Selected Works of Indira Goswami (Mamoni Raisom Goswami)

The book opens with one of the most sensitive parts of the author’s autobiography which was first published in Assamese. It deals with her childhood at Shillong, her obsession about death and her intense love for her father, the European teachers of her school. She goes on to tell us about her youth hounded by death and darkness. She writes about her various admirers, and her first love and life with her husband who was killed in a terrible accident. An introduction and two excerpts from her classical Assamese novel, "Une Khowa Howda (Motheaten Howda) are also included. This novel gives a picture of a remote "sattra (a religious monastry), on the south bank of Brahmaputra when India was on the threshold of Independence. She writes about the acute poverty of the common people, who were mostly opium addicts. Lives of young Brahmin widows are shattered by cruel rituals and customs, and they are also exploited. Another complete novel, "Ahiron" is also included. Here she writes about the workers and engineers of a large construction project over ahiron river. The central figure of the novel is Harsul Sahib who sacrifices his life for the construction company he works for. Ultimately the remains an unrecognized soul. There is also a short story, "The Offspring, which revolves round a young and beautiful Brahmin prostitute who sells her flesh but hesitates to conceive a child for a low caste mahajan.