Tales from Northeast India

                           The Offspring

   Written by the Assamese writer scholar and professor Indira Goswami, who also
received Sahitya Akademi award, a celebrated writer of contemporary Indian literature and did translated her works into English from her native Assamese which includes:
 ‘The moth eatenHowdah of the Tusker’, The man from Chinnamasta. Her writing attempt’s to structure social changes, referring herself as an “Observer” of the peace process. Her biography shows that herfamily was deeply associated with sattra life of the Ekasarana Dharma, which the author mentions in her work Sanskara or The offspring which appeared in her collection of short stories set in Assam in ‘The shadow of Kamakhya’ a Novella. Indira Goswami and many other female writers discusses about violence, humiliation who possesses the female body.

  It is largely an uninvestigated issue to look upon the women’s status, contributions, roles in art, literature, humanities, politics, science and technology, economic etc. The issues on violence on women are subjected to in plural forms.The humiliation faced by women is used to counter-offensive against oppressive forces like patriarchal structures, the ideologies, traditionalism, modernity. In the story The offspring the character also deals with bodily violence and oppression which was hard to resist, so she decides and burry her aborted child at the backyard of her house. The offspring shows complexities in terms of class and caste when the character Damayanti gets a proposal from the low caste person named Pitamber Mahajan her reaction was noticeable…

“That pariah! How does he send this proposal to me! Does he know that I am the jajamani Brahmin caste and he, the vermin, is a low-caste Mahajan?”

   Which reveals that it is difficult to be liberated from inside despite knowing the fact that there is
an exterior freedom, she can kneel down herself to a prostitute but thinks of superiority to the so called low caste people. In her writing Goswami exposes class discrimination, untouchability which becomes rigid in many cases. The social status, suffering and depiction of Krishnakanth, the clever priest a Brahmin who loses his priestly duties as he is getting older and his greed derives him to whom he proposes that he will arrange meetings it Damayanti and in return Pitamber has to give some expenses, and also he is afraid of getting polluted by low class and avoids him to touch at any cost just for the sake of money, Damayanti also demands money for sleeping with him rather than marrying and securing her future , she gives suffering more priority than marrying a low- caste person, having two daughters and living a life of a widow she chooses to be a prostitute. All the characters are bounded to some ideologies and are suffering, she chooses to be a puppet of her circumstances.

The priest also at certain level mocks at Pitamber’s childlessness, Pitamber’s second wife cannot conceive due to illness and he finds no cure to make her well again and in the story she passes away. Pitamber always felt very sad about that no one will continue his family line:

priest, Krishnakanta: " You have no child to call your own! Why do you devour that child with envious eyes?

The inheritance of the traditional canon crushes the souls with strict ideologies. Indira goswami’s writing technique shows that her state of mind is highly disturbed with the fact which she cannot assimilate the suffering of women in a society especially when in a female life there is no authoritative figure (which is men) .This is the only fictional world of Indira Goswami life which is realistic fiction and for the plot construction of the story she chooses North eastern Assamese society most of her narratives are about identities ,disabilities and functionalities of region specific caste system , she portrays a village named Gauhati , the caste system which is still diversely among different groups and different regions , people identify themselves according to their communities and class structure. The higher class makes conscious efforts to maintain their purity and avoids touching lower ones.

The story also depicts women are denied of lack of education and were economically dependent on the authoritative figure, but here in the story the authoritative figure is absent and other people like Pitamber and Krishnakanta tries to take an advantage of that:

    

“Her rain drenched clothes clung to her body. The colour of her skin was like the dazzling foam of boiling sugarcane juice. Though her figure was rather ample, she was immensely attractive. People said all sorts of things about her. Some even called her a prostitute. Perhaps the first Brahmin prostitute of the Satra!”

   The two men looked at her as a meat dressed and hung up on iron hooks in a butcher’s shop craving to gratify their sexual desires. The characters also make a perception about Damayanti’s food habits and her ideology, she eats meat which is not accepted in Brahmins considered as a sign of impurity so she is an impure lady, she bought disgrace to Bangara Brahmins. The character Damayanti is highly against the restrictions which is laid on women when her husband dies, but Damayanti threw all restrictions and rituals, her ideology is liberal as compared to the villagers.

Pitamber: " I hear that she eats meat, fish, everything."

Because of caste discrimination Pitamber and because of low class remain childless, the priest shows his cunningness and politics and makes a way of getting money, it is all the patriarchy that makes both the men use Damayanti as assets for sexual pleasures because prostitute’s are meant to be used and also she is widow so situations gets worse for her because of the general attitude towards girls.

The narrator in her biography leads her life at vrindavan, she reflects her experiences in her works, she herself experiences widowhood and working there as a research scholar, she deeply sees the plight of widows who sexual exploitation in everyday life in ashrams makes her write a novel “The blue necked Braja”. Indira Goswami literary power is high in the story she has used some Assamese words like ‘halechi’, nalakochu, and also the religious worshipping and its association with Satra depicts cultural influences over the readers and also which urges them to look upon how the northern part of India in terms of literature, art, aesthetics, politics functions. Goswami shows fixity in her story how caste, class, gender ideologies strongly deal with the resistance of women against these powers and all the characters in themselves are guilty of the ‘sin’.