Comparison between the portrayals of women in Mahasweta Devis

Rudali (adapted into a play by Usha Ganguli) And Lalitambika

Antarjanams Revenge Herself
- Utkarsha Kotian

Mahasweta Devis Rudali (original in Bengali), is a short story based on the lower
caste, poor woman Sanichari. The story is adapted into a play by Usha Ganguli which
is the main reference for this comparison. Sanichari -born on a Saturday, is a woman
tied down by her domestic life. The story, however, is of Sanicharis triumph over
destiny with a will to do better for herself in life. Ganguli portrays Sanichari to be an
oppressed woman who struggles to make ends meet for her family, but when she is
left to her own means, she fights it through and carves out her niche in a society where
a woman, who is poor and widowed, would be otherwise left to starve to death.
Lalitambika Antarjanams Revenge Herself (original in Malayalam Praticaradevatha,
alternately translated as The Goddess of Revenge), is a short story believed to be
inspired by true life events of 1905 Kerala, where a woman referred to as Tatri was
tried under the then prevailing law for adultery. The law stated that Nambudiri women
could not expose skin to light. In other words, must maintain a strict system of
purdah when outside home even though they were escorted by lower caste Nair
women. While the repercussions of the system of Sambandhanam marriages and
Antarjanam (secluded living specifically for Nambudiri women) were far and many,
the story is a fictionalised account of what prompted a high caste woman like Tatri to
turn to prostitution and live a life condemned by society.
Tatris trial is said to have shaken up the entire society of Kerala, which was stopped
when she named the 64th man who would be punished with her on charges of adultery.
Those accused and extradited along with her, include Brahmins, popular Kathakali
dancers as well as aristocrats and princes. It is said that the proceedings were stopped
only when the King of Cochin was supposed to be the next person on her list.

The stories follow the life of the lead characters, Sanichari and Tatri respectively.
While women in India are believed to be the oppressed gender; these stories go
beyond the pity and sympathy that is typically generated for women in such
conditions. These women fight for their survival unlike the norm where the oppressed
women would take the easy way out and commit suicide.

Both Sanichari and Tatri are women who take their destiny into their own hands to
survive. Their characterization by the authors has to do with their own understanding
of the world they saw around them and what they wanted to change about it. Both
Mahasweta Devi (whose short story Ganguli adapted) and Antarjanam were at one
point inspired by Marxist ideologies and mainly wrote about the oppressed women.
Both short stories have women as the central character; and a comparison between the
two reveals several similarities in the story line as well as the situation that they are in,
in spite of being from different strata of the society and responding differently.
The first is the role of these women in the society they inhabit. Though Sanichari is a
low caste woman (Dushad/Ganju) and Tatri is of high caste (Nambudiri), both women
do not have much say in what they want to do with their lives while tied to their
respective households. While not much is known about Sanicharis early life, it is
known that she has known how to run the house all her life. Similarly Tatri was
married off at the age of 18 to what was seemingly a good match since her husband
was very young and she was his first bride unlike many other Nambudiri women.
Sanichari however was married into poverty and she blames it on her destiny.
On the other hand, Sanichari has the freedom to mingle with other people, even men,
from the society, as seen in her conversations with the neighbour Dulan; something
that Tatri does not have. While Sanichari not only converses and fights with other
men, she also has the freedom to engage even with men she does not know personally.
Nevertheless, as seen in the frequent conversations in both plays, women who would
cross the threshold of the house to work or exert their self will, were called prostitutes
and it was wished that such fate would befall them. (Sanicharis belief that young
women who go to work in the fields turn into whores; and Tatri is hinted to be a
woman of low worth by her mother when she attracts the looks of other men)
While both women curse their fate to be born in their caste, Sanichari an untouchable
and Tatri a high caste, their aspirations are different. Tatri explicitly states that she
would prefer to be born in a lower caste rather than be pushed into the bleak
submissive future of a Nambudiri woman who cannot answer back her husband nor
has any control over her life. (The Nair women, lower caste to the Nambudiri but
matrilineal, had freedom to have any number of husbands they wished and could also
separate from them if they wished to.)
In Sanicharis case, this aspiration to be of a different caste is absent. Perhaps because
she sees all women around her, irrespective of their caste, being walked over by their
male relatives. (Even the Thakurain, leaves for refuge at her maternal home once her
mother-in-law dies)

