BOOK REVIEW Love, Bengal-Style Bengal Nights It Does Not Die The University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press 1994; $ 22.50 1994; $ 22.50

Review: Sarbani Sarkar

philosophy with her father, with the sisters became a discovery .S. BYATT, in Possession, has Surendranath Dasgupta, an erudite which Mircea could not lose. written that we live in a time scholar and historian of reli- A “But the tree,” interrupted Chabu, which is theoretically knowing; we gion. And so began his long journey “What did the tree say?” know about linguistic sexuality: in religious anthropology which I was at a loss to answer and said analysis, dissection, deconstruction, would culminate decades later into to myself: pantheism! exposure, phallocracy, clitoral tumes- several learned volumes on images, cence, polymorphous and polysemous symbols, myths, and the history of “She asks if her tree has a soul. I perversity, the fluids, the solids, the religion. What followed was une told her all trees have souls.” systems of desire and damage, the ico- affaire de passion, but Dasgupta’s “She has a tree?” nography of the cervix, and the im- patriarchal blood erupted upon dis- “It’s not a tree exactly. It’s a shrub agery of the contracting and expand- covering the amorous liaison between in the courtyard...... ” ing body. And we mistrust love. Ro- his shishya and his beloved daughter, I repeated happily to myself: pan- mantic love can be viewed as “a sus- and the romance ended abruptly and theism, pantheism! What rare pect ideological construct” which tragically. What remains of this cel- documents I had before me! controls us, so when we have to try ebrated affair are two testimonials of Bengal Nights and understand lovers who occupied love - one an impassioned confession, a time and space different from ours, the other a melancholic protestation, Mircea immediately departed to “we have to make a real effort of a righteous corrective; a remarkable his room to scribble excitedly in his imagination to know what it felt like bracing of books, one incomplete journal: “First discussion with to be them.” Though we know we without the other. Maitreyi. The primitive nature of her are driven by desire we cannot quite thinking to be noted. A child who has The young Mircea who arrived at bring ourselves to see it as they did; read too much...... A revelation : the Bhowanipur house was twenty and when “they” happen to be a Ru- Chabu is a pantheistic soul. She makes three years old, patronizing, a trifle manian anthropologist and a Bengali no distinction between her own feel- arrogant, racist, and filled with a pre- litterateur whose lives intertwine sumptuous sense of having awed and ings and those of inanimate objects hopelessly in a colonial, very snob- gratified the Dasgupta household with ...... Very interesting.” Maitreyi her- bish and very Victorian Calcutta, his superior civilized presence and his self writes that Mircea was “always one’s task becomes that much more divinely given “whiteness.” At first searching for inner meanings”, grop- difficult. Maitreyi was distanced as an object, ing for symbolic significance behind Mircea Eliade and Maitreyi studied with an almost Cartesian gaze. every word and action which were of Dasgupta met and fell in love quite Moments spent with Maitreyi and course documented faithfully in his disastrously in the summer of 1930. Chabu (her younger sister) appear to daily journal. She told him, “At first I Mircea came to reside in Maitreyi’s be deliberate ethnographic encoun- loved a tree ..... will not the ground home to study the scriptures and ters. An evening of storytelling spent below you, write down the story of

