Resumo de The First Promise

I?M A BENGALI with
little Bengali except the spoken word, like many others of my pan-Indian
generation. We were nurtured by urban India, with a smattering of Hindi,
Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati and a table Bengali confined to everyday
conversation. We have learnt to exist on
the periphery of the great Indian translation debates. We have mined the
literary lodes of Tagore, Mahashweta Devi, Bankimchandra and Saratchandra
through English translations, and mulled deeply over qualities evoked by the
original.

It is within this
framework that I came to Ashapurna Debi via English. Every Bengali reader I
encountered so far lauded her gender-perceptive writing, her exploration of a
milieu beyond kitchen chronicles, her colloquial idiom that unrolls vistas of
social and cultural revolution beyond the colonial overview and Vidyasagar?s
social reform.

To my enchantment, I
found her child heroine Satyabati totally contemporary. As she grows, she
evolves into a woman sure of her mind, unafraid to voice her stance, steadfast
in her beliefs. Satyabati?s story is too well known to bear retelling, in this
first part of a trilogy ~ including ?Subarnalata? (1966) and ?Bakul Katha?
(1973) ~ that has thrilled generations of Bengali women, whose stories
resonated through her pages.

?Pratham Pratistruti?
(1964) is Ashapurna Debi?s most acclaimed work, which won her the Rabindra
Puraskar in 1966 and the Bharatiya Jnanpith award in 1977. What distinguishes
it from the writer?s 181 novels, 38 short story anthologies and 52 children?s
books? Perhaps the fact that it is couched as the granddaughter Bakul?s tribute
to her remarkable grandmother, Satyabati. Perhaps the unusual unveiling of a
seething, often mute, domestic space that matches the public sphere in its
intensity and latent radicalism.

When the last page is
turned, it is easy to understand why Ashapurna Debi was the most popular and
prolific Bengali writer of the 20th century. I asked myself: isn?t
that a stunning achievement for a girl who never went to school, but taught
herself to read and write (much like Satyabati)? Through 48 chapters, through
the interactions of over 50 characters, the epic couches the eight-year-old
child bride?s journeys within and without.

In this compelling
parable of empowerment, mapping four generations of social change, Satyabati is
torn between admiration for her father Ramkali?s medical prowess and dismay at
his patriarchal orthodoxy. She questions religious and social rites that offend
her intelligence, defies Ramkali to travel to her husband Nabakumar?s home,
denies her strident mother-in-law victory in their familial struggle ~ and
finally moves from village to city, from a joint family to an intimate nuclear
space, to eventually recognizing the merits of the questioning mind.

En route, a microcosm
of Didima?s generation unfolds through Satyabati and Ramkali?s rebellions
against tradition. We get to know a generation of women impacted by child
marriage, child widows, widow remarriage, co-wives, caste hierarchies,
traditional/ western medicinal debates, sexual politics, even the subtleties of
rural decline. We understand why Satyabati veers city-wards ~ towards medical
efficiency, towards quality education, towards independence.

The city, in Ashapurna
Debi?s eyes, offers a route map to women?s emancipation. It is in Calcutta that Satyabati
dares to teach at a school for women without her husband?s permission. And
insists that her sons should attend school instead of the ostentatious
festivities of the affluent. And educates an ostracized woman?s daughter. And
turns down Ramkali?s gift of property. Each an act of individualism and
subversion.

Most deeply, Satyavati
nurses dreams for her daughter, Subarnalata. When her weak-kneed husband brings
this dream crashing to the ground, what can she do? Satyavati turnsher back on
the known life ~ and sets out to further debate life with her father in Varanasi. A decision as
radical within its social context as that of Ibsen?s Nora.

Whether viewed within
the context of women?s studies or as pure literature, Indira Chowdhury?s
insight-packed introduction and easy-access translation ~ done between 1996 and
2000 ~ are a gift to celebrate. For she returns Ashapurna Debi to the
mainstream of Indian literature, beyond Bengali linguistic boundaries. Vaulting
over formulaic confines, the historian-translator releases the writer into the
master-narrative of Indian feminism with incisive grace, personally ?both
revisiting the past and rediscovering it.?

In the author?s
preface, we find the words, ?This book is about an unknown woman who was among
those who carved out the etchings of a promise from within those ignored
interior spaces of Bengal.? Satyabati is a
woman we can never forget, once we have chanced upon her. Like her creator, her
immortality can only be reinforced by this sensitive rendition.

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