In memoriam Kailash Dutta (1976–2012) and Parag Moni Sarma (1967–2012)

Indian folkloristics suffered a great loss on April 28, 2012, when two young Assam folklorists were killed in a traffic accident on Guwahati – Tezpur road. Kailash Dutta worked as Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Cultural Studies, Tezpur University, and Parag Moni Sarma was Professor at the same department.

Kailash defended his doctoral degree at the Department of Folklore Research at Gauhati University in 2011, his thesis providing an overview of the relations between ethnicity and folklore on the example of Thengal Kachari community. As in 2009 and 2010 Kailash was a visiting doctoral student within the DoRa programme (Doctoral Studies and Internationalisation Programme) at the Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu, his thesis also comprises a comparative chapter on Seto folk culture.

Parag’s doctoral thesis completed at Gauhati University in 2000 is an ethnopoetic comparative analysis of the folk songs of Assam tribes and Native Americans in the United States. Later on Parag delved into social and cultural theories, becoming one of the leading Indian folklorists in this area of research.

We have lost two good friends, who maintained close connections with Estonia and were willing to cooperate with us. They were both dedicated to their research and their students. Unfortunately, their lives ended prematurely, but we will cherish their memory and highly value everything they accomplished and were able to initiate.

Parag Moni Sarma and Kailash Dutta in Silghati village, Assam (24.01.2012).