The Story Archive

Mrityunjay

Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya · 1970 CE · Novel · Indian · Contemporary

In 1942, with the Quit India agitation running through the Assam countryside, a group in Nowgong sets out to derail a British military train at Panikhaiti: Dhanpur, a rationalist organiser; Gossain, a religious head who joins against his own teaching; Ahina Konwar, a Brahmin who cannot get past caste; and Dimi, a low-caste woman who carries what the men cannot. The derailment is only the beginning of the argument — whether killing for freedom is anything but killing — and it runs on through army reprisals on the villages that helped. The first work in Assamese to take the Jnanpith, built out of an operation Bhattacharya had watched happen twenty-eight years earlier.

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Attributes

Genre
PoliticalHistoricalWar
Theme
War & ViolenceDuty & HonorFaith & DoubtGuilt & Conscience
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Rebel / OutlawMentorEveryman
Plot structure
ChroniclePolyphonic
Symbol / motif
The TrainBloodThe Battlefield
Conflict
vs Selfvs Society
Mode / tone
RealistTragic
Culture / tradition
Indian

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