Hence, both women take up unconventional jobs or that which may be considered a
bad choice for them to sustain themselves. Sanichari, forsaken by her grandson, is left
with no option but to cry and bawl at the funerals of rich men of the village, while she
couldnt shed tears for her own family members when they died. She must however
do this with professional brilliance so that her stomach is filled.
While traditionally it is hinted that this job was performed by the whores of the
masters, Sanichari and her friend Bikhni now take up this job with better zest. When
Dulan usually negotiates their deals, he refers to them as women from good
families, meaning that while these jobs were given to the prostitutes who couldnt
earn for themselves by other means, here were two women (probably middle aged),
who were willing to do the whores job if paid handsomely.
Tatri on the other hand, driven by her thirst for vengeance and struck by her husbands
words (If you could be like her [whore], I might like you better.) turns to
prostitution to silently bid her time to take revenge. While it is believed that in the
existing social structure in Kerala in early 1900s, a woman was just as free to be a
prostitute as she was to choose any other profession, it was considered to be adultery
for a Nambudiri woman to do so. Such women, if proven guilty, were extradited from
the community and left to die alone or beg on the streets.
This choice of profession is what forms the core to the theme of the story that both
Devi and Antarjanam narrate. While Sanicharis life story is that of irony, Tatris is one
of revenge and betrayal. Sanichari is stunned at her inability to cry or mourn when her
husband and son die, but is easily able to do so when it is in the quest for her survival.
Similarly, for no fault of hers, Tatri who once learned the art of the prostitute to
please her husband; now has to use the same for her survival till such a time that she
can exact revenge from her husband and the society that condemned her to a life she
didnt choose.
The role of the husband is central to both stories, since it is they, or their life that
brings about a sea of change in the womens lives. Sanicharis husband, of whom
much isnt told to us, dies accidently and leaves the burden of caring for their son and
his mother on Sanichari. As Parbatia, Sanicharis daughter-in-law puts it, Cant
provide a square meal, but lays claim to being a husband. Both women, Parbatia and
Sanichari, are forced into a life of hardships due to the untimely deaths of their
husbands.
In Tatris case however, there is a direct link between her fate and her husband. While
he believes himself to be a free man who can take as many women (as wives) as he
wants, it is towards his doom that Tatri fashions her life and aims to bring down as
many other men like him, as possible. Through the introduction of her story, Tatris
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ghost tells the narrator about the prayers and religious duties she fulfilled to get a good
husband. Even after he ignores her and does not care for her anymore, she prays that
he should have a long life, making offerings of tumba flower garlands and neivillakku
lit with ghee.
The biggest difference that Ganguli and Antarjanam have bought out is of the women
around these protagonists, and their attitude towards the predicament of the main
protagonists. While the villagers and women around Sanichari are sympathetic to her
cause and keep her company and advise her regularly, the women around Tatri,
including her family have shunned her and left her to her fate.
Sanichari quietly notes that she believed in the age old saying that a woman was a
womans biggest enemy; Bikhni rubbishes it saying they were all supported by women
around them. Whether it be in the whore quarters, where all women stand for each
other or the support that Bikhni and Sanichari lend out to the wronged women who are
forced to be prostitutes, this society is believed to be one where women helped each
other out in times of adversity, irrespective of their moral standing.
However, in the case of Tatri, not only do her mother and sister-in-law curse her, they
also prohibit her entry into the kitchen and curtail her freedom to move in the house as
well. To free herself from such chains and rules, she turns to prostitution. Her
argument being, if she were to be blamed of adultery and not being a good wife, then
it shouldnt be without reason. Hence, Tatri chose to be a courtesan to bring down all
the other men with her but acting as a beacon of hope for other Nambudiri women.
This, however, does not go well either, since the narrator of the story says that for all
other Nambudiri women, Tatris trial was just another prostitutes problem. But they
were bought to shame more and even reminded by other men because of her actions.
Hence Tatris society could be described as one where women reach out to each other
only in good times and expect every woman to be accepting of the virtuous life they
are to lead.
This could also to be attributed to the fact that these women come from different
castes. On one hand, the Nambudiri women were tied to one husband for life and
moved in strict purdah; on the other, Nair women could take any number of men for
husbands while lower castes of Nadar women werent even allowed to cover their
breasts as a part of caste recognition. Hence, in a similar structure, Sanichari could
freely roam and do as she pleases, while the Thakurain has to maintain certain order
and protocol when in public.
We can see that while both Ganguli and Antarjanam through their own mediums show
us the hardships faced by women, their outlook on the prognosis is pronouncedly
different. Antarjanams society is post 1905 India, maybe a decade later; while the one
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Ganguli re-creates a society that could be closer to the Independence struggle.

