Khoob Ladi Mardani
Even if the name Subhadra Kumari Chauhan does not ring a bell, if you have been educated in India, you would surely know of her most famous creation: “Jhansiwali Rani”. This poem is, I think, rather representative of her own life and writing focus.
Subhadra Kumari Chauhan was a Satyagrahi, poet and, after Indian Independence, a Member of Legislative Assembly (Central Provinces). She was born in Allahabad and moved to Jabalpur as a teenage bride. She took active part in the Non-Cooperation movement along with her husband. She was in fact the first female Satyagrahi to court arrest in Nagpur. She died in a car accident at the age of 43 during her term as MLA when she was travelling home to Jabalpur from Nagpur (the capital of the Central Provinces).
As a poet she is known mostly for her poems related to the freedom movement. Beside these she also wrote poems for kids. I was a little vary about having no choice but to review a collection of poems. But, as a saving grace, I discovered that she had actually written a handful of short stories. Although I wouldn’t mind reading the stories in the original Hindi, I found only an English translation in ebook format.
The collection I reviewed contained translations by Sakshi Agarwal of 5 short stories. Unlike Subhadra Kumari’s poetry, most of her short stories are about the life of women and their particular challenges due to social and economic constraints placed on them. Yet, each heroine strives to exert some influence on her life despite these constraints. The stories are of course dated in terms of the outlook expressed by even the heroines at times.
The first story is about an old lady the author spent a lot of her time with as a child when visiting relatives. Kailashi Nani, as the children called her, took the villagers’ cattle to graze in return for a handful of grains from each household. The grains given in payment varied from family-to-family and from day-to-day. Thus, the flour she ground out of them would vary in taste on every occasion and as per the author, no roti ever tasted as good as the ones Kailashi nani would so generously share with all the children who followed her out to the grazing fields to hear stories from her. The picture that emerges from these little anecdotes of Kailashi Nani is of a warm woman who was a fount of stories, pragmatic wisdom and generosity despite her abject poverty.
The next two stories are about two married women whose ambitions, friendships and decisions are completely under the control of their jealous or domineering husbands. They are not free to choose for themselves. The third story, in fact, is a long dialogue (or argument) between husband and wife on this very topic. It must have been perhaps something keenly felt by self-aware women of the time who weren’t so conditioned as to stop thinking of themselves as individuals.
The fourth story (the one that touched me the most) was about two female prisoners whose children had some kind of disability and faced ridicule / isolation and discrimination from others around them. The story is one about perspective and how different mothers might be able to deal in very different ways with the pain their children endure.
The final story is the only one about the freedom struggle and is told from the perspective of the policemen who worked under British Rule and were required to raise arms on their fellow country people and how they dealt with the conflict of interest in different ways.
Reading in translation, I could still see a simplicity of language that I think is mainly creditable to Chauhan herself even though I would commend the translator for retaining that simplicity in her translation.
The author must have been a fire-brand of a woman given the energy and sharpness in some of her writing. She clearly held strong views that perhaps not many of her sisters of the era felt they could afford to have. Even if I might not agree with her on certain things she wrote, I can still respect her for having a mind of her own and being brave enough to express it at a time when doing so came with serious social or political consequences.