Guwahati:
Indira Goswami also is known as Mamoni Raisom Goswami was a wonderfully
talented Assamese literateur who was
born on November 14, 1942, in Amranga in South Kamrup, Assam, in a family that
was deeply associated with Sattra (monastery)
life of the Ekasarana Naam Dharma. Her father was Umakanta Goswami and her
mother was Ambika Devi. She was fondly referred to as Mamoni Baideo.
She received her primary education from Latashil
primary school Guwahati and Pine Mount school in Shillong and passed H.S.L.C in
1957. Later she completed her masters in Assamese literature from Guwahati
University in 1963 and her doctorate in 1973.
At the age of sixteen, her story 'Smritir Mukti' won the first prize at the Annual Story Writing Competition in 1957. She was a great artist, poet, scholar, professor, and writer. She also is known for her attempt to structure social change.
Mamoni Raisom Goswami has been honoured with several
awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, Jnanpith, Padma Shri, Asom Ratna,
Katrina National Award, Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands, and honorary
doctorate.
She also played the role of an intermediary between Assam's extremist organization United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and the Government of India.
Goswami, was a pioneer of feminist Assamese literature,
deeply felt the effects of patriarchy and socioeconomic oppression on less
privileged communities and wrote about them.
She got married in 1965 but her marriage pop ended the
same year and later in 1966 she got married to Madhaven Raisom Ayengar who
unfortunately died in a car accident just 18 months after they had married
which left an indelible mark on her already fragile state.
She wrote her autobiography named "The Unfurnished
Autobiography" where she mentioned all the struggles of her life. In this book
she has mentioned such an incident that under pressure he tried to take a step
like suicide, then the memories of her childhood and father's letters gave him
life. Perhaps this force of honesty and introspection made her stand in the
line of leading writers of Assam.
Mmoni Baideo may
have enriched Assamese literature with her writing, but she has done equally
rich Indian languages. She indeed used to write in Assamese, but the scope of
her writing was national.
She wrote a
novel on cursed widows in Vrindavan and also depicted the Ghats of Varanasi.
She chooses Kandli Ramayana and Tulsi Das's Ramacharit Manas as a subject of
her research for comparative study and became Ramayani and started lecturing on
Ramayana. For this, she visited abroad and received many honors. This was a
different and important dimension of her personality.
Her works have
been translated into most of the Indian languages. After receiving the Jnanpith
award, her compositions got more attention from the country and her
non-translation works were evaluated seriously. Therefore, her works in Hindi
and other Indian languages are read with equal fervor. This is the reason why
the literary lover of any language knows her through his compositions.
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