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The Hour before Dawn
Her defiance, her words to her erred husband Mohikanto still ring in my ears — "You had elephants, you had drums and music, so you could fetch a woman and make her the mother of the child right before my eyes. I have nothing. I have done whatever I could with my limited resources." It would be wrong to say Saikia’s one of the most memorable characters, Menoka, is a bra-burning kind of a woman libber. Saikia with his characteristic subtility and lucidity created Menoka as a traditional, conservative yet with such strength, which can be relentlessly assertive and hard-hitting when situations demand. After 24 years, as I read the translated version of his original Assamese novel Antoreep, which was adapted for the Rajat Kamal-awarded film Agnistaan, my fascination for this saga of conjugal betrayal only grows. Saikia, though a physicist by profession, knew the chemistry of human relations too well. His characters never cease to surprise a reader, sometimes with their strength, with their goodness and sometimes with their vulnerability, insecurities and complexities. And, in the process of unearthing those hidden layers, Saikia explored the bonds people are likely to develop with unlikely people in unexpected situations. While the movie Agnisnaan left it at Mohikanoto’s humiliating defeat when he finds out that she is having a baby which is not sired by him, and she tells him pointedly to tolerate the situation as best as he can, the original book Antoreep goes a step beyond, tracing out the troubled relationship between Menoka and her first-born son Indro. Indro, who is the silent spectator of the entire drama of adult complexities, and the only one who knows the true identity of the father of his stepbrother, oozes out all his venom in one simple sentence he writes to his mother—"You know how you raised me, but you do not know how I grew up". And, in reply when Menoka makes it clear that she would rather let go of Indro than her principles, one cannot help but wish that the strength which Menoka derived from her darkest hour had come without the cynicism. But then life is not about
happy endings, and Saikia did not believe in creating one. Maitreyee
Siddhanta Chakravatry, as a translator, remains faithful to the
original. And in spite her admission in the preface that it was not easy
to reproduce Saikia’s unique style, Maitreyee has done a wonderful job
in keeping the original flavour and the flow of the story intact. The Hour
Before Dawn will, with all its sensitive portrayal of a true
Assamese society, hopefully cement the Chicken Neck a little stronger to
allow the readers of the other side to understand the Assamese society
well.
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WAY
back in 1985, when Malaya Goswami essayed the character of Menoka, a
married woman who sleeps with a village outcast and gives birth to a son
outside marriage in Agnisnaan, she didn’t come across as a fallen
woman. In fact, she made quite an impression to my formative mind,
teaching me the valuable lesson that one needs to be rooted to be
liberal; traditional in order to be modern. That was the power of
Bhabendra Nath Saikia’s portrayal of the character, both as a writer
and a filmmaker.