Lakshminath Bezbarua (, ; 14 October 1864 – 26 March 1938) was an Indian poet, essayist, novelist and playwright from Assam. Commonly known as the father of the Assamese short story, he was one of the literary stalwarts of the Jonaki era, the age of romanticism in Assamese literature. With his essays, plays, fiction, poetry and satires, he gave a new impetus to the then stagnating Assamese literary caravan.
He responded to the prevailing social environment through his satirical works to bring and sustain positive changes to the former. His literature reflected the deeper urges of the Assamese people.
Early life There is confusion regarding the date of birth of Bezbarua and also a story behind it as told by Bezbarua himself. In the first line of the first paragraph of the first chapter of his auto-biography Mür Jiwon Xü̃woron, Bezbarua confirms outright his inability to remember his exact date of birth that his parents used to tell him. But later when he grew young and required to put his date of birth for essential records, he invented a date for the purpose viz."1868 AD, November", but was born in 1864. He writes that he would like to offer this piece of information to anyone interested in knowing about his date of birth, although he is unsure whether that information would in any way affect the balance-sheet of anyone's life. In the next line he explicitly writes that approximately translates into "I am not convinced that on hearing, knowing or composing the news of my incarnation to destroy the "Annasur" (Food Devil) in that given year, perhaps two or four years earlier or later for that matter, the mankind shall be at any loss or profit or concede any damage."
In the very next paragraph, he went on describing in detail how and why the Bundle of Birth charts, kept religiously and secretly away from the kids by his parents, which contained his one he knew for certain during his childhood, was lost.
In Assamese literature, the term "Jonaki Jugor Trimurti" (জোনাকী যুগৰ ত্ৰিমূৰ্তি)—or the "Trinity of the Jonaki Era"—refers to the three legendary pioneers who laid the foundation for modern Assamese literature which includes Lakshminath Bezbaruah himself.
Bezbarua has however confirmed in his auto-biography that he was born in the autumn on a full-moon night, on which "Lakshmi Puja" (A Hindu festival of worship of Goddess Lakshmi) is celebrated in India, and to mark the coincidence, he was named by his parents as "Lakshminath" (A name for Vishnu, the Hindu God and husband of Goddess Lakshmi). This autumn-festival celebrated in the full-moon of Ashvin usually falls in the month of October in any year. As per a NASA website data, there was only one full-moon day in the month of November 1868 and that was on 30th but that was not the day of celebration of Lakshmi puja in that year. Presently, the Assam Sahitya Sabha has settled on a date – 14 October 1864, that was a full-moon night of Lakshmi Puja in India, for his date of birth.
Education
Bezbarua received his early education at Sivasagar Government High School at Sivasagar. Thereafter he studied for his F.A. from the City College and subsequently graduated with a B.A. from the General Assembly's Institution in Calcutta. Then he took his admission in M.A. and B.L. degrees from the University of Calcutta, but he couldn't complete either.
Business career
Bezbarua was offered the post of Munsif by the British Government while he was still a student of Law, but he declined the offer. A few years later, he met Bholanath Barua, the manager of the prominent Guwahati-based business firm Barua-Phukan Brothers. At that time, Bholanath Barua had left his business in Guwahati and moved to Calcutta for commercial pursuits. Lakshminath and Bholanath became close friends and initially started a timber business together in Calcutta. Later, after working for a year in the office of the Ward Company in Calcutta from 1916 to 1917, Bezbarua moved to Sambalpur in September 1917 to engage in the timber trade.Mür Jiwon Xüworon, Lakshminath Bezbarua
Bholanath Barua came to Calcutta with the intention of engaging in trade and became acquainted with the Calcutta timber merchant Kalikrishna Paramanik, with whom he established business relations. He built a house near Shobharam Basak Street. Around the time when his business began to prosper, Bholanath Barua met Lakshminath Bezbarua. After accumulating some capital, they started a timber business in a forest of Singhbhum district in 1894. They also acquired a residence at a place known as Guilkora in the area.
In subsequent years, large forest leases for timber operations came under the control of Bholanath Barua. In 1900, he obtained a large forest concession from the Maharaja of Rewa. To supervise work there, he brought Mahinarayan Bora. At the same time, Barua purchased a house in Howrah and established an office there. Lakshminath Bezbarua and Bishwanath Barua, the second son of Phatik Chandra Barua, were entrusted with managing that office.
When they began their timber business around 1893, many members of the Calcutta business community assumed that the two were brothers. Consequently, Bezbarua often wrote his name as L. B. Barua. Poet Nabakanta Barua later remarked regarding Bezbarua's timber business: "He had two trades—one in timber and the other in words. Timber brought him temporary wealth and property, while words bestowed upon him everlasting riches. It is far more fortunate that Lakshminath became a literary luminary than a successful merchant prince."
Bholanath Barua also became acquainted with Girish Chandra Bose, who held a virtual monopoly in the teak trade, and further expanded his teak business. With Bezbarua's association, the enterprise grew considerably. Various timber companies, including Bengal Timber of Calcutta, began investing in their ventures. Bezbarua became fully occupied with activities such as acquiring forest leases and supervising timber extraction. However, misunderstandings arose between Bezbarua and Bholanath Barua due to the influence of others. As a result, Bholanath withdrew from the joint business partnership in 1903. Nevertheless, their personal friendship remained largely unchanged.
