99 Online – Open Access – Peer-Reviewed – Volume 26 (March 2018) Bhattacharyya, Anurag. “Life in Fiction…” pp. 99-109 Life in Fiction, and Fiction in Life: A Reading of Syed Abdul Malik’s Rup Tirthar Jatri as a Fictional Biography Anurag Bhattacharyya Assistant Professor, Department of English, Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh, Assam, India. ABSTRACT Syed Abdul Malik (1919-2000) started his literary career in the early forties, his oeuvre of unforgettable short stories, novels and poetry spanned over five decades. Some of his notable novels include Chabi Ghar (1958), Surujmukhir Sapna (1960), Adharsila (1960), Anya Akash Anya Tara (1962), Aghari Atmar Kahini (1969), Agnigarbha (1971), and others. He enriched the Assamese biographical novel with his two fictional biographies Rup Tirthar Jatri (1963-65) based on the lives of Rupkonwar Jyoti Prasad Agarwalla, the architect of modern Assamese culture, and Dhanya Nara Tanu Bhal (1987), based on the life of Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardeva, the great sixteenth century Vaishnavite saint. His novel Aghari Atmar Kahini won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award in 1972.The paper seeks to examine the novel Rup Tirthar Jatri in the genre of the fictional biography and show how far it is faithful to the life reflected. The paper will also attempt to provide an answer, as well as exploring the issue of the writer’s responsibility to the truth when presenting an imagined version of a real life. KEYWORDS Syed Abdul Malik, Assam, Assamese literature, Northeast Indian Writing, identity, storytelling, poetry Syed Abdul Malik (1919-2000) was an eminent and well-known Assamese novelist, short story writer and poet who contributed immensely towards the growth of Assamese literature. Syed Abdul Malik was born on 15 January, 1919 at Naharani village of Golaghat district of Assam. He started his literary career in the early forties, his oeuvre of unforgettable short stories, novels and poetry spanned over five decades. Some of his notable novels include Chabi Ghar (1958), Surujmukhir DUJES Volume 26 March 2018 ISSN 0975-5659 100 Sapna (1960), Adharsila (1960), Anya Akash Anya Tara (1962), Aghari Atmar Kahini (1969), Agnigarbha (1971), and others. Syed Abdul Malik enriched the Assamese biographical novel with his two fictional biographies Rup Tirthar Jatri (1963-65) based on the lives of Rupkonwar Jyoti Prasad Agarwalla, the architect of modern Assamese culture, and Dhanya Nara Tanu Bhal (1987) based on the life of Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardeva, the great sixteenth century Vaishnavite saint. His novel Aghari Atmar Kahini won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award in 1972.The paper seeks to examine the novel Rup Tirthar Jatri in the genre of the fictional biography and show how far it is faithful to the life reflected. The paper will also attempt to provide an answer, as well as exploring the issue of the writer’s responsibility to the truth when presenting an imagined version of a real life. This has subsequently resulted in the formation of a new literary sub-genre which may be called bio-fiction. One of the most significant trends in literature has been the cross-fertilization between the literary and the artistic life. In a kunstlerroman a particular life acts as the premise for the thematic pre-occupation where the narrative often features artists as central characters. It is an important subtype of the Bildungsroman “that deals with the youth and development of an individual who becomes-or in the threshold of becoming-a painter, musician or poet” (“Encyclopaedia Britannica”). It presents the development of an artist from childhood into the stage of maturity that signalizes the recognition of the protagonist’s artistic destiny and mastery of an artistic craft. The paper also attempts to show how this novel is a kunstlerroman since it deals with the coming of age of an artist, and how deftly Malik recreates the artistic process and the artist’s creative journey by referring to some of the significant episodes that took place in the life of Jyoti Prasad Agarwalla, popularly called the ‘Rupkonwar’ of Assamese culture. Art has always acted as the catalyst for literature. Irving Stone’s Lust for Life (1934) based on the life of Vincent van Gogh, and Michelangelo’s compelling portrait in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961), William Somerset Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence (1919) based on the life of Paul Gauguin, and Pierre la Mure’s Moulin Rouge (1950) based on the life of the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec are examples of the ways in which art and artists have acted as material for literature. Fictional and non- fictional biographies thus represent the lives of historical persons by organizing as much factual evidence as possible within an interpretive