Book Review: Pastoral, prejudiced

A century and a half separates us from the historical timeline of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s last novel about village life in the rural Jessore district, although its action begins in 1863, a few decades prior to the author’s birth. Restless Waters of the Ichhamati, which won the author a Rabindra Puruskar posthumously, contains two broad concerns that recur in his oeuvre: an interest in how spirituality translates into everyday life alongside abstract meditations on the role of the temporary and the permanent, as well as intimately-mounted deliberations about the inferior status of women in society and the powerplay between colonial, casteist and minority structures.

Bandyopadhyay, considered one of the leading writers of modern Bengali literature, authored 17 novels, seven travel diaries, and over 200 short stories; many of his works remain unpublished. He is most popularly known for his autobiographical novel Pather Panchali. This was later adapted along with its sequel Aparajito by Satyajit Ray in the Apu Trilogy of films that are often listed among the greatest Indian contributions to the world cinema. 

While some of Bandyopadhyay’s novels like Pather Panchali, Adarsha Hindu Hotel and others are set in the city of Bongaon, Restless Waters of the Ichhamati is set in rural undivided Bengal and comes alive for its depiction of local characters. 

However, for all its scenic settings and tender illustrations of people who seem to epitomise good natured neighbourliness, Bandyopadhyay’s vision of contemporary rural Bengal is not idyllic, he also balances it with a stark appraisal of the prejudiced and restrictive nature of village life, and maintains a delicate ear that replays all kinds of social ