Assamese author Sarmistha Pritam’s book is the coming-of-age story of a rural Indian girl

Thirteen years ago, Sarmistha Pritam wrote a book about a young woman named Paridhi, who waged a life-long battle for identity in a village in Assam where extreme poverty, caste-based discrimination, and alcoholism coloured the lives and fates of people. 

In January 2024, the book Rang’ (colour) was translated into English by Ranjita Biswas and published by Simon and Schuster. It gives a glimpse into the life of every girl child in rural Assam to readers across the country.

The English version, titled ‘Beneath the Simolu Tree’, travels with the lead character Paridhi as she builds a life on her own values in an environment where poor social determinants, cultural stigma, and patriarchal abuse steer the status, growth, and choices of women, leading them ultimately back into the generational loop of vulnerability and disadvantage. 

“Paridhi is an amalgamation of all the women in my village–across communities, age-groups, and social statuses–because at the helm of all their struggles is a long-standing patriarchal system. I mindfully gave this character the emotional resilience to choose her battles and responses at every crossroad of her life, because this I believe is what every young girl in a rural community needs to feel deeply–a sense of agency,” says Pritam, 38, who was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy at the age of five. The condition eventually caused significant physical impairments and left her wheelchair-bound as an adult.

Speaking to HerStory, Pritam says her own observations growing up in the village of Phulagiri in Nagaon, Assam, have united in her consciousness to create the world of ‘Beneath the Simolu Tree’, lending it the premise and breathing life into its characters. 

Paridhi, for instance, is always made to witness the wreckage alcoholism causes in her own house, as her father comes home inebriated and unleashes violence on her and her mother. Her neighbour, Joydev, ransacks everything in his house to fend his addiction, until a time comes when there’s nothing left for his mother to defend from him. 

However, Pritam did not face any alcoholism; her father, a teacher, constantly nurtured curiosity and knowledge with his massive collection of books in the house. “But my young mind didn’t escape the exposure to the rampant addiction and violence that destroyed the lives of numerous tribal families in our village. This left them with no scope to break out and build a different future,” says Pritam.

Joydev, she says, is inspired from a young man in her village who sold everything–including the tin roof over his head–to satiate his alcohol addiction. “His mother often dug a pit on the mud floor of their house to hide objects from him. As I grew up, I also saw the undeniable connection  between poverty, discrimination, mental health, and addiction, and this perceptiveness is what I wanted to present in my book, rather than adopting a tunnel vision of judgment over a societal symptom, while ignoring its causes,” says Pritam.

In addition to poverty and alcoholism, Pritam’s characters also include people with caste supremacy and those who have been generationally oppressed. Once again, here she draws some parallels from her own life experience of getting married to a Brahmin man and publisher she met while doing her undergraduation in Economics. She draws resonance from their 17 years of courting, the microaggression faced by them owing to their different castes, and the way they and their families came together eventually. 

“Tribal communities have advanced in school education and dropout rates have come down, but they continue to face caste-based discrimination even today. Inter-caste couples are abandoned by their families. Violence, segregation, and shaming still exist,” she says.

As someone who took to stone painting herself, Pritam offers another shade to Paridhi as a creative soul, who finds a guide in a station master, whom she fondly refers to as  ‘station-khura’. Paridhi uses her silent exchanges with her books and art to express the myriad emotions she feels, and grows into a strong, compassionate, and sensitive woman who has fought the system and survived.

‘Rang’ won the Homan Bargohani Bata Literary Award in 2019, following the Munin Borkataki Award, for her autobiography ‘Atmakatha’ in 2012, the State Government Literary Award in 2015, and the Devsons Special Literary Award in 2017.

In 2021, filmmaker Bobby Sarma Baruah announced the Assamese film Deoka (Walking in the Air), based on the life of Pritam. The same year, Pritam also advocated for assistance from the government to cover the treatment costs of people with spinal muscular atrophy.