Salve on bruised sentiments

Guwahati, Dec. 2: Malati Memsahib does not have a last name, let alone a place in the pages of history.

A British officer’s mistress, she rose to rebellion against the rulers and finally fell to their bullets. When writer Mamoni Raisom Goswami first heard about Malati during a visit to a small Lower Assam town, she was intrigued. She immediately began seeking official evidence that could corroborate her existence.

There was, of course, none apart from the local lore. So the restless author’s imagination began etching an image of this gutsy Adivasi woman who began as a slave to British lust and bled for her country’s freedom. Bit by bit, Malati took shape in Goswami’s mind, but it was still not time to put pen to paper.

A mob mayhem on December 24 changed all that. Suddenly, there were Malatis on every Guwahati street — Malatis shouting slogans, trailing in a rally. And then Malatis begging for refuge. Begging for a piece of cloth after being stripped naked on a city street.

Mamoni knew it was time to begin her long-pending novel.

“I discovered the amazing story about Malati from people in a lower Assam township. It has been passed on by word of mouth. I am still trying to find out if there are official records about her,” Goswami told The Telegraph.

Malati Memsahib — the only name she is known by — was a garden worker’s daughter at a tea estate in lower Assam.

“As was the practice in those days, she became the mistress of a British officer and became quite powerful. However, with the start of the freedom struggle, she started to help the freedom fighters which was later discovered by the Raj. As far as I have gathered, she was shot dead. Exactly how is still unclear,” Goswami said.

In a sense, she is a martyr of the freedom movement and “we can help in projecting her story in the true perspective”.

The “custom of keeping mistresses and concubines by British officers was quite common in those days. But these women were highly respected and not looked down upon as mere prostitutes,” explained the author.

In fact, Malati became so influential in her area that she did quite a bit to help the freedom fighters, that too under her British master’s nose.

Goswami, who has been forthright in her condemnation of the violence at the Beltola area in Guwahati on December 24, said though she had the idea for the novel for some time, “the recent incidents have given her a new impetus to finish it early”.

“The Beltola violence, more particularly, the stripping of the Adivasi girl is a rare blemish on the Assamese society and people. We cannot undo what has happened but we must prove to the world that we do care about our Adivasi brethren who have assimilated into the greater Assamese race”. It is time “we see the hero in the Adivasis and I hope my novel will be an eyeopener”, Goswami said.