Kanaklata Kalita Barman: Soaring on the Viewless Wings of Poesy

The Assamese literary scene nowadays is replete with female poets, who are lovers of nature and chant romantic lyrics
Kanaklata Kalita Barman: Soaring on the Viewless Wings of Poesy

BOOK REVIEW

'Don't be scared/ I won't force you to share with me the warm ecstasy of your fresh heart / Only will feast your ears with Love Oinitam if you crave it / the vernal song of the golden autumn"-writesKanaklataKalita Barman in one of her poems. Nowadays the Assamese literary scene is replete with female poets, who are lovers of nature and chant romantic lyrics unendingly in social media with occasional publishing in the Sunday magazines.

Very rarely do they get the limelight of publicity as most of them do not have the resources or opportunity to publish a book. Some are also hesitant if they have reached the stage of publishing a whole book. But Kanaklata gathered courage to come out with her poetic debut,Aha Ami BaraxunjakBhogai Lou(Let us Celebrate the Monsoon Splashes)Thetitle of the book reveals her deep idyllic relation with Raindrops and Monsoon.

A Masters in Assamese from Guwahati,Kanaklata is aware of the poets of Assam and she follows the art of the great masters. But she focuses on the female identity as a wife, daughter, sister or beloved in herpoems. A woman is preoccupied with social roles and there is always an extra sensibility that is required in her activities. Duty and loyalty to family are most prominently sketched in her poems but the most interesting aspect is her effort is to cross the barrier as a poet.Her love of nature is so intense that she cannot obey the call. She is oblivious of the reality around her and comes out in the rains or to the riverside or to the autumnal field where she finds her heart engaged in a poetic narrative .

Virginia Woolf wrote "Who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman". We notice something like this in the poetry of Kanaklata, who does not speak of her own life always in her poems but tries to write about women in general and records her own experiences without signing them as her own. In one poem 'XabdorPremere' gives a graphic description of how a repressed woman even after attempting suicide finally comes out of the depression by writing a poem. She knows the theory of taking a pen as a weapon and a woman should not bow down so easily to the pressuresof patriarchal society. What is more important is her zest of life which she is never is ready to lose and she takes refuge in nature that is described by Wordsworth as the 'healer'. She sings of the river, the trees in the forest or the cloud in the sky which seem to share her pains as a woman.Sometimes she recalls the suffering of Jesus in a poem like 'ProbhuXeionlokak Khama Kara'(Lord,forgive these people). These people of the patriarchal society are rude and heartless towards the women in their daily chores of life. Women mostly exist and rarely live because of the inhuman behavior of the male patriarchs. But she is not revengeful and prays to Lord for forgiving them for their inhuman acts. In one poem published in Ajir Asom, she wrote that she was about to lose all at one point of her life and just at that moment she met the beloved person of her life and poetry was created. Kanaklata's poems are notexactly romantic but she uses Nature as a companion in her moments of excruciating pain. She writes poems in a cathartic mood. When everything is lost poetry remains, nature remains.The open field or the sky which call her to a faraway land as Keats in his intensely painfully moment wanted to go to the world of the nightingale on the 'viewless wings of poesy' . This is an escape from reality but into reality.

Kanaklata was born in 1977 in Panitema of Kamrupdistrict . She started writing from her school days when she was a girl of ten. Her poetic flair mesmerised her teacher and her parents encouraged her a lot for writing poems to express her feelings of nature. She started writing occasionally in the magazines of Kamrup district in her college days and as a student of GauhatiUniversity, she was gradually drawn fully into contributing to wall magazines and even to Assamese newspapers. Readers accepted her poetic voice and she continued posting poems on social media and poetic groups. These are poems on nature, women and society. Her childhood love of nature is now gradually enriched with a social vision. As a social activist voicing the concerns of repressed females, she is doing a great job as a writer. Her first volume has been highly applauded for this social message and also her deep love for nature which is reflected in the use of idyllic pictures of Assamese life. Her idioms have a fragrance of the land of Nahor and her poetic consciousness is embedded in the rural sensitivity of Assamese life. At times she experiments with words and makes a kaleidoscopic use of the same word in different context. The festivals of Northeast comes alive in her description of nature and the life enjoyed in Nature. In one poem she speaks of Ali-Aye-Ligang or Ali-Ai-Liganga spring festivity associated with agriculture celebrated by the Mising or Mishing tribal people of Assam and other Northeast Indian states at the beginning of the Ahu paddy cultivation. The festival marks the onset of sowing seeds. The name of the festival is made up of three terms, 'Ali', legumes, 'Aye', seed and 'Ligang', to sow.These words enrich her poem with a Northeast ambience. Oi Nitom is a traditional music form of the Mising community of Assam and this folk song is characterised as song of love meaning 'song of the dear one' in someway similar to Bihu love songs. All these images come to her poetry so spontaneously that they create a special poetic fabric for her poetic vision. In a final impression her poetry becomes musical because of these images and this is what Victor Hugo says, "Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.

Title: Aha Ami Baraxunjak Bhogai Lou

Author: Kanaklata Kalita Barman

Publisher: Moromland,Guwahati

Cover Design: Pranab Das

Price: Rs 100

Dr Ratan Bhattacharjee

Dr Ratan Bhattacharjee senior academician and trilingual poet of Kolkata may be reached at profratanbhattacharjee@gmail.com

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