The Mountain Girl

The Black Hill, Mamang Dai, Aleph, pp.295

Every hour was a preparation and prayer to bid farewell to the grounds and leaves. Tidy the place and pack things to be elsewhere. Both Father Crick, the Missionary from France imbued with the original passion of his vocation and Gimur, the Abor woman longing to explore the mountains share this thirst for an adventure.   ‘A fire draws people together’, say the elders of the tribe and it was a curious fire that lay in the pit of their spirit that kept stoking them to wander away in search of new meanings.

This novel is a fictionalized account of Father Nicholas Crick the nineteenth century missionary from the Missions Étrangères de Paris to Tibet to spread the word of God. But Tibet, like a Holy Grail, remains unattainable to him. Throwing himself to the fate, the padre has to depend on the kindness of strangers and tribesmen for safe passage to the forbidden land that Tibet was. He makes his way through the treacherous mountains of North Eastern India, being the messenger and the medicine man, healing bodies and souls. His strange alter ego is Gimur the wild woman, breaker of all taboos, mother and daughter, who is prodded into an all or nothing passion to save the people she loves.

Set in the backdrop of Colonial India where the British were guarded in their approach of the tribesmen of north eastern India, the coming of Father Crick is an omen. He becomes the unwitting part of a dramatic war between the British and the ferociously territorial people, as they fight for their land, gods and livelihood. And the two people who are peace makers, nomads and believers of peace are thrown into the pit of deceit from which there is no safe passage.

Intensely researched and evocatively written, Mamang Dai’s novel is a superb and thrilling account of an adventure. As it narrates the compelling story of politics, faith and struggle for land, the story sheds light on the history of the Abor and Mishmee peoples in Colonial India. By tracing the history, the story also gives a possible direction for the future political course that the claim for land and belonging would take.

Mamang Dai is a writer with great sympathy for her characters and understanding of the complex historical context she seeks to explore. Her prose flows like the rivers that shape the contours of her story. I found the writer as a gift from a dear friend from Assam and cherish the discovery. Dai is one of the promising writers to look out for in Indian writing in English.