Yet, Rukmini’s story is not an echo of Tagore’s interpretation of the radical side of India’s freedom movement though it’s set in a similar background—the incendiary ’70s and ’80s in Assam when a students’ movement for self-determination grew into a full-blown insurgency. Childless for 10 years and playing the role of a collector’s wife to perfection, even teaching English in a local college, Rukmini descends one sudden day from the lofty perch of her bungalow on the no man’s land between the ruling class and the radicals, to a point of no return. She gets her baby but almost loses everything else.
Does she? What gives security anyway? Is it power, position, love or getting one’s own way? Phukan is often a little archaic, with very obvious symbols and old-fashioned constructs, but she takes Rukmini along her chosen path of doom with aplomb.
