Writing on the Wall: Reflections on the North-East
by Sanjoy Hazarika
Penguin, 2008
Given the rooted-sounding title of this new work, it is odd to find such a scarcity of on-the-ground, well, reflections. Part of the problem is that very little of the content here is actually new, having been previously printed in a range of Indian publications. While this leads to an inevitable unevenness, it is not the repetition that crops up from piece to piece that eats at a reader. Rather, what is frustrating is the work's odd cumulative lack of depth. This is only compounded by a confusion over audience, with Hazarika's tendency to say 'we' when referring to the Northeast. Reminders of the plight of the Gangetic Dolphin and of the great curiousness of Bhupen Hazarika are always cogent, but lose much of their impact for any reader, in or out of the Northeast, when they are not fleshed out with a bit more personal storytelling.
At 160 pages, Writing on the Wall is no massive tome, but its size nonetheless offers any writer enough space to stretch out and develop some significant themes. That it is unable to do so beyond the broad brush is in spite of what any reader can intuit about Hazarika's – the longtime head of the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, in Guwahati – notable and sensitive understanding of his subject matter. Indeed, the author's blog on the CNES website is chockfull of telling details carefully observed. In Writing, however, they are few and far between – though the adamantly insider remark that "there are times when I feel that the more floods hit places like Guwahati, the better" is one precious exception.
Much of the time, the gloss of introduction and policy prescription here only allows for tantalising references to the writer's lifelong Northeast experience. During floods in 2006, we are told, the city of Dibrugarh was "saved by hundreds … led by young men who once worked with [ULFA] … So far that story is unknown and unheard." A heady build-up, but then – new paragraph. Much of these problems can be attributed to the problematic genre of the 'collected essays' in the first place, but for the moment this collection only makes one look forward to Hazarika's new new work. (Carey L Biron)