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With smart phones, tabs and computer screens keeping us engaged, literary festivals are like a welcome relief. These events offer a reason to look up and around at the authors and their books all in flesh and blood and also provide platforms for enriching conversations.
The Orange City Literature Festival offers book lovers in Nagpur an opportunity to interact with some of the best authors in the country and I have been fortunate to be a part of this interaction for the past three years since the festival made its debut. Beyond the stories penned by these authors of repute, the event leaves us craving for more as we learn about distant cultures, the trends in writing and also the painstaking research put in by authors.
I had an opportunity to converse with journalist turned author Nandita Puri first in the maiden edition of the festival when we spoke about her biography ‘Unlikely Hero Om Puri’ of her husband and the acclaimed actor. If the previous interaction was with the wife and biographer this year Nandita was back as an investigative journalist in an author avatar with her book ‘Jenifer-One Woman Two Continents and a Truth Called Child Trafficking’.
Speaking about the making of the book Nandita revealed how the curious case of an American woman deported to India, landed with her from an organisation called Against Child Trafficking (ACT). “The story with its contours of child trafficking under the guise of child adoption, of drug abuse, exploitation of women and of a mother and wife being plucked from her family and thrown to another continent seared my soul,” Nandita told me. As she began to dig into the story the research took her to jails in US and India via many drug dens and the families of Jenifer-the biological, foster and finally the one comprising of her husband and two children.
For three years as Nandita learned more from Jenifer about her life and sufferings, “I became more tolerant of her constant mood swings, eccentricities, whims and nastiness.” Jenifer is a product of dysfunctional foster homes, has faced constant verbal and sexual abuse and has been tossed around jails for hustling drugs. It’s a story of extreme misery which has made the author wonder, “how can anyone suffer so much in one lifetime.”
Most importantly the book draws focus on the lacunas and faults of the adoption system, child trafficking under the garb of child adoption and also the fact that if a person finds herself on the wrong side of law then there is little that can come by way of redemption. “But I still remain hopeful that one day Jenifer will be united with her family in the US,” says the author about her subject.
The other author I had the chance to interact with is the celebrated Assamese writer Mitra Phukan. Mitra, who writes in English began with stories for children but arrived with her novel ‘The Collector’s Wife’. She is a famous columnist and represents the extremely talented tribe of writers from the North East part of India. “The north eastern states of India are a vibrant mélange of languages, cuisine, couture, culture and traditions. I often have issues with this clubbing together of literature from this part of the country as Literature from North East”, she rues.
Another branding that Mitra would duck is of ‘writers from the conflict region’ by which authors from North East at times get tagged. “There is no doubt that for over two decades the region has been under the shadow of conflict and it has reflected in our writings too. In fact, ‘The Collector’s Wife was written as I wanted to document the happenings in Assam and the fear under which we lived,” she told me. Issues like minorities, settler communities, tribal people and their experiences of caste, class and a torn social fabric are issues that dominate across North East, and continue to resonate with the younger generation of writers and readers too, she feels.
Moving on with her journey as a writer, Mitra has done translations of some of the best works in Assamese. Some of it stems from the pride that she has in her heritage but most of it as, “I feel it’s a debt that I am repaying since I write in English language,” she says while speaking about translations of Birendra Kumar Bhattacharjee's "Kobor Aru Phool" and Harekrishna Deka’s "Guilt and Other Stories." These are world class writers and I want their work to be read not just across the country but throughout the world.” An accomplished Hindustani classical vocalist, Mitra’s writing are as mellifluous and rhythmic as her music and always strike the right note.
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