A CORRESPONDENT
DIBRUGARH: Probing the nature of contemporary fictions and their resonance with life and society, a thought-provoking literary session marked the third day of the ongoing Third Dibrugarh University (DU) International Literature Festival at the Dibrugarh University campus. The festival is being organized in collaboration with the Guwahati-based NGO FOCAL.
The session featured noted journalist and writer Sumana Ramanan in conversation with writer, journalist, and editor Rahul Bhattacharya, and centred on contemporary fiction and its intricate engagement with social realities. Addressing the gathering, Bhattacharya observed that his novels drew sustenance from lived experiences and social contexts.
He emphasized that while a strong and well-developed idea formed the backbone of fiction, the ultimate responsibility of a writer was to convey emotional truth. In a reflective note, he remarked that reading often assumed greater significance than writing, as it was through the reader’s sensibility that the emotional depth of a narrative found fulfilment.
During the interaction, Ramanan enquired about the gestation period of a literary idea and the time it took to evolve into a completed work. In response, Bhattacharya offered insights into the creative process, underlining the importance of patience, close observation, and emotional acuity in crafting meaningful fiction.
The discussion also touched upon his work ‘Railway,’ where the railway emerges as a layered metaphor. Set against a patriarchal social milieu, the novel portrays incidental events while engaging with themes of modernization and personal trauma, including the loss of a mother in childhood. The protagonist’s journey unfolds as a quest for identity and inner completeness, with escape recurring as a motif that symbolizes the yearning to transcend imposed boundaries.
The session further highlighted critical social issues such as women’s rights and the lived experiences of working women. The dialogue not only illuminated fiction as a reflective surface of society but also reaffirmed the enduring potency of storytelling in articulating cultural complexities and emotional truths.