The Sky Is Rigged with Booby Traps: Tracing Eco-Anxiety in Some Select Poems of Assam and Tripura in India’s North-East

Abstract

Indian literatures in general including those written in English, entail (in a vivid or veiled manner) a rich legacy inherited from the epics, other classical texts and the Puranas which promote overall, an equilibrium in the eco-space, the flora and fauna, while at the same time strongly recommending a protective role of the human and his being in perfect peace with the habitat. The literature of India’s North-east, poetry in particular, further posits an interesting case study of both adulation and apprehension. Here one experiences an abiding respect for the exotic beauty of nature - the mystic hills and magic rivers with the sprawling verdure around- which, with a potency though to lure poetic hearts into the realm of thoughts offering some emancipatory streaks of revelations, cannot however dispel the confounding mess of impressions of the muddled present which is lacerated by political unrest, insurgency and its countermeasures, the culture of dominance and finally a seamless urbanization which is keen to trammel up the traditional ways of life and thought that have enjoyed a sanctity of practice over generations. The poems discussed in the paper articulate a disquieting awareness of some grim possibility lurking under the Edenic greenery around.