Jalsobi in the Shadow of Light (A Translation of Anuradha Sarma Pujari’s Assamese Novel Jalsobi)

Jalsobi , literally translated as an image sketched in water, is an Assamese novel written by the well-known novelist Anuradha Sarma Pujari. The work is a fictionalised account of the author’s mother Subarnajyoti Devi’s life and details the life of the feisty and fiercely independent woman from her happy childhood in a small village, life lived as a memsahib in a European tea estate and an amazing journey across the Indian Ocean in an all-male cargo ship with her semi-conscious husband. Subarnjyoti battles great odds with dignity but loses the final round as she falls to Alzheimer’s disease in her old age and becomes an unwilling dependent on her daughter. The author delineates the central character and the often strained mother daughter relationship with touching honesty. The narrative brings to life not only a fearlessly determined woman but also a slice of Assam during pre-independent India to the changed times and values of the modern period.