Professor Nirupa Saikia, Dept. of English, retired on superannuation with effect from the 1st May 2021.
Born in the North Lakhimpur district of Upper Assam, Prof. Saikia graduated with English Honours from Nowgong Girls’ College, Nagaon in 1978. She then continued her MA in English at Gauhati University and finished in 1982 despite the ongoing agitation in Assam. Later that same year, in September 1982, she was appointed to Nowgong Girls’ College.
In 1984, she married Dr. Dipak Kumar Barkakati, a lecturer in Physics at Pachhunga University College in Mizoram. She then took lien from her college (and was granted lien having been selected by the Assam State Selection Commission) to follow her husband to Mizoram. In 1986, on the 28th October, she joined Govt. Aizawl College as a lecturer in the department of English.
On the 25thJuly 1995, she was awarded a Ph.D. from NEHU for her research work on Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, her thesis being “Chinua Achebe: The Novelist as Social Critic.” In 2019, she was promoted to Professor.
Pi Nirupa has two children – a son, Pronoot, and a daughter, Ipshita, both working in the IT industry in Bangalore. Ipshita is married with a little son named Ved Arthur Deka.
She plans to spend her retirement life with her also retired writer-husband in Guwahati, Six Mile near Dispur, Assam. We wish her a well-earned, happy and healthy retirement.