However both stories have a sense of recognisability with people even today.
Whether because of the cultural variations they might have experienced or a
purposeful mood infused in their stories - Mahasweta Devi's outlook is more or less an
optimistic and inspirational call to women. After all hardships, Sanichari succeeds and
brings about a change to her life if not anybody elses while probably doing a little
good for some of the kept women too.
Compare this to Antarjanam's Tatri, who gives us a sympathetic plea for a person who
did exist in history! Antarjanams story isnt inspiring, but leaves us the feeling, that
probably, a person cannot make a difference to history. After all their efforts and
whatever good they may have done, a persons mark on history is just a blip. In the
end, the narrator who convinces Tatri that she did nothing special to change the
condition of Nambudiri women like her (narrator), although Tatris individual efforts
were commendable.
Leaving us with the idea that, if Tatri were like Sanichari and thought for her welfare,
then probably things could be different. However, Tatris motivations are from the
hatred she feels while Sanicharis are for the basic need to survive. Hence, Sanichari
survives while Tatri doesnt.
As a study of a feminist perspective on women's lives in 20th Century India especially
with a Marxist influence on social property and equality, the stories serve as a starting
point of understanding women's issues. Sanicharis condition would be greatly
improved if she had as much access to resources as Lachman Singh had. There is great
inequality in the social status where one person can order hundred women around only
to put on display a basic human emotion while those women display the emotion for
economic benefits.
In Tatris case, the access to an equal society would ensure that she too would have
had as many rights and freedom as the women around her had. So that her dependency
on someone else for self sustenance ended. If Tatri and other women like her, had an
equal access to the same set of resources as the other members of the society, then
instead of ruining her life in a wrath that consumed her while she was alive, she
couldve lived for herself and not begged for the approval and validation of other
women around her.
In the end, the similarity of form, characters, yet absolutely contrasting moods tied up
with a satisfying ideas and representation of the society of the times; both Rudali and
Revenge Herself become complementary reads for the understanding of women of the
20th Century and their issues created by the social structure that are supposed to

emancipate its people in the first place. If Sanichari rises up in an ironical tale, Tatri is
crushed by betrayal and suffering from her own.

Bibliography:
1. Usha Ganguli, Rudali
2. Ed. Lakshmi Holmstrom, Lalitambika Antarjanam: Revenge Herself, The
Inner Courtyad Stories By Indian Women. Rupa Paperback & Co. 1997.
3. Ed. Suzie Tharu and K. Lalita, Women Writing in India: 600 B.C. to the
present. Page 488-490.
4. Meena Alexander, Outcaste Power: Ritual Displacement and Virile Maternity
in Indian Women Writers; Economic and Political Weekly February 18, 1989