Restless Waters of the Ichhamati is a celebration of flora and fauna, particularly of the profusion of commonly found plant life that flourishes in most regions of Bengal. The gaze of a slow-moving attentive river-farer brings into view glimpses of vibrant plant life, traces of human habitation and changes of sky and water in the course of seasons. These are signs, evoking the flow of time in which generations unknown have lived and those unborn will live along the Ichhamati’s banks as it wends its way through Jessore district towards the Bay of Bengal. Born of this tension between the ephemeral and the forever, the novel’s own riverine course dispenses with chapter breaks—a writer’s decision that the translation follows.
About the Author
Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay was born in Ghoshpara-Muratipur village in Bengal on 12 September 1894. His ancestral home was in Barakpur (formerly in Jessore District) on the banks of River Ichhamati.
Bibhutibhushan spent his time writing and travelling intensively, particularly in the forests of Bihar, participating in literary meets and conferences, until his sudden death in Ghatshila on 1 November 1950. Besides numerous unpublished manuscripts, his oeuvre comprises seventeen novels, seven diaries-travelogues and over two hundred short stories. He was posthumously awarded the Rabindra Puruskar in 1951 for Ichhamati, his last published novel.
Rimli Bhattacharya has studied comparative literature and works on performance history and the arts, besides literature. Her translations from Bengali to English include the autobiographies of Binodini Dasi My Story & My Life as an Actress (1998), Rabindranath Tagore’s Four Chapters (Char Addhyay) (2002). She has translated two other novels of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Aranyak: Of the Forest (2002) and Making a Mango Whistle (Aam anthir Bhepu) (2007).
