A Brief Study of the Reflection of Tribal Lifestyle in Short Stories Published in Ramdhenu Edited by Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya
Author : Dr. Ratul Pathak
Abstract :
The Assamese nation, which is a mixture of the different communities’ people in the northeastern part of India, is composed of people of different tribes. Therefore, various Aryan and non-Aryan elements as well as some of the ideas, social practices, customs and traditions of various ethnic groups such as Austrians, Dravidians, Mongolians etc. are often seen in the life of Assamese society. There are many different types of tribal literature, including fairy tales, which are one of the components of oral literature. There are many poems, stories and novels written by writers about tribal life in modern Assamese literature. It is noteworthy that the Assamese short stories describe tantra-mantra, magic, dreams, swearing, the existence of the ghosts of the dead, the place of women in society, death rituals etc., as well as various ancillary descriptions of tribal life. It is noteworthy that several stories with such characteristics were published in the Assamese literary magazine 'Ramdhenu' in the 1950s. Notable young and old storytellers who wrote stories about tribal life in Ramdhenu include Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya, Medini Choudhury, Lumber Dai, Kush Dutta, Bipin Chandra Tako, Geeti Simon, Kamalakanta Bora and others. They have painted mainly Naga, Abar or Adi, Misimi and Mikir communities.
In this paper, we discuss the short stories published in 127 (one hundred and twenty-seven) issues of the magazine 'Ramdhenu' edited by Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya for eleven years from the fifth year, 1st issue (April 1952) to the 16th year, 1st issue (April 1963). The characters and descriptions of the Assamese tribal society reflect the characteristics of the tribal people living there, lifestyle problems, conflicts and harmony or misunderstandings with non-tribal people. Attempts will also be made to present and analyzing the contrasts between the lifestyles of the hill and the plains and also out looking the characteristics of the Assamese tribal society through the characters and narratives of the stories.
Keywords :
Ramdhenu, Assamese, tribal, lifestyle, folk life, problem, conflict, harmony.
