UNIT 4 TORU DUTT: ASSERTIONS OF INDIAN LIFE Structure Objectives Introduction The Dutt Family Album The Life Of Tom Dutt Tom Dutt's literajCareer Tom Dutt as the Earliest Indian English Woman Writer Let Us Sum Up ,Questions 4.0, OBJECTIVES In this unit we shall attempt a reading of the life and works of one of the earliest Indian English women writers - Toru Dutt. She was born into the Dutt family of Calcutta, f&ous even then for their literary accomplishments. The unit will also offer a comment on her literary importance amongst other Indian English Women Writers. 4.1 INTRODUCTION The Rambagan Dutt family were converts from Hinduism to Christianity. Toru - Dutt's father Govin Chunder Dutt was a good poet and a linguist who had published The Dutt Family Album (1 870), The Loyal Hours (1 876) and Cherly Stones (1 881) along with his brother Greece Chunder, while her mother Kshetramoni had translated The Blood of Christ £tom English to Bengali. Apart from her parents, even her uncles were prolific writers. Mention of their contributions will be made in the next section of this unit. 4.2 THE DUTT FAMILY ALBUM Around the middle of the nineteenth century, a Bengali family by the name of Dutt, residents of Rambagan, Calcutta, came into literary prominence by virtue of their published writings in English. The Dutts were an extremely kell - connected family within the top echelons of Calcutta socieiy. Nilmoni Dutt, Toru D(1tt7sgreat- grandfather, had belonged to a tiny group of English educated Indians in the eighteenth century, even as the East India Company consolidated its hold over Bengal. Along with Raja Rammohum Roy and others, Nilmoni Dutt befriended certain Chnstian missionaries from England who had arrived recently in India. One of these Christian missionaries was Father Carey who subsequently founded the Serampore College, an institution next only in importance to the historic Hindu College. The Hindu College influence impinged itself on the Dutts through the office held by Rasomoy, Nilmoni's eldest son. Rasomoy's eldest son, Govin, in turn, was a star pupil of Hindu College, who studied under the legendary Professor David Lester Richardson, a teacher too of Michael Madhusudan Dutt and a colleague of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio. Under the tutelage of Richardson, Govin Chunder Dutt Toru Dun: Assertions learnt to recite Shakespeare and to participate in theatrical performances at Hindu of Indian Life College. 1 Govin's younger brothers, Hur Chunder Dutt and Greece Chunder Dutt, were similarly brought into the ambit of English Studies. The fascination for English language and English literature which was a shared trait of all the Dutt brothers, each ;j(I of whom attempted to write in English as well, partly stemmed from a cultural milieu in which Bengali was not perceived as a classic language and English was regarded as the only authentic medium of self-expression for educated Indians. Writing in the wake of the writings of Raja Rammohum Roy, Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and Michael Madhusudan Dutt, the members of the Dutt family of Rambagan, Calcutta, felt that English was, by right, their most natural vehicle for expressing themselves. Apart from the sons of Rasomoy Dutt, their cousins, Shoshee Chunder Dutt and Ishaan Chunder Dutt were avid writers in English. Of them all, Shoshee Chunder perhaps had the most impressive array of productions in prose and verse ranging from Mzscellaneous Verses (1 848) to Bengaliana, A Dish of Rice and Curry and Other Indigestible Ingredients (1892). One of his most significant productions was A Vision of Sumeru, in A Vision of Sumeru and Other Poems (1 878) the spirit of Jesus is . shown to overcome the pantheon of Hindu gods, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and others. In another production, Realities of Indiafi Life, or Stories Collectedfrom the Criminal Reports of India, to Illustrate the Life, Manners, and Customs of its People, the dominant perspective is again that of the western colonial gaze looking down upon the Eastern colonised subject; with an attitude of disdain mixed with disgust. The same attitude, more or less, may be discerned in the Essay and Poems (1872) published by his brother Ishaan Chunder. In the writings of Govin Chunder, Hur Chunder, Greece Chunder, Rasomoy's sons, there is likewise not only a complete dependence on English cultural models, notably the Romantic writers, in matters of form, but in matters of content also there is a debasing exhibition of servility towards the English political masters of India. The most extreme example of the Dutts' devoted Anglophile nature is of course the book brought out by Greece Chunder in celebration of the visits to India in 1869 and 1875 respectively