Marginality in Literary Discourses: Conversations with the Dead in Rabisankar Bal’s Dozakhnama

Dhurjjati Sarma

doi:10.20896/saci.v8i1.861

Abstract

Rabisankar Bal’s Bengali novel Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell (translated into English and published in 2012) is an imaginative biography of Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869), and Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) recreated through their conversations from their respective graves. The narrative is enmeshed with the respective historical periods inhabited by the two writers, the first war of Indian independence in 1857 and the Partition in 1947 respectively. It is as if Ghalib bares his heart out to Manto from his grave, while the latter in turn realises that his life too has witnessed a similar kind of socio-cultural and literary marginalisation that destiny determined for both of them. The ‘narrator’ pieces together the traces left behind by the dead themselves and thereby constructs a compelling narrative that resonates in the larger literary and cultural life of India, along with the associated marginalisation of history, politics, and linguistic identities of their times. This study undertakes a comparative examination of the ‘lives’ of both Manto and Ghalib as recreated in the novel through the textual traces left behind by the persons themselves.

Highlights

Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell, a novel by Rabisankar Bal, originally published in Bengali (2010) and subsequently translated into English (2012) and Hindi (2015), tells the story of two doyens of Urdu literature, Mirza Ghalib and Saadat Hasan Manto, in their own words as they are depicted as conversing with each other from their respective graves
On a mission to conduct research on the tawaaifs of Lucknow, the novel’s narrator meets a person called Farid Mian who hands over an unpublished manuscript to him which, he claims, is a ‘dastan’ composed by Saadat Hasan Manto on the life of Mirza Ghalib
The stories pieced together constitute the imaginative biography of Mirza Ghalib and Saadat Hasan Manto whose lives were entangled with the respective historical periods inhabited by the two writers

Summary

Introduction

Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell, a novel by Rabisankar Bal, originally published in Bengali (2010) and subsequently translated into English (2012) and Hindi (2015), tells the story of two doyens of Urdu literature, Mirza Ghalib and Saadat Hasan Manto, in their own words as they are depicted as conversing with each other from their respective graves. The narrative structure is constructed through multiple layers of meaning and signification, and the agency of interpretation keeps shifting vigorously throughout the novel This polyphony is characterised by the juxtaposition of multiple voices located in specific spatialtemporal zones across historical time and reflective of the anxiety and restlessness of the milieu that provided the context for these voices to emerge and engage in conversations. On a mission to conduct research on the tawaaifs (courtesans) of Lucknow, the novel’s narrator (who is, by profession, a journalist) meets a person called Farid Mian who hands over an unpublished manuscript to him which, he claims, is a ‘dastan’ composed by Saadat Hasan Manto on the life of Mirza Ghalib. The traces left behind by the dead are juxtaposed to create a compelling narrative that resonates in the larger literary and cultural life of India, along with the associated marginalisation of history, politics, and linguistic identities

Background and Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion and Implications