Assamese Nature W¬riting And Soumyadeep Datta’s Contribution

Abstract

Nature Conservation, at present, is an extensively discussed topic, because the ecosystem has gone to a newness. This newness has brought drastic changes to the human thoughts, interests, behavior etc. which have impacted upon the ecosystem. The infatuation towards so-called modernism has made the people neutral to the world of other living beings due to which the human being and other animals have to experience an imbalanced ecosystem. This imbalanced ecosystem has not only caused various natural problems, but also impacted the social, cultural, economic, political academic fields and physical environment. In view of this, a literary genre regarding these impacts upon the surrounding world, including the life, works and art forms came into existence in United States of America in the later part of the 7^th decade of twentieth century, so that people could be sensitized about this restlessness that grew up in a large scale. This literary genre is later categorized as ‘ecocriticism’.¹ Ecocriticism is a broad way for literary and cultural scholars to investigate the global ecological crisis through the intersection of literature, culture, and the physical environment. Ecocriticism originated as an idea called “literary ecology” (Meeker 1972, cited under General Overviews) and was later coined as an “-ism” (Rueckert 1996, cited under General Overviews). In the 9^th decade of the 20^th century, the scope of ecocriticism expanded after it had got recognition as an academic subject.² In the course of time, it became imperative for the people to be united in order to resolve this environment related global crisis. It should be mentioned here that the factors responsible for the everlasting social and psychological problems of human being is the surrounding world of nature. Under such circumstances, the need of hours to resolve such global issues is to spread some universal ideologies. The one and only medium to spread the universal ideologies is the literature and it will be dedicated for the betterment of the living beings. Keeping this in view, the notable one among the persons who have been writing continuously in the Assamese language is Soumyadeep Datta. Datta has been working relentlessly for the environmental conservation in both—individual and public level. Datta’s contribution to the nature writing deserves systematic study at the present backdrop of growing threat to the nature.