By Tomojit Bhattacharjee
New Delhi: Amitabh Bachchan's film "Kaala
Patthar" had famously brought the
lives of India's coal miners to the
silver screen in the 1970s. Now a work
of English fiction again tries to weave
a story around them.
"The Sound of Water", written
by Sanjay Bahadur, is the account of
an aged miner trapped underground for
a week in a flooded coalmine. Set in
2001, it talks of a disaster that claims
more than 40 lives.
The book is still awaiting its official
release because it has been nominated
among the top 20 entries for the inaugural
Man Asia Literary Awards, which considers
only unpublished works.
"I have not set my story in a
specific place. It in a way represents
the entire community of miners,"
Bahadur, an Indian Civil Service officer
who worked as a director in the ministry
of coal, told IANS.
Mine accidents have claimed many lives
in the coal rich states of Bihar, Jharkhand
and Chhattisgarh.
"It's a different world once you
get inside a coalmine. It's very difficult
to explain what goes through the mind
of a miner when he gets trapped,"
said Bahadur, who is currently posted
in Goa.
The story deals with the trauma that
a miner goes through, his mental state,
he said.
Bahadur also claims the book is the
first ever work in English fiction that
deals with the mining industry in India.
"India's coalmine industry is
the oldest organised industry in the
country, but as far as my knowledge
goes, there has been no work in English
fiction on this topic.
"There are innumerable research
works, essays on miners in English and
a good lot of fiction in regional languages,
especially Bengali, but no fiction has
been written in English," he said.
The book tries to give the perspective
of three sets of characters - those
facing the disaster, those responsible
for taking out the trapped miners and
the family members of the miners.
"I have presented the perspectives
of all the three quarters involved during
a mining disaster. This will give a
total picture of what the miners go
through," he said.
The Man Asia Literary Award recognises
the best of new Asian literature to
bring it to the attention of the world.
It is a part of The Man Hong Kong International
Literary Festival conceived by a group
of journalists, publishers, editors,
authors and academics in 2000.
The final winner of the award will
be declared in November this year.
-Indo-Asian News Service
