A must read book: Gorkhas Imagined
Posted on 18 December 2009 by phampun

Gorkhas Imagined: Darjeeling and the Issue of Gorkhaland

By Joanna Radcliffe and Tek Gurung

Review of Gorkhas Imagined: I.B. Rai in Translation, edited by Prem Poddar and Anmole Prasad and published by Mukti Prakashan, Kalimpong, 2009, Price Rs. 250.

Indra Bahadur Rai is an iconic writer, probably the best one producing work in Nepali. He writes not only fiction and drama, but also pens provocative essays that deal with Nepali (or as some would now say Gorkha) identity and its place in Bengal and independent India. The book Gorkhas Imagined: I.B. Rai in Translation (edited by Prem Poddar and Anmole Prasad and published by Mukti Prakashan, Kalimpong, 2009) is the first book of its kind that powerfully and beautifully brings out all these issues of Gorkha identity and politics in a refreshing format. While the eight stories and two essays translated by Prasad, Lepcha and Professor Hutt of London University (well-known for his research on Nepali people and translations of Nepali) provide a good idea of Rai’s range as a writer, the prolific scholar Prem Poddar’s subtle account in his Introduction entitled ‘Afterlife of the Original: Gorkhaness or Indian Nepaliness and Rai in Translation’ supplies the necessary rationale for thinking together about culture and politics, identity and history, friendship and enmity.

Poddar says enigmatically towards the end of his essay, “As I see it, Rai’s reflections on the Nepali language, the Gorkha/Nepali community, and his own writing practice can be read in two ways. The first is in terms of telos: that writing will strengthen the nation or ethnie. The other way is the more troubled interrogative reading that raises the same questions of cultural identity, through textual elisions and ambivalences inter alia, about writing and the Gorkha/Nepali community. I raise the possibility, and vacillate between, both kinds of reading in this introductory essay, but the very act of vacillating veers me towards the latter. The trope of ‘building’ that runs though Rai’s novel Aaja Ramita Chha then must be seen not simply as materialistically aspirational, as a derivative symbol of arrival for the protagonist, but as a measure of dwelling that is at home in history.” He seems to be favouring a true kind of liberation, both economic and socio-cultural– from oppression but also warns at the same time that ethno-nationalism and its answer in the form of a province or political unit alone may not be a real or lasting solution.

All in all, this is a very provocative book and asks the Gorkha or Nepali community worldwide to ask questions and look itself critically while addressing its genuine grievances wherever they may be. I have never been more stimulated and excited by a book before. It has stories that speak and move you at different levels; more importantly, it puts together the whole of modern Nepali or Gorkha experience in an empowering light.

Link to the book:

http://search.a1books.com/catalog/8190935402/GORKHAS-IMAGINED-IB-RAI-TRANSLATION