Stories by the Fire on a Winter Evening: Assamese Folk Tales Read and Re-Told

This paper is the germ of an idea, a call for the urgent necessity and the collaboration of other writers, artists and researchers to rethink our archives, to make unfamiliar and unknowable what we accept passively. In this paper the author situates Lakshminath Baruah’s folktales in their historicity and context, and offers an argument for retelling these stories through a feminist perspective for the current generation of readers. She rewrites three of these stories with an attempt to uncover and expand moments of feminist potential, while trying to maintain the spirit and the linguistic essence of the original. The three retold stories are – Siloni’r Jiyek’or Xadhu (The story of the kite’s daughter), Tula aru Teja (Tula and Teja)and Kaati Jua Naak Kharoni di Dhaak (Put Kharoni on the cut off nose).