From Legend to Fiction, the Politics of Representation

Abstract

This chapter gives an overview of the two novels and the contexts in which they were written and then proceed to develop why it was important for the writers to bring the legend to writing. Thengphakhri is a forgotten, legendary Bodo woman who is believed to have worked as a tehsildar during the British regime in Assam. Blurring the boundaries of reality and imagination, this legend has travelled across time and across languages and stayed in the “memories of some old people, in folk songs, in folk tales that were told and retold”. Clearly, the politics of community and the demands of cultural practices of separate communities dictate their literary compulsions. The consideration of the languages in which the two novels are written becomes important, as language is something with which the experience and history of a community are associated. To a creative writer, words are essentially a cultural memory in which the entire society participates.