The Assamese writer Rebati Dutta Choudhury is no more. The news first registered on me rather casually. Personally, I did not know Dutta Choudhury very well. But the more I thought about him, the more I realized that I admired him a lot. My admiration for him was from a distance. I admired him first as a prolific Assamese short story writer. He wrote a total of about 500 short stories. This compares well with popular short story writers like O. Henry who wrote about 600 short stories.
Second, I admired him as an excellent teacher of mathematics. He was a professor of mathematics and he taught us higher mathematics in Assam Engineering College. I was very impressed by his casual and unassuming method of teaching higher mathematics. This made a lasting impression on me of him as well as of mathematics, which has always been one of my favorite subjects. His life showed that literature and mathematics go well together.
Moreover, I admired him for the tidbits of life stories that I heard about him from his younger brother, Kalyan Dutta Choudhury--a close friend of mine. Kalyan was very close to his elder brother, a very compassionate person. I could sense how broken Kalyan was when he sent me the email from Berkley, California; "I was shocked to get the sad news this morning of my brother Rebati's (Xilo-bhodro’s) death. He was sick off and on for some time. But, who in his or her right mind would think of the death of a very dear one? He was more than a brother to me. He was like a solid responsible father-figure melded into a loving and lovable brother." I immediately called him, and tried to share his sorrow. We talked about his writings and much more.
Rebati Dutta Choudhury was more popularly known by his pseudo name, Xilo-bhodro, in the Assamese literary world. He was a prolific Assamese writer. Besides short stories, he also wrote some novels. But it is mainly for his short stories, I think he will be remembered. In his short stories, one finds a method of expressing complex ideas and themes in the most casual manner of writing. Coming from Gauripur, the western corner of Assam, his style of writing was not traditional Assamese This made his stories more beautiful and added a new color to the wider Assamese literature. He used to write stories about his imaginary hometown of Madhupur, which seemed as romantic as the town Gauripur from where he hailed. His writing always reminded me of another Indian writer, R.K.Narayan who also used to write about his imaginary hometown, Malgudi. In the style of writing also, one may find some similarity of writing simple expressions. Now when I think about his writing, I think his writings reflect the existential philosophy to an extent. I do not know if any other Assamese writer has been categorized as an existential writer. On a final note, in his death, Assam has lost a legendary writer who will be remembered for long.
Rajen Barua
Houston
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