I took an interest in ‘The Collectors Wife’ solely with the intention of reading something about a conflict, an insurgency or civil war. I say this at the cost of sounding elitist: I wanted to know how violence and political instability ravaged the lives of people and – with a childish sense of curiosity – also understand how they must be feeling, all while sitting comfortably in my bed in Mumbai. (Indeed there is nothing else I can do either, other than reading and staying informed about something that is happening so far away from me. Nothing else – other than helping myself in forming an opinion and being more sympathetic for people whose lives had nothing in common with mine, such that if ever a conflict reaches closer home I would expect others to show towards me).
‘The Collector’s wife’ is written by an Assamese writer Mira Phuktan (well known, as I soon discovered) and is set in Parbatpuri, a small town in a conflict ridden region of Assam. Strife in Assam is introduced through the wife of the district collector of Parbatpuri (Rukhmani), a lens which is objective, as she is an outsider yet still rooted in real time and place.
Residing in the officer’s bungalow situated literally and figuratively on a hill overlooking the small town, Rukhmini lived a sheltered life, protected from the raging insurgency in the region where kidnappings, extortions and killings are a part of the daily news. The privilege of being the collector’s wife in a small town where state authorities yield enormous power are lost on Rukhmini. Her childlessness even after ten years of marriage, the monotony of her routine as an English teacher in a place where few care for literature and the politically constrained and somewhat detached social circle that she is a part of, makes her life lonely and unexciting. A chance encounter of a handsome young tyre agent Manoj Mahanta sets her life in motion again, and very soon, she falls for his charms and oversteps her boundaries as the ‘loyal wife’.
The book moves quite predictably at this point, as the readers know that Rukhmini and Manoj, with their shared interests and loneliness, would definitely get together. We are, however, unprepared for the events that start shaping up soon after, when the political conflict that the Rukhmini stood so aloof and unaffected from inevitably starts inching closer to her life.
For anybody who expects a closer account of the self determination movement in Assam and the youth led militant groups that proliferated with the issue of illegal migration, the book will not provide any great insight. What it offers instead is a civilian point of view to the violence and the political instability in the region. The book explores the division that exists between ‘us’ who have the privilege of remaining politically neutral and socially above ‘them’ who are irrevocably drawn in the conflict (whether out of choice or necessity), until a point where the two merge in a devastating climax. More than once, the novel raises questions over the meaninglessness of the conflict and the helpless situations which drive the youth to violence and militancy, for a number of reasons far from the actual cause they claim to espouse. The students in Rukhmini’s college periodically engage in peaceful demonstrations against the state authorities neglecting their studies and even risking their future. None of the professors, Rukhmini often muses, wants to have a conversation with them on the real issue. Rukhmini is perhaps herself unable to comprehend the politics, but sensitive as she is, she is at least able to perceive the misguided ideals that the youth blindly follow and that the poverty, suppression and exploitation of the poor tribals is what lies at the root of the conflict.
The book is a glimpse into the fear and insecurity that envelop the people in conflict zones, and the harassment that is meted out from the militants on one hand and the state authorities on the other, both claiming to guard the interests of the people. Parbatpuri’s middle class talk ceaselessly about the kidnappings and the killings, in gory and exaggerated details as a way to vent out their fears, but stop short of taking sides. The entire novel in fact restrains us from taking a political opinion, and indeed everything seems meaningless and unjustified in the face of death and destruction that both sides unleash.
The insurgency offers a rather unusual background for the characters in their search of love and companionship. Like her objective account of the conflict in the region, Mira Puktan also steers away from the rights and wrongs in human relationships. Were Rukhmani’s transgressions justified in the face of a lonely marriage? Was her husband’s cold and indifferent exterior a result of working under extreme pressure in a doomed situation? What was the base of the affair between Rukhmani and Manoj? Physical attraction, genuine fondness for each other, rekindling a dead romance, curiosity of exploring an uncharted terrain or finding a way out of sheer boredom? Or was it something of everything?
In the somewhat dispassionate narrative of the lives of the three protagonists, shaped as they were by the surroundings as well as their own misgivings and faults, Mira Puktan allows her readers to find the answers.
The Collector’s Wife is for anyone who prefers fiction as a means to understand politics and appreciate the understanding of human complexities to gain insights into society. And in the interplay of personal and political struggle, it reminds us that even amidst turmoil, the search for connection and understanding remains profoundly human.