Assam poet Barshashree Buragohain.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The 17 syllables of a haiku or the 14 lines of a sonnet convinced Barshashree Buragohain long ago that poetry is mathematical. Two months in jail now makes her do the math before giving in to her poetic urge.
The police had picked up Ms. Buragohain from a friend’s house in eastern Assam’s Uriamghat on May 17, 2022 for posting an “objectionable poem” on Facebook. The poem, titled ‘ Akou korim rashtradroh’ (‘Will rebel against the nation again’) was seen as supporting the United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent), a banned extremist organisation.
Charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), she was sent to a jail in Jorhat town the following day. She was released on bail two months later and acquitted of all charges of sedition on March 16.
“I think twice before using certain words or phrases that I thought were quite normal to be in the armoury of a poet who is passionate about what is happening around her. But there’s no joy in checking for words that someone might find offensive, and that could be the reason I don’t write poems as often as I did earlier,” Ms. Buragohain, 19, told The Hindu from her home in Kawoimari, a village near Teok in Jorhat district.
It is not only the law that has stemmed the flow of her creativity. Her parents, too, have been advising her to tone down and not post her verses on social media.
“The germ within, I guess, is difficult to kill. I am penning my thoughts in verses but not as often as I did earlier. Besides, I am focussing more on mathematics as I did not do well in two second semester papers I wrote from jail,” she said.
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Ms. Buragohain will repeat these papers — real analysis and calculus — with her fourth-semester examination at Jorhat’s Devi Charan Baruah Girls College. She is pursuing her undergraduate course in mathematics from this college affiliated to Dibrugarh University.
She took to mathematics as easily as she did to poetry while studying in Kawoimari High School. More than 80% marks in Class 10 made her opt for science at the Teok Girls’ Higher Secondary School. The choice of mathematics was based on a similar score in the Class 12 Board exam.
“Assamese literature attracted me at a very young age and I yearned to write like my favourite poets, novelists and essayists, including Nilmani Phookan and Parag Kumar Das. With age, the theme of my poems changed from flowers and trees to love and pain and to socio-political issues,” Ms. Buragohain said.
The socio-political poems soon began exuding protest.
“Had I posted the entire poem I was jailed for, I would probably not have been punished. I used only two lines on my Facebook bio and it was construed as being supportive of a banned organisation,” she said.
“I am tired of explaining to people that I did not have any terror group in mind when I wrote the poem. I was perhaps too naïve or too passionate in using certain words. Those who know me, understand,” she added.
Ms. Buragohain wished she could erase the 62 days she spent in jail from her life, but the memories keep haunting her. She did post on social media two factional pieces on her experience behind bars but these were “heavily self-edited” accounts.
“I may put those 62 days — the thoughts on my present maimed, the fear of my future destroyed, my career on the line, whether I could pick up the pieces of my life — into a book someday. But the way things are with the world around me, I would rather take my time as I want my six-member family to be at ease,” she said.
It has been difficult for her and her family to get over the ordeal. The talk in her village invariably veers around to the “ jailot thoka suwali” (Assamese for ‘girl who was in jail’).
“You cannot stop people from talking. Thankfully, there are many besides my family members who are helping me stay strong. They include my college teachers and some friends,” Ms. Buragohain said.
