Saluting Ashapurna Devi On Her Birth Centenary

Sorry......for being late in writing ....as I said earlier.....What I think, reality takes me just in the opposite direction....

I'm late in writing about one of the finest writers of my vernacular literature of the ages.....my favorite author...Ashapurna Devi
January 8, 2009 was her birthday... She turns 100...physically she is no more...but she still lives through her works.....her vibrant advocacy for empowerment of the marginalized.....an endless fight against the imbecile superstitions and malpractices in the name of religion...

Ashapurna was never taught in the established mode of education....she was majorly what is called self-taught. possessing a sensitive mind that she had......it was her pleasure to know people and learn their language ....that is what we get to see....as days changes,,,,her language molds itself,.........but she remains firm in her unflinching loyalty towards uplift of the women and other social issues...
it was early 20th century that ushered in Ashapurna...and quite understandably it was not absolutely free from the superstitions and thinking of the just past century. Not far from then were women made suttee burning her on her husband's pyre, child marriage, inhuman rules for the widows were followed....and her time was even not free from these evils......
even women were denied education.....even if they were allowed then household crafts....but not novels and classics...as women were thought to be intellectually weaker.
Ashapurna was up in arms against these practices.....her writings brings out the pathetic condition of the women.......and how women are used against women by patriarchy!!!.poor women, denied of education internalized what family patriarch taught them and for them even those women who dreamt of freedom and education were forces of evil....Ashapurna is most humane in picturing this day to day mundane routine of the women folk of the society.....and her might lies in her simplicity......we are forced to take notice and think...
She was pushed to the periphery by the mainstream writers during her time as being feminist writer...writing for women only.....and Ashapurna used that to her advantage and declared her tirade against the evils of the phallo-centric society and she gifted Bengali literature one of the most memorable trilogy Pratham Pratishruti--Subarnalata--Bakulkatha.

In Pratham pratishruti, Satyabati is none other than Ashapurna herself....we can never know Ashapurna if we cannot delve deep in to the character of Satyabati.....she is not merely the heroine of Pratham Pratishruti, she symbolizes the new aspirations of that time. It was the time of Second World War, and the fierce struggle that Indians fought for independence....and the nationalist movement in a large way brought indian women out from their private space into the public sphare....or at least showed them the way.....so a new hope, a new dream was there for the women....and this new women finds beaituful representation in Satyabati.....isn't she Indian Nora (ref Ibsen's A Doll's House) when she leaves her house to seek her own fortune when betrayed by her husband?
The promise of woman emancipation that was uttered by Satyabati in Pratham Pratishruti, was carried forward by her daughter Subarnalata in Subarnalata....and that finds a concrete shape in Bakul in Bakulkatha....or does she really finds?
she tries, she fights....but they r still subjugated....but Ashapurna could rise the question at least which down the ages have made the women more and more aware of their rights....and thus remains her contribution to Indian Feminist movement.....in a true way to woman empowerment....she has written more than 100 novels...and hundreds of short stories and her women, her marginalized characters all remains examples of the social injustice......there lies her greatness....she is very much one of us.....in the drawing room adda style she has shown where our fault lies.......its not only through feminist slogans and organizing seminars that i think will be enough to pay homage to this flame of justice....this great author whose pen sang the groly of the most inglorious people......lets internalize the world that Ashapurna dreamt of...and that way we can only salute her....