Book excerpt: Navamalati’s translations of Assamese works include Chihna Yatra by Srimanta Sankaradeva and reassembled by Dr Jagadish Patgiri; Lakshminath Bezbaroa’s Mor Jibon Xuwaron; Dr Maheswar Neog’s Jibonor Digh Aaru Bani; and his avant-garde collection of poems Antyaja; Xotoghni by Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya; Indira Raisom Goswami’s Ahiron; Harekrishna Deka’s novel Yatra; Jayashree Goswami Mahanta’s Sahitya Akademi Award winning novel Chanakya; Gautam Prasad Baroowah’s novel Kaziranga; Verses a timely collection holds the poems of 68 Assamese poets, both old and new; The Lion of Assam (Karmavir Nabin Chandra Bordoloi) which is Dr Prabir Bordoloi’s biography of his grandfather, the great freedom fighter; She has also translated Bengali works of Dr Ramkumar Mukhopadhyay’s Dukhe Keora and Kothar Kotha; as well as Birasan a novel by Subrata Mukhopadhyay. This novel translated to English as The Seat of Power was published by Sahitya Akademi. The present book Modern Assamese Drama consists of two epoch making dramas- Gunabhiram Barua’s Ram Navami and Dr Birinchi Kumar Baruah’s Ebelar Nat. Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, Hem Chandra Barua and Gunabhiram Barua were the harbingers of the nineteenth century Renaissance in Assam. While in Calcutta he came under the influence of Raja Rammohan Roy, Vidyasagar and Keshav Chandra Sen, founder of the Brahmo Samaj. He was determined to fight social evils like child marriage and do away with the taboo against widow-remarriage. These are the leading themes of Ram Navami Nat; which appeared serialized in the Orunudoi from 1957. The plot veers around the natural urge of Ram as he falls in love with the child-widow Navami. The pair of lovers were crushed under the chariot wheels of social prejudices. The tragedy was written under the influence of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Bhabhuti’s Malati Madhavam. Even after the lapse of one hundred and fifty-five years the drama is not obsolete, although the socially conscious Gunabhiram Barua was not a propagandist but was fully aware of a writer’s artistic responsibility. Ebelar Nat is an avant-garde play covering only the period of half a day, without any change of scene within the bright and well-decorated drawing room of Madhuchanda Barua, whose make-up bespeaks the presence of an ultra-modern lady. The characters of the play are few, though the dialogues are plenteous and pointed. One interesting character is Manorama whose obesity and expensive ornaments testify to her husband’s ill-gotten money. Barua draws a vivid picture of the newly-emerging pseudo-aristocratic society after India’s independence, marked by consumerism and ruthless competition for the acquisition of wealth. While the young people are for the rejection of old social values, the young women favour complete emancipation from the tyranny of men. The death of the representative of the old order symbolises the dissolution of that very order.