content. While engaging imaginatively with the past, the writer creates an interlacing of fact and fiction; a space in which the feelings behind the ideas are brought to life. This evocation calls to mind Lisa Jardine’s views on biographical fiction. In an interview with the BBC she states: Fiction has the power to fill in the imaginative gaps left by history… Sometimes it takes something other than perfect fidelity to sharpen our senses, to focus our attention DUJES Volume 26 March 2018 ISSN 0975-5659 101 sympathetically, in order to give us emotional access to the past. Silence comes between the historian and the truth he or she looks to the sources to reveal. Thank goodness for the creative imagination of fiction writers, who can reconnect us with the historical feelings, as well as the facts. (Treger) In the Preface to the novel Rup Tirthar Jatri, Malik states that while rendering a life into fiction, the authenticity of the protagonist with the story should be preserved to a great extent under the guise of a literary form. He further reiterates that the kings and the nobles in the past used to take the help of creative writers to translate life into fiction. The subject of the fiction can be the life of a person as it has been reshaped and coloured by myth. Syed Abdul Malik is extremely self-conscious about his use of the fictional genre for the purpose of biography, and he has explained its specific aim in the preface of the novel. Malik’s practice is closer to that of a biographer, and he writes in the preface: I have made an attempt to reconstruct the life of Rupkonwar Jyotiprasad who is a great poet, gifted artist, singer, actor, a noted dramatist, a true patriot and a rebel into fiction… (Rup Tirthar Jatri, Translation mine) Many episodes from Jyotiprasad’s life have been used while narrating the story of the novel. Here Malik was keen on representing a realistic portraiture of Rupkonwar in the form of a fictional character called Jyotirmoy. Malik believes that the readers would identify the character of Jyotirmoy with the real Rup Konwar and that the novel would succeed in capturing the versatility of the great artist. The timeline of Rup Tirthar Jatri is divided into three sections and is crucial to the development of the narrative. The criterion of poetic essentiality demands a creative use of the evidence. According to Ina Schabert the selection of the material is controlled by the “author’s idea of what is characteristic of the person whose life he writes” (Schabert 6). The historical facts which Malik includes in the fiction as being representative are thereby transferred to metonymic or even symbolic status. They stand as details illustrating a whole way of life; they are taken as indications of an inner reality. The first part of the novel is called Yatri (The Traveller) the second is called Poth (The Way) and the concluding section has been titled Yatra Sesh (The Last Journey). The narrative is non-linear which not only allows space for the development of the story but also complements the process of artistic creation. The first-person narration allows the writer to observe and comment on the lives, trials and trivialities of those belonging to the society, but also explicate on the process of artistic creation. The author adopts the structural techniques of contemporary fiction in his attempt to convey human reality. The novel uses the form of the stream of consciousness technique in order to imagine a complex inner life for the historical individual who is the subject, to suggest the plurality of the selves, the interplay of social roles, the DUJES Volume 26 March 2018 ISSN 0975-5659 102 internalization of the external world, and the potentialities lived out only in the mind, which made up the full reality of a life. Malik describes the various events that led to the development of Jyotirmoy’s creative consciousness by emotions that he encounters in the world. The integration of these emotions constitutes the mind of the artist. Jyotirmoy says: I am fully drenched, but I am enjoying it. My heart leaps up in ecstasy. The atmosphere is filled up with the fragrance of thousands wild flowers. This light drizzle reiterates the pain and agony that have been preserved for thousands of years. The bosom of the earth articulates a resonance which gives forth sounds that creates a lyric. (Rup Tirthar Jatri 11, Translation mine) The harmonious relationship between life, art and fiction is maintained through Syed Abdul Malik’s deft use of allusion, symbolism, allegory and representation. The narrative fills up the gaps left blank by biography and comments on the process of artistic creation. Malik is of the opinion that the fictional biography might be regarded as the highly sophisticated version of the anecdote which is known to be fictitious but which brings out a truth about a real person in a more poignant way than would a factual account.