well as from the other groups that we studied, we discovered familiarity with this text. And we believe that later collections from the other cultures, all significantly translated into Assamese, used the Bezbaroa collection as a model, influencing retellings and representations, and engendering resistance.
For privacy concerns, please view our Privacy Policy
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist