THE KHAKI DIARIES
Policemen turn writers, stamping their authority on Assam’s literary landscape
Once-insurgency ravaged Assam’s literary landscape has seen policemen-writers emerge through the long years of turmoil.
Two-time President’s medal winner Kula Saikia, additional DGP, police communication, has 15 short story collections, a full-length novel, and the prestigious Katha Award for regional literature in 2000 to boot. Former DGP Harekrishna Deka, who has authored 22 volumes books of short stories, a novel, essays and poetry collections, is a Sahitya Academy Award winner. Inspector General of Police (Training) Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta has not only authored a book but written and directed two plays and seven telefilms. When he gets the time, Hiren Chandra Nath, assistant director general, Central Bureau of Investigation, Guwahati branch, hammers out travelogues. He has four books to his credit. Mugdhajyoti Mahanta, superintendent of police of Dima Hasao district, has penned 10 novels and more than 50 short stories. There’s former DGP Nishinath Changkakoti, 77, and Jayanto Narayan Choudhury, 56, the newdgp of Assam Police, who regularly contribute to newspapers, magazines and police journals. Mrityunjoy Mahanta. “Mrityunjoy wakes up early and finishes his job before Mugdhajyoti begins his. When I need to research for my novel, I introduce myself to people as a writer,” he adds.
Saikia doesn’t believe being a writer-policeman makes him look less tough. “You need to be firm, not rude. The writer in me helps me understand the human psyche better and adopt a “When the gun fails me, I pick up the pen,” says two-time President’s medal winner Kula Saikia.
Is it easy to straddle two diametrically opposite worlds? “When the gun fails me, I pick up the pen,” says Saikia, 52. “I can write anywhere, anytime. Whenever an interesting thought comes to me, I scribble it on a paper and shove it into the wallet,” he adds. Mugdhajyoti, 42, keeps his identity as a police officer distinct from that of a writer. “They are two separate individuals residing in the same body. They don’t know each other,” says Mugdhajyoti, who uses the pseudonym more humane approach to tackling crime,” he says. The same sentiment is expressed by his former boss Deka, 68, a prominent poet-critic of his generation and yet remembered as a strict disciplinarian in the police force during his 2000-2003 term as Assam DGP. “The goal must not only be to catch criminals but also create an atmosphere in which people don’t take to crime,” says Deka.
Mugdhajyoti says that his becoming a police officer was incidental and has neither helped nor interrupted his creative pursuits. But others acknowledge that they draw on their on-the-job experiences. “Life has taught me that facts are stranger than fiction,” says Nath, 46. “When I return home from work and see my daughter, I think of those who lose their parents in mindless violence,” says Bhaskar Jyoti, 48, whose musical drama, Parijat, was a critical success in 2011.
“When I interrogate a criminal, it’s not just the policeman in me at work. The writer in me also observes,” explains Deka. Bandiyar (prisoner), the short story that earned him the Katha Award in 1996, is about a senior police officer who is kidnapped by terrorists and how they finally see each other differently. Deka’s poem Pola
kata January 5, about the body of a person killed during communal violence in Kamrup district in 1980, cult status. “My convoy had passed that area a few hours ago. I still feel guilty that I could not save him,” says Deka.