After separating from Bholanath Barua, Bezbarua established an independent business by opening a store named Assam Bengal Stores. In 1912, however, Bholanath Barua invited Bezbarua to rejoin him, and the latter accepted. In 1914, when Bholanath Barua was hospitalized following a motor accident in Delhi, Bezbarua remained by his side. Meanwhile, the First World War had begun. The financial condition of businessmen such as Lakshminath Bezbarua deteriorated considerably. According to his autobiography, circumstances became so difficult that he had to sell old copies of The Statesman newspaper to cover household market expenses.
In 1916, Bezbarua joined Bird & Company in Calcutta. In 1917, on company duty, he moved with his family to Sambalpur in Odisha. Thereafter, he travelled extensively throughout Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha on company assignments. During his stay in Odisha, he developed a close friendship with the noted Assamese poet Jatindra Nath Duwara. At the time of Bholanath Barua's death in 1923, Bezbarua visited him at his deathbed. In 1924, he returned to Calcutta from Sambalpur. In the same year, he served as President of the Asam Sahitya Sabha. In 1928, he resigned from Bird & Company and established his own business in Sambalpur. However, owing to declining health, he left Sambalpur for Assam in 1938.
Literary career Bezbarua's literary career began while he was studying in Calcutta. During this period, he came into contact with Chandra Kumar Agarwala and Hemchandra Goswami. In an effort to restore the status of the Assamese language in Assam Province, the three, along with other Assamese students studying in Calcutta, established an organization called the Oxomiya Bhaxa Unnoti Xadhini Xobha (). As the mouthpiece of the society, they launched a literary magazine named Jonaki in 1889. It was in the pages of Jonaki that Bezbarua first devoted himself seriously to literary pursuits. In the first issue of the magazine's inaugural year, he published his first farce, entitled Litikai.Mür Jiwon Xü̃woron, Lakshminath Bezbarua, pp. 90, 92, 93.
Thereafter, he continued to contribute extensively to every branch of Assamese literature, publishing in Jonaki as well as in virtually all major Assamese-language journals and newspapers of his time and the succeeding generations. In addition to editing Jonaki, he founded and edited the literary magazine Bãhi in 1909. It was through the pages of Bãhi that Bezbarua reached the height of his literary maturity. Besides Bãhi, he published his creative writings in numerous contemporary newspapers and magazines, including Setona, Jonmobhumi, Milon, Oxom Xahityo Xobha Potrika, Orun, Awahon, Bordoisila, No-Jün, Joyonti, Doinik Batori, and Oxom Bonti.
Although Lakshminath Bezbarua had been interested in literature since childhood, it was only after he moved to Calcutta for higher studies that he began to devote himself more seriously to literary activities. At that time, Calcutta was the centre of the Bengal Renaissance. Witnessing the remarkable rise of Bengali literature there inspired him to enrich the treasury of Assamese literature through his own literary endeavors. In this aspiration, he was encouraged and supported by fellow Assamese students in Calcutta, including Hemchandra Goswami and Chandrakumar Agarwala. It was through Jonaki, the magazine that they published with contributions from their own limited resources, that Bezbarua's literary genius found its fullest expression and development.
Short stories Lakshminath Bezbarua is widely regarded as the pioneer, and often the father, of the Assamese short story. Although many scholars have considered Konya to be his first short story, Bezbarua's first published short story was Xeuti. Xeuti appeared in the fourth issue of the fourth year of the magazine Jonaki.
Lakshminath Bezbarua published four collections of short stories. Three of them—Xurobhi, Xadhukothar Kũki, and Jünbiri—were published during his lifetime, while the fourth collection, Kehü̃koli, was published posthumously. Xurobhi, published in 1909, contained twelve short stories and is recognized as the first collection of Assamese short stories. Xadhukothar Kũki, published in 1910, included a total of twenty-seven short stories. Jünbiri, a collection of sixteen stories, was published in 1913.
Bezbarua himself did not assign a title to his fourth collection of stories. In Bezbarua Granthavali (1968), Atul Chandra Hazarika proposed that a number of previously uncollected stories, most of which had originally appeared in Bãhi, should be gathered under the title Kehü̃koli. According to Hazarika, the title was chosen in keeping with the central theme of the collection. Hridayananda Gogoi, one of the editors of Bezbarua's collected stories, wrote: "It would have been a matter of great fortune had Bezbarua himself been able to compile these stories into a volume. Nevertheless, we may regard these stories as constituting the fourth volume of Bezbarua's short fiction...."
This collection contains a total of fifteen stories by Bezbarua.
Literary critic, scholar, and professor Amritjyoti Mahanta has commented on Bezbarua's short fiction as follows: "In many of Bezbarua's stories, readers encounter the author's sharp satire directed at the superficial tastes and hypocrisy that had become prevalent among sections of the Assamese middle class of his time. A notable example is the story 'Molok Guin Guin'. Similar satirical elements are also present in stories such as 'Nangaluchandra Das', 'Bhokendra Barua', and 'Amar Kaniya Xobhar Ek Odhibexon'."
Hridayananda Gogoi, editor of Bezbarua's collected stories, further observed:
Children's literature