No. 86 37 love between a girl and a tree?” Upon to change the name of his heroine such a declaration the young student from Maitreyi to Gayatri and erase the from Bucharest was disturbed and sexually explicit scenes from the film. taken aback and quickly resolved his Being a Hindu, Maitreyi obviously did discomfort by treating it as yet another not share Mircea’s Christian compul- example of pantheism, but Maitreyi sion to confess, to admit, to make was saddened. “He could not believe known, to come to terms with one’s that this was no ‘ism’ but just soaring self by salving the conscience. poetic fancy.” Hepworth and Turner, quoting An- thony Trollope, have said that men At sixteen, Maitreyi was a budding and women who desist from confess- poet, her first book already published ing are viewed with “a disagreeable with an introduction by Rabindranath suspicion.” Hepworth and Turner have Tagore. To Mircea she was a coquette; further said, that in romantic confes- vain, precocious, pampered, and sional literature, platonic affection clearly did not merit the intellectual indicates “respect for the person rather admiration she commanded from her than mere sexual attraction to the father and the lettered of Calcutta. In body as a sexual object.” But perhaps fact Bengal Nights exhibits a veiled, Maitreyi was merely trying to protect implicit intellectual disrespect not her right to privacy, zealously guard- only towards Surendranath Dasgupta ing her most sacred, most intimate but towards the Bengali literati in gen- domain, the innermost realm of her eral that he encountered during his seductress, a sensuous siren, being which no man could violate. stay in the Dasgupta household - a provocating and inviting him to ex- disrespect more glaring and eloquent plore the promising delights of her Maitreyi had also objected to the in the silences, in the gaps between nubile body, which he did apparently, open association of her name with that the syntagmas. “For a long time, I night after night in the dark precincts of the Tagores, although readers of It of the Bhowanipur house. flattered myself by thinking of our re- Does Not Die would be only too fa- lationship as that of civilized man and Maitreyi has objected loudly, de- miliar with her unabashed expressions barbarian,” an unfathomable, elusive nying vehemently, those nights of of affection for the poet. “Do not leave barbarian. This was compounded by passion, first in Na Hanyate (the origi- me, master, come back to my heart. I the fact that despite herself, Maitreyi nal Bengali of It Does Not Die, pub- have nothing else in my life - I never was drawn irresistibly towards his lished in 1972, 20 years after the had. Covering my past, present and fairness. With “envy and melancholy” French translation of Maitreyi) and future, your presence is a constant her gaze would wander and rest for a then again, in 1987, when she filed a festival.” As she told Mircea many few moments on his partly uncovered stay order against producer Phillippe arm, on his feet “white as alabaster”, times, despite his outraged jealousy, Diaz and director Nicholas Klotz to “my sky blooms stars at night, and amusing and enchanting Mircea with stop the production of the French film, forests blossom flowers in the morn- her jealousy. More than once, she has Les Nuits Bengali, which she claimed ing, because he is there”. Through- sat by him and reflected, “I also would sullied her name and made her life out her conversations with Mircea, she like to be white. Is it possible, do you profane. Facticity seemed to bother seems to have allowed herself a rare think?” her less at old age. She wrote in an candour in It Does Not Die about her Yet he was intrigued and smitten. article in 1988: “Books that achieve not so conventional emotions towards For him, Maitreyi was an enigma, literary success cannot only be a bare the greatest icon of Bengal. This non- beautiful, like a startled bird, a “crea- account of facts, they are mostly a ture of movements as supple as silk mixture of facts and imagination...” conformism which is bounded and re- ...... whose musical voice continu- and she firmly held all books were not strained in Maungpute Rabindranath, ally invented new harmonies, new meant for filming. For “any literature a book crisp and tight unlike the sen- pitches.” As he fell in love with her, impregnated with some deep idea will sual languor and repetitiveness of a the primitive child in the eyes of the not bear an audiovisual expression.” more sentimental, Rabindrik, Na Orientalist metamorphosed into the Director Nicholas Klotz was forced Hanyate.

38 MANUSHI It Does Not Die is Maitreyi’s soul wanted to embrace Hinduism. “Is it has written, even if it were so, he on wings, her liberated self, rippling possible that he thinks father will eas- would not be eligible - he would have with poetry and laughter, revealing a ily agree if he becomes a Hindu?” to be of the same caste but of a differ- world mosaiced with literature, where Mircea apparently had no doubts in ent clan, for if the clan was the same Mircea and Maitreyi find love and his mind. In the beginning he thought “it would mean that probably many romance between the pages of Hearne his hosts were conspiring to marry thousands of years ago they were of and Hamsun, Goethe and Conrad, him off to Maitreyi with obvious at- the same parents so it would be in- Swinburne and Whitman, Kalidasa tempts to bind them in friendship. “It cest if they married lawfully. He can- and Tagore. It gives glimpses of a was as though a plot was being not get into the heart of all this com- changing world, a patriarchal, tradi- hatched against me: I was meant to plexity, though he constantly enquires tional, yet educated Anglophile, fall in love with Maitreyi ...... that about our customs and social injunc- , desperately seeking the was why we were always left alone tions. He does not know how much rational; a world inhabited by Mantu, together.” His revulsion against such our family is bound by these irratio- Lilu, Shanti, Khoka, Tagore, Uday, machinations disappeared once he did nal rules.” Mircea was allowed such Shankar, Russian magicians and lit- fall in love with her, but the fear of intimate proximity as he was en- erary soirees. It was a time of shifting the matrimonial trap pursued him for sconced in the bosom of the family sexual moralities. Maitreyi writes, a long time. Marrying Maitreyi im- like a son - and to Maitreyi, in the “We hesitated to talk to men ...... it plied the embracing of a life bereft of eyes of the trusting Dasguptas, like was not that I did not want to talk and freedom and bounded by rules, but his an adopted brother. Maitreyi bound I was certain the other party was dy- fear melted once his passion, which their relationship in secrecy, for as ing to — then why didn’t we ? No he thought to be insignificant, and long as “no one suspected their rela- one stopped us. Yet we could not.” In sheer fantasy became “a blossoming tionship”, like that of Aradhana and upper-middle class families, she con- of the senses ...... beyond sensual- Soumen, they were safe. It was love, tinues, sex remained completely hid- ity”, suffusing him in an elysian bliss, Bengal-style. den. “Nobody talked about it ...... we “carrying (him) far away, to an un- In the ultimate analysis, it was the never saw any expression of sex ...... known and unearthly region of (his) anthropologist who failed, misreading we never saw men and women hold soul” which was “a state of pure “other” cultures through wrong in- hands. We could guess, a little indi- grace”. All that remained was a con- dexes. Or perhaps it was simply the rectly, about the existence of an un- version to Hinduism. But as Maitreyi tragedy of love. On September 18, seen, hidden world.” From the veil of 1930, Surendranath Dasgupta threw this world, Dasgupta attempted to Mircea out of his Bhowanipur house. bring his daughter out: like Aradhana What followed was an indescribable and Shanti, whose stories she re- period of agony and estrangement, counts, Maitreyi was the chrysalis in sickness and misery. There were in- the metastatis of a civilization. tercepted letters and uncommunicated Could Mircea’s anthropological messages, desperate gropings which eyes see and comprehend this uni- failed to connect. Both waited for the verse, marked by so many shadowy other, both miscued, fate played un- presences, so many ephemeral fair, so they lost each other forever changelings in a society’s transforma- on the shores of life. tive process? Maitreyi claims not. She Matreyi eventually married - a laments insistently, “Poor fellow, he stable, steady, married life with a did not understand our society, our chemist; a life oppressed by loneli- faith and our customs, in spite of his ness. Sadly, she writes that she and study.” Even at 73 years of age, she her husband inhabited different uni- has written that he was imposing his verses. “We sit together in the veran- own impressions which were full of dah, I try to open up a conversation, misconceptions upon an unknown just one or two words trickle out, and country and an unknown civilization. then they get lost in the desert land of He wore a dhoti every afternoon; he silence. In which language shall we

