Mothering in the time of Motherlessness: A Reading of Ashapurna Debi's Pratham Pratisruti

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Volumn 21, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 308-329

  Chowdhury, Indira ^a  

^a JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY   (India)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33745053422     PISSN: 02648334     EISSN: 17500176     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3366/para.1998.21.3.308     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. Susie Tharu and K. Lalitha (eds.), Women Writing in India: 600 B. C. to the Early Twentieth Century, Vols I & II, New York: Feminist Press, 1991.
2. Ibid., Vohhp. 173.
3. 7W., Vol:I, p.35.
4. 7., Vol:II, p.43.
5. Ibid., p. 71.
6. I have dealt with this particular theme in The Frail Hero and Virile History: Gender and the Politics of Culture in Colonial Bengal, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998. See especially the chapter entitled 'Motherhood, Heroism and Identity', pp. 95-119.
7. See especially Tanika Sarkar, 'Nationalist Iconography: Image of Women in Nineteenth Century Bengali Literature', EPW, 21 November, 1987, pp. 2011-15; Jasodhara Bagchi, 'Representing Nationalism: Ideology of Motherhood in Colonial Bengal', EPW, 20-27 October 1990, pp. WS-66-68.
8. For the ways in which the ideology of motherhood played a pivotal role in 'familiarising the nation and nationalising the family' see Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, 'Producing and Reproducing the 'New' Woman: A Note on the Prefix 'Re', Social Scientist, 22:1-2, pp. 1939.
9. This trend shaped not only children's literature of the colonial period but also the ideology of the family. See Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, Gopal Rakhal Dvandasamas: Upanibeshbad O Sishusahitya, Calcutta, 1991; Pradip Kumar Bose, 'Sons of the Nation: Child Rearing in the New Family' in Partha Chatterjee (ed.), Texts of Power: Emerging Disciplines in Colonial Bengal, Calcutta, 1996.
10. The Shakta tradition especially prevalent in Bengal, emphasizes the worship of several mother goddesses. In this connection, I have benefitted particularly from Sashi Bhushan Dasgupta, Bharater Shakti-sadhana O Shakta Sahitya, Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, 1970.
11. Ashapurna Debi quoted in Nabaneeta Dev Sen, 'Introduction' to Ashapurna Debi, Subarnalata, translated by Gopa Majumdar, Chennai: Macmillan, 1997, p. xiv.
12. William Ward, A view of the History, Literature and Mythology of the Hindoos; including a minute description of their manners and customs and translations from their printed works, Volume I.London: 1811, p. 287-8.
13. The practice of Kulin polygamy was instituted in 12th century Bengal by King Ballalasena. In an attempt to reorganize Hindu society the king granted the upper castes the right to marry several times. The fathers of daughters supposedly preserved their ritual status by marrying their daughters to kulin men. The practice persisted in colonial Bengal and daughters thus married were often obliged to spend the rest of their lives in their natal homes, sometimes without ever meeting their husbands ever again.
14. N. Chevers, A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence for Bengal and N.W. Provinces, Calcutta: 1856, p. 489.
15. For a historical analysis of how these ideas shaped the socialization of the girl child see Jasodhara Bagchi, 'The Girl Child and the Family in Bengal' in Loved and Unloved: The Girl Child in the Family, Calcutta: Stree, 1997, pp. 1-21.
16. Bamabodhini Patrika, Vo\ X: 132, 1874, p. 112.
17. Robert Harvey, Report on the Medico-Legal Returns received from the Civil Surgeons in Bengal Presidency during the years 1870, 1871 & 1872, Calcutta: Calcutta Central Book Press, 1876, pp. 311-12.
18. Kshetramohan Sen Gupta, 'Bhrun-hatya, Shishuhatya Nibaraner Upay ki? Parityakta Shishuder ke Raksha Karibe?', ('What are the Remedies for Foeticide, Infanticide? Who will protect the abandoned children?') Aryadarshan, Chaitra, B.S. 1282, 1876, p. 542.
19. ibrd.vp.545.
20. For an insightful analysis of the ways in which moral and intellectual attitudes in nineteenth-century Bengal drew on the testimony of ancient Hindu texts to champion a Hindu nationalist identity in the face of British racism see Amiya P. Sen, Hindu Revivalism in Bengal, 1872-1905: Some Essays in Interpretation, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993.18.
21. Khestramohan Sen Gupta, p. 551.
