INDIRA GOSWAMI (1942-2011)
Indira Goswami, popularly known as Mamoni Raisom Goswami and affectionately called Mamoni Baideo, was a distinguished Indian writer, poet, scholar, and editor from Assam, acclaimed for herbold literary voice and social activism. Her writings foregrounded the lived realities of women, caste and class injustices, and the marginalised communities of
India’s Northeast.
Indira Goswami was born on November 14, 1942, in Guwahati, the largest city in the state of Assam, to Umakanta Goswami and Ambika Devi. She studied at Latashil Primary School, Pine Mount School in Shillong, and Tarini Charan Girls' School in Guwahati. She majored in Assamese literature at Cotton College and earned a master's degree from Gauhati University. In 1962, Goswami met Madhevan Raisom Ayengar, a young engineer from the southwest state of Karnataka. They soon fell in love and tied the knot in 1966, after eighteen months she lost him in an accident.
In 1971, Goswami moved to Delhi where she joined the Modern Indian Language Department of Delhi University as the Professor of Assamese. She would write most of her books during the next few years. Goswami adopted the pen name Mamoni Raisom
Goswami and published The Chenab’s Current, her first novel. Later, Goswami became head of the language department, and it was during this time that she wrote two of her classics: Pages Stained with Blood and The Moth-Eaten Howdah of a Tusker. Her experiences in Vrindavan and as a widow were tied together in her novel The Blue Necked Braja, which described a community in Vrindavan who faced poverty and sexual exploitation. Her candid autobiography, Adhalekha Dastaveja, published in 1988 and its English translation, have won critical acclaim in India.
Her Ph.D. Research Work: "Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra," a comparative study of Tulsidas's Ramayana and the fourteenth-century Assamese Ramayana written by Madhava Kandali, was published as the book Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra, which was awarded the International Tulsi Award from Florida University.
She was the winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award (1983), Assam Sahitya Sabha Award, 1988; Bharat Nirman Award, 1989; Sauhardya Award, 1992; Katha Award, 1993. Jnanpith Award (2001), and Prince Claus Laureate (2008).
She also wrote Jatra. It spoke about the problem of insurgency that Northeast India (of
which Assam is a part of) has experienced since Indian independence. Not only did Goswami write about this insurgency, but she also acted as a mediator between the United Liberation Front of Assam, the Assamese rebel organization. Goswami’s efforts led to the formation of the People’s Consultative Group which helped the two groups come to a negotiation. She passed away on November 29, 2011, leaving behind a rich literary heritage.
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