No. 86 39 speak? We use different languages.” that which is unanchored, formless, References Unlike Byatt’s Christabel LaMotte, infinite; it is entitled It Does Not Die, 1. Byatt, A.S., Possession, (Vintage; U.K.; who though unmarried and engaged the unborn, eternal, everlasting, pri- 1991). in an illicit and impossible love, never meval Love which does not perish 2. Devi, Maitreyi, Na Hanyate, (Prima felt lonely after meeting Randolph when the body dies. In 1972, 42 years Publication; Calcutta; 1993). Henry Ash, Maitreyi was alone nearly after the fated parting, Maitreyi 3. Devi, Maitreyi, Mongpute Rabindranath, every day of her life, for once be- briefly met Mircea in the University (Prima Publications; Calcutta; 1993). trayed, Mircea was vanquished from of Chicago’s School of Divinity. She 4. Devi, Maitreyi, Night Without End, The Statesman, 12th December, 1988. her now enclosed mind as an illusion said she had come to meet Him whom created by the moon’s deceptive light. 5. Eliade, Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal weapon cannot pierce, fire cannot Return, (Arkana; U.K.; 1989). burn, and he answered, “Na hanyate F. Gonzalez-Crussi has written that 6. Gonzalez-Crussi, F., On the Nature of Things nobody is “so pure or so wise as never hanyamane sharire (it does not die Erotic (Harcourt, Brace, Janovitch; Orlando; to have needed the simple, private when the body dies)”. He promised 1988). codes by which lovers communicate her that she would meet his real Self 7. Hepworth, Mike, and, Turner, Bryan S., the thoughts that they deem exclu- on the shores of the Ganga in a mytho- Confession - Studies in Deviance and sively their own,” for “love is the su- logical time which returns eternally Religion, (Routledge and Kegan Paul; London; 1982). preme lexicographer and the foremost to regenerate itself. “(Concrete) time 8. The Illustrated Weekly of , 3rd January, nonverbal communicator”. Mircea does not exist (and) where it becomes 1988. and Maitreyi’s books are encoded se- perceptible - because of man’s sins 9. Jugantar, 12th December, 1987...... time can be annulled.” And so crets of two lovers written only for 10. Paribartan, 30th December, 1987. they would live forever eternally in each other, in the one way they knew 11. Stevenson, Robert Louis, On Falling in Love - to explain and to “make-up”. an “atemporal present”. (Eliade, in Virginibus Puerisque, (T.Nelson & Sons; Maitreyi’s book is dedicated to Time, 1989) U.K.; 1881)

