Review | ‘Gulabiya’ by Abha Purbey: love, caste and the politics of language

The politics of language is a complex one. It is about dominance and erasure, and that is why many of us probably don’t know that a language called Angika exists. A language that was first identified in the early 1900s by British linguist and civil servant George Grierson, but as a dialect of Maithili. The struggle for recognition still persists.

Scholar and writer Abha Purbey first published her novel Gulabiya in Angika in serialised form. It was subsequently published as a book in 2008, with a second edition appearing several years later in response to demand from readers. Close to two decades later, Gulabiya is out in English, translated by Tejaswi Rawal and Shivangi. It is the first full-length translation of a work from Angika.