22. In the epic Mahabharata, Debabrata alias Bhisma is the son of Ganga, the river goddess and King Shatanu, the ruler ofHastinapura. The goddess is, however, not his queen in any 'official' sense. Since Bhisma is recognized to be one of the wisest sages in the epic, his origins are hardly emphasized. Khestramohan here, is lamenting the unnecessary focus on the sage's origins that is noticeable in present-day Bengal. He argues that it is precisely the lack of recognition of other forms of marriage that make such absurd and disrespectful descriptions possible.
23. Ashapurna Debi, Pratham Pratisruti, 1965 rpt. Calcutta: Mitra & Ghosh, 33rd rpt. 1995. All references in parenthesis are to this edition of the text. All translations of this novel are mine.
24. For an analysis of the trilogy in terms of the feminist consciousness that evolved in nineteenth and early twentieth century Bengal see Shivani Banerjee Chakravorty, 'Carving a Self: Feminist Consciousness, the Family and the Socialization Process in 19th and 20th Century Bengal-A Study of Ashapurna Debi's Trilogy' in Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake (eds.), Selfas Image in Asian Theory and Practice, Vol 3, New York: State University of New York Press, forthcoming. I am grateful to Shivani Banerjee Chakravorty for letting me have access to her paper.
25. For an innovative use ofthe theme ofmotherlessness see Adrienne Rich, 'Jane Eyre: The Temptations of a Motherless Woman' (1973) in On Lies, Secrets, Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978, 1980 rpt. London: Virago, 1986, pp. 89-106. Rich borrows the term from Phyllis Chesler's Women and Madness (1972). I borrow Rich's use of the term with major modifications.
26. According to prevalent custom, a son has the privilege of not only conducting the last rites of a parent but also observing the rituals for the complete mourning period which differs from caste to caste. Daughters, on the other hand, observe rituals only for three days. Abstinence from 'cooked' food and especially non-vegetarian items are a part of ritual mourning.
27. For an analysis of rituals that emphasize the care of newborns in Tamilnadu see Helene Stork, 'Mothering Rituals in Tamilnadu: Some magico-Religious beliefs', in Julia Leslie (ed.), Rote and Ritualsfor Hindu Women, London: Pinter Publishers, 1991, pp. 89-105. The restrictions on excess for the mother were not exclusively a part of Hindu birthing practices, see for example Jacques Gelis, History of Childbirth: Fertility, Pregnancy and Birth in early Modern Europe, trans. Rosemary Morris, 1991, London: Polity Press, 1996, especially pp. 178-81.
28. Gauridana: the ceremonial giving away of an eight-year old girl in marriage. The practice persisted in colonial India until reform came in the Age of Consent Act 1891, which provoked much debate, often focussing on the ways in which minor girls were raped by their husbands and sometimes died as a result. See Tanika Sarker, 'Rhetoric against the Age of Consent: Resisting Colonial Reason and the Age of a Child Wife', Economic and Political Weekly, 4 September 1993, pp. 1869-78.
29. Witness Rasasundari Dasi's efforts to teach herself to read. She writes about this in her autobiography Amar Katha (1876)-the first autobiography written by a woman in Bengali. For a critical assessment of women's perception oftheir education in colonial Bengal see Himani Bannerji, 'Fashioning a Self: educational Proposals for and by Women in Popular Magazines in Colonial Bengal', Economic and Political Weekly, 26 October 1991, W-S 50-62.
30. N. Chevers cites numerous examples of such deaths in A Manual of Medical Jurisprudence. See especially, pp. 497-501. Similar cases are discussed by Robert Harvey in The Medico-Legal Returns received from the Civil Surgeon in Bengal Presidency during the years 1870, 1871 & 1872.
31. Hathe-kari: the ritual of writing for the first time, performed on the day of Saraswati puja. Formerly restricted to boys of five years.
32. Ashapurna Devi, Suharnalata translated by Gopa Majumdar, (Chennai: Macmillan, 1997), p. 159.
33. Ibid., p. 160.
34. Ibid., p. 161.
35. Ibid., p. 3.
36. Ibid., p. 209.
37. Ashapurna Debi, Bakul Katha, Calcutta: Mitra & Ghosh, 1974, 18th reprint 1994, p. 303. Translation mine.
38. The complex nature of Indian modernity has been the subject of scholarly interrogation for some years now. See especially the essays in Kumkum Sangari and Sudesh vaid (eds.), Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History, New Delhi: Kali, 1990 and those in Tejaswini Niranjan, P. Sudhir and Vivek Dhareshwar (eds.), Interrogating Modernity: Culture and Colonialism in India, Calcutta: Seagull, 1993.
39. Ashapurna Devi, Bakul-Katha, p. 25. Translation mine.
40. Ashapurna Devi, Pratham Pratisruti, pp. 1-2.
41. It is precisely this naive notion offeminism that Nabaneeta Dev Sen's 'Preface' celebrates in Gopa Majumdar trans., Ashapurna Devi, Subarnalata, Chennai, 1997, pp. vii-vx.