ARMADA, a Valley Rises, is a FILM REVIEW Nlong, highly evocative film that surfaced in Delhi this year at a series Narmada, a Valley Rises of screenings and was instantly ac- claimed. It is a film by the converted Director: Ali Kazimi for the converted, and succeeds effort- Running time: 87 minutes lessly as such. It is also a film made primarily for a foreign audience by Canada 1995 an Indian domiciled in Canada. Review : Sevanti Ninan We have not seen anything like this before because it is a documen- tary structured as “an anatomy of po- culminate at the dam site in Gujarat. l994, due to lack of funds, and should litical organising”, as it has been ac- Ali Kazimi, who is the film’s direc- logically have been quite outdated by curately described in its publicity tor, producer, writer, and cinematog- then. But by giving it a dramatic struc- folder. It takes one specific incident rapher, bills it as a “latter-day Salt ture, Kazimi sets the stage, builds up in the course of this dogged ten-year- March”. At the beginning of the film, the struggle to a flash point, and then old anti-dam campaign, hypes it up, Kazimi says that “the marchers know provides the denouement; it is certain and then films it as a case study with they are following in the footsteps of that this film will be viewed as an in- a charismatic cast of characters. Gandhi.” spirational case study for some time to come, regardless of what happens The documentary centres on the Such elevating comparisons occur to the Narmada Bacchao Andolan. December l990 march of farmers and off and on throughout the film. The tribal people led by Medha Patkar and 1990 march is no ordinary protest, he At 87 minutes, it is a rather long Baba Amte. The march originated in stresses, it is historic. Though shot in film. It dwells on the people, both Madhya Pradesh and was designed to l990, the film was not completed until ordinary and extraordinary, who have

40 MANUSHI mounted such a sustained, and there- fore heroic, opposition to a govern- ment project. The film is peppered with quotes from men and women who are undertaking the march. We are told that there are 3,000 march- ers, and after they have been joined by other marchers, we are told that there are 6,000; visually, the camera never conveys anything depicting these numbers. Narmada, a Valley Rises is a mar- vellous example of how to bring alive a popular struggle. It captures the or- dinary moments--when people are just resting or chatting--as evocatively as the tension-charged ones - when the marchers have reached the Gujarat During the last few years, reams allow resources to be squandered in border and come up against an orches- of newsprint have been expended on this fashion. Would progress come to trated opposition. It is a film made by the issue, and several films made on the country by stopping the dam or a man who is unequivocally taking this conflict between those to be building it, Singh asks rhetorically. sides, and thus his commentary on the displaced by the Sardar Sarovar dam, moves of the pro-dam lobby ranged and the government of Gujarat. This I only recall this film to make the on the border with police acquies- reviewer has seen two other films: point that the Narmada Dam, and the cence is sardonic. The camera work Manibeli, also a documentary made numerous questions about develop- has immediacy--it is there right in the by people at Cendit, and Nalini ment that it poses, should have by now middle of the conflict, in the midst of Singh’s documentary for merited a dispassionate examination the scuffling with the police, alternat- Doordarshan, Jis Desh Mein Narmada on film — perhaps a documentary se- ing from one camp to another. It cap- Beheti Hai, shown in l993. ries of two or three parts; preferably tures the machinations of the pro-dam in a series that can see beyond Patkar lobby, which is personified by the The first is a straight activist film. as its focus, and beyond the arguments Gujarat Chamber of Commerce, a It is was about a village that would of the Gujarat government and the be submerged when the dam waters lobby which busses in paid villagers Chamber of Commerce, and answer rose, and predictably, paints the dam’s to this border site, and keeps them many questions. Will the waters re- construction as unmitigated villainy. supplied with food. It captures Patkar ally take four years to reach the thirsty Singh’s film goes about its own and her lieutenants planning strategies villages of the North? Will they re- agenda more subtly: it scrupulously and counter moves. It is an unhurried ally end up in the sugarcane fields of case study, but nevertheless one which poses arguments and counter-argu- ments, throws in a lot of statistics, and Central Gujarat? Do the thirsty vil- never becomes boring. allows oustees their say about the kind lages in the north also think so? Who So what does the film accomplish? of rehabilitation they are being fobbed are these people? What is their plight Indisputably, sympathy for the cause off with. It conveys the extremism of really like? And conversely, if the dam it espouses, a further canonisation of the activists through their own words, project really were stopped, would the Patkar, something of an over- just as Ali Kazimi lampoons the pro- waste signified by it be as criminal as romanticisation of the life led by the dam lobby through its own words. it is being made out to be? Bhils and the Bhilalas in the Narmada Singh’s film concludes with the A cause celebre is an emotive sub- valley, and an unequivocal condem- economic argument that Rs 2,500 ject for a film. But, logically, getting nation of the “greed” of the other side, crore has already been spent on the at the truth and at viable alternatives which wants the waters of the dam (until that point of time), Rs six to extreme positions should be as Narmada for Central and Northern crore is being wasted every day, and compelling an exercise, if only some- Gujarat. that no country in the world should body would undertake it. No. 86 41