Son of poor parents, who made cane items for a living, Narayan Chandra Samat grew up used to having to skip meals, being served food after all guests had left at weddings and listening to stories from the Mahabharata and Ramayana.
Samat’s family belongs to the Dalit (dom) community and his father often found it difficult to provide for everyone at home. But he worked hard to ensure that his sons received education.
A name to reckon with in Bengali literature today, Narayan Samat recently received the Dalit Sahitya Samman — an award he dedicated to his father, his first inspiration. “Amar Ma, Baba oklanto porishrom kore amader teen bhaike danr koriechen. Ami aajke ja ta sudhu taderi jonno (My parents worked tirelessly for us three brothers. Whatever I am today is only because of them,” said the teary-eyed author.
Samat receiving the award
“I never ask people about their daily needs. I meet people and make them understand the importance of education,” said Samat.
Samat grew up amidst poverty and discrimination. “People would invite us to their weddings. But we were served food last. We had to throw away our own plates. We were never allowed to sit with others. Even the place where we ate our food would be cleaned with cow dung,” Samat recalled.
Having started writing at a young age, Samat’s first poem was published in his college magazine in 1969, when he was around 21 years old. He also read a lot, his favourites being Rabindranath Tagore and Jibananada Das.
Samat worked as a daily labourer before he started teaching at a primary school in Midnapore. Gradually, he started writing about his community and his writings were published in different little magazines.
The cover of Samat’s ‘Chhadmabesh’, published by Gangchil
His first novel, Shalmarar Chor, was about the fishermen community of Shalmara in West Midnapore. He wrote about their lifestyle, culture, language. It was published in 1996. Next came Nupurer Dhwoni in 1998, a novel based on the Koli lifestyle of Maharashtra.
In 2017, Samat was felicitated by the West Bengal government in Jhargram.
Samat also has to his credit a book on Bengali proverbs named Shayak. The book features more than 4,000 proverbs and idioms used mostly in the villages of West Bengal.
Samat with some of his books
Samat’s book analysing why many characters of Ramayana and Mahabharata took disguise perhaps has its seeds in his childhood experience of accompanying his father to jatras and narrating what they saw on the way back.
The author rued that despite many advances, the condition of the backward classes still calls for change. “Many Dalits now deny their own identity. This is heart-wrenching. We may face a lot of disparities, but that does not mean we will have to forget or deny our roots. When I was felicitated recently, I mentioned that I belong to the dom community. Why should I be ashamed?” the septuagenarian said.
Samat is currently working on a book that searches for the roots of the dom community.