Assam's 175-Year-Old Magazine 'Orunodoy' to be on Display

GUWAHATI: An initiative by Nanda Foundation, the 175-year-old Orunodoy periodical will be exhibited in the Majestic Mahabahu Brahmaputra Heritage Centre on December 1 for the first time in Assam's history.

"The exhibition shall be there for three months starting from December 1, 2021, to Feb 28, 2022, and I wish every Assamese see this historic piece and pride of Assamese heritage," said Nanda Talukdar Foundation Secretary Mrinal Talukdar.

This exhibition was co-organized by the Nanda Talukdar Foundation and the GMDA, and it is the first time Orunodoy has been displayed anywhere in the globe. A few copies are held in the British Museum in London, Oxford University Library, Oxford Cambridge University Library, and the National Library in Kolkata.

"This is for the first time, people of Assam will witness the physical copy of Orunodoy", said Mr Talukdar.

Orunodoy, The first Assamese-language magazine, and was published in Sibsagar, Assam, in 1846. Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, Hemchandra Barua, Gunabhiram Barua, and Nidhi Levi Farwell were all published in the magazine, which ushered in a new age in Assamese literature.

Instead of copying vocabulary from other languages, the magazine took the initiative to invent the Assamese dialect. Only via this journal, which opened the door to modern literacy in Assam, could the Assamese people learn about the western world. It primarily covered current events, science, astrology, history, and politics. The editors include Dr Nathan Brown, A.H. Denforth, William Ward and others and Oliver Cutter was involved in printing and publishing the magazine.

Nanda Talukar Foundation

The Nanda Talukdar Foundation (NTF) has come a long way in the last 25 years to emerge as a name to reckon with in Assam, especially in the spheres of publication, contemporary social history research, social audit, media advocacy, and ground-level intervention. It all started with making public the personal library of renowned litterateur late Nanda Talukdar in 1996.

The Nanda Talukdar Foundation has now established itself as a focal point for pioneering contemporary social history, advocacy, and intervention, with its operations spreading both horizontally and vertically, initially in Assam and then gradually throughout Northeast India.

In a statement, it is mentioned "For the Assamese literature, the library of the Nanda Talukdar Foundation is considered as one of the final frontiers. No research on Assamese literature in the past five decades has been completed without the Foundation's help".

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