I wrote this memoir a couple of years back for another blog...
I remember a face, that of a nine-year old girl, in a restored photograph that has been salvaged from the abyss of time. With her father beside her, the little girl was glancing down at her deceased mother. There was a hint of sadness in her face, but she was otherwise remarkably calm given how deep her emotions ran at the loss of her dearest person. Her composure made her look mature for her tender age. The girl was my grandma (on the paternal side). The year was 1915.
I came across the photograph when I was in college, a few years after grandma had departed. Till then, my memories of her were a short, white saree-clad woman, who fiercely defended her beliefs. She wanted to preserve the Bengali culture: the language, the dress, the food and everything in between. I recall my instructors at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata dressing up as Bengali “babus” on Sundays to escape my visiting grandma’s admonition. She spared almost none — I used to get breaks, being the oldest grandchild — in her zeal. Mr. Siddhartha Shankar Ray, the grandson of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, had faced my grandma during his tenure as the Chief Minister of West Bengal. His towering structure condescended to the slight lady in admission of his failure to uplift Bengal and the Bengalis and, therefore, unworthy of his illustrious grandfather’s lineage. There were other stories too. On one occasion she had tackled, with her sons, a gang of dacoits who had raided our ancestral home in Krishnanagar in the middle of the night.
But grandma you never discussed your life story with anybody. You were married off at eleven years of age to grandpa who was sixteen-year senior to you, had your first child at fourteen and went off to have several more over the next nearly three decades. Then something happened. You moved to Kolkata with all your surviving children, nine of them, leaving behind grandpa. You traded your married woman’s attire with that of a widow’s and closed the door on your past. You raised your children all by yourself enduring utmost hardships, yet never spoke to grandpa. You taught yourself to read and write and knew Ramayana and Mahabharata from cover to cover. You argued the need for women to be literate, self-reliant, and be empowered to choose their own destiny.
The photograph helped me to bridge a gap in my understanding of my grandma. None of us have ever seen her fretting about life or shed any tear. She had learned to control her emotions from an early age. The intervening years had only helped to grow her resolve. Her earthly possessions were meager, barely filling her hands, when she was busy serving others. She would go as far as she could walk, that would practically be the entire city of Kolkata, to reaffirm her beliefs. She passed away while returning from one such trip.
On this International Women’s Day 2013, I reflect on my grandma’s influence on the early years, the formative ones, of my life. She had not heard of IWD. In her world, every day was a woman’s — that would be her — day. She taught me to build a core belief system and be prepared to defend it; she emphasized that unless one has challenged herself she hasn’t discovered her true capabilities. Complaining about the fight or, even worse, abandoning it is not an option. Women like her inspire generations to walk in their shadows.
I remember a face, that of a nine-year old girl, in a restored photograph that has been salvaged from the abyss of time. With her father beside her, the little girl was glancing down at her deceased mother. There was a hint of sadness in her face, but she was otherwise remarkably calm given how deep her emotions ran at the loss of her dearest person. Her composure made her look mature for her tender age. The girl was my grandma (on the paternal side). The year was 1915.I came across the photograph when I was in college, a few years after grandma had departed. Till then, my memories of her were a short, white saree-clad woman, who fiercely defended her beliefs. She wanted to preserve the Bengali culture: the language, the dress, the food and everything in between. I recall my instructors at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata dressing up as Bengali “babus” on Sundays to escape my visiting grandma’s admonition. She spared almost none — I used to get breaks, being the oldest grandchild — in her zeal. Mr. Siddhartha Shankar Ray, the grandson of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, had faced my grandma during his tenure as the Chief Minister of West Bengal. His towering structure condescended to the slight lady in admission of his failure to uplift Bengal and the Bengalis and, therefore, unworthy of his illustrious grandfather’s lineage. There were other stories too. On one occasion she had tackled, with her sons, a gang of dacoits who had raided our ancestral home in Krishnanagar in the middle of the night.
But grandma you never discussed your life story with anybody. You were married off at eleven years of age to grandpa who was sixteen-year senior to you, had your first child at fourteen and went off to have several more over the next nearly three decades. Then something happened. You moved to Kolkata with all your surviving children, nine of them, leaving behind grandpa. You traded your married woman’s attire with that of a widow’s and closed the door on your past. You raised your children all by yourself enduring utmost hardships, yet never spoke to grandpa. You taught yourself to read and write and knew Ramayana and Mahabharata from cover to cover. You argued the need for women to be literate, self-reliant, and be empowered to choose their own destiny.
The photograph helped me to bridge a gap in my understanding of my grandma. None of us have ever seen her fretting about life or shed any tear. She had learned to control her emotions from an early age. The intervening years had only helped to grow her resolve. Her earthly possessions were meager, barely filling her hands, when she was busy serving others. She would go as far as she could walk, that would practically be the entire city of Kolkata, to reaffirm her beliefs. She passed away while returning from one such trip.
On this International Women’s Day 2013, I reflect on my grandma’s influence on the early years, the formative ones, of my life. She had not heard of IWD. In her world, every day was a woman’s — that would be her — day. She taught me to build a core belief system and be prepared to defend it; she emphasized that unless one has challenged herself she hasn’t discovered her true capabilities. Complaining about the fight or, even worse, abandoning it is not an option. Women like her inspire generations to walk in their shadows.
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