of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh, The Loyal Hours: Poems Welcoming the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh on their Advent to India in 1869 and 1875. The patriotic passion of this panegyric is over- shadowed by the loud loyalism of a shorter text by Greece Chunder, To Lord Canning, During the Mutzny: Though a thousand pens condemned thee, mine still should wrzte thy praise ; Though a thousand tongues reviled thee Mine still should paeans raise; For factious clamours heed~ngnot, That only call for blood, True to thy duty and thy race, Lord Canning, thou hast stood. It is not for her trampledjlag, That England bares her sword; It is not for just revenge Upon a murderous horde; It is to prove to blood-stained men, Self-blinded of their sight, That evil hath no chance with good or darkness with the light. Greece Chunder and his brother Govin Chunder Dutt published two volumes of poetry, Cherry Stones (1881) and Cherry Blossoms (1889). Hur Chunder also published Fugitive Pieces (1851) and Lotus Leaves Or Poems Chiefly On Ancient I Indian Subjects (1871). The preoccupation with Ancient Indian history was a Beginnings of Indian common feature in the writings of the Dutt siblings and in keeping with much of the English Writing writing in Bengal in the nineteenth century as a whole. The eldest of the Dutt brothers, Govin Chunder, himself published only one volume of poetry, but played a crucial role in integrating these poems along with others written by his brothers and his nephew Omesh Chunder Dutt in the Dutt Family Album (1 870). The Dutt Family Album comprises an assortment of poetic genres - lyrics, sonnets, ballads, narrative poems and even translations of French and German poetry. The authorship of individual poems in the Album is not revealed and the Album is presented to readers as a corporate family venture, though without any obvious sequence or structure. The importance of the Dutt Family Album in the history of Indian English writings is, as Theodore Dunn remarked long ago, that it remains: A memorial of a gifted family, and ... a testimony to the influence of those English teachers who were thejrst to encourage higher learning in the city of Calcutta. Let us now examine Toru Dutt's life in some detail. 4.3 THE LIFE OF TORU DUTT Toru Dutt was the;oungest of the three children born to Govin Chunder Dutt and Kshetramoni on March 4, 1856. As mentioned earlier they were converts to Christianity and the family were baptised in the Chnst Church, Cornwallis Square, Calcutta, in 1862. The oldest among the three children was Abju (the son) followed by a daughter Aru and then the youngest was Toru. Private tutors taught the three children at home and the little Dutt girls even had an English Governess who taught Aru and Toru how to sing and to play the pianoforte. This small and happy family life was to be disrupted rather suddenly by the death of Abju (1851- 1865) at the tender age of fourteen years. Though broken -hearted and deeply grieved by the death of his first-born, Govin Chunder Dutt never lost faith in God. It was this same faith that was to sustain his wife and daughter Toru, when tragedy struck the Dutt household once again in later years. After the death of Abju the Dutts' spent four more years in Calcutta shuttling between their two houses in Ram Bagan and Baugmaree. Finally, in 1869 Govin Chunder Dutt made up his mlnd to move away from the city that caused him and his family so much pain. Moreover being an enthusiastic admirer of the western way of life, of education and culture, he was determined to give his surviving children (Aru and Toru) the advantages of foreign travel and education. The family set sail for France in 1869. Aru and Toru were then mere children and the first Bengali grls to cross the seven seas and to sail abroad. They landed at Marseilles and set off for Nice where Aru and Toru attended school at a pensionate in which they studied French and were to become proficient in the language. Both the impressionable young girls were fascinated by the French way of life and by the intellectual currents of French enlightenment. From Nice, they w6nt on to Paris, the cultural hub of France and then onto Boulougne in Italy before their final destination - England. But England never grew upon Toru's heart in the way that France had done. She wrotC in her journal dated 29 and 30' January 1871: During the fav days we remained in Paris, how beautiful it was! What streets! What a magnificent army! But now how fallen it is! It was the first amongst the cities and now what misery it contains! Toru Dutt attributed the degeneration of France to its divorce from God: Oh France, how art thou brought low! Mayest thou, afier this humiliation, serve and worship God better than thou hast done in these days..