Writer and journalist Uddipana Goswami’s The Women Who Would Not Die is a collection of short stories about the diverse lives that women live. Largely based in Assam, the tales focus on their silenced and often unheard voices.
I Thought I Knew My Ma, for instance, is a story about the narrator’s gradual realisation that it is her mother, and not her artistic father, who understood the pain of separation from her Muslim lover. The epiphanic process involves the eventual brutal awareness that she was subtly blackmailed into marrying someone her father chose.
Comparing the lives of both the daughter and the mother, the story delves deeper into several conversations about the communal divide and Brahmanism that exists in the region. It also calls out the hypocrisy of the elite section that berates Muslims for having too many children and tribals for consuming pork and alcohol.
The titular story, on the other hand, captures the fight between the oppressor and the oppressed. We see rebels being forced to take shelter in a forest after the king’s dogs corner them. Here, the author uses analogies from the animal kingdom to tell the story of domestic violence. A Kite’s daughter is married off to one of the rebels, a python. As he constantly tries to engulf her, the Kite keeps trying to save her daughter.
The story, however, that is bound to leave an indelible impression with readers is Colour Me Live. As the title suggests, colour is central to the narration. We see the protagonist falling in love, and then eventually marrying a man, who turns out nothing like she expected him to be. As the story takes a dark turn, we are given a graphic portrayal of the violence she endures on a daily basis. But after darkness there’s light, and in an unexpected turn of events, she reclaims the skies, waters and everything else.
Rooted deep into the socio-cultural realities of the Axomia people, Uddipana has successfully incorporated narratives of conflict, violence and patriarchy into her stories. The copious and fluid usage of Assamese words makes the reading experience authentic. But regionality is not a hindrance. The realities of women she presents are universal. Whether it is the hypocrisy of the so-called cultured elites or the systemic violence aimed at limiting the lives of women, it is there for us to see around us and all over the world.
The voices of the women in these stories may be limited to the intimate settings, but they resonate beyond the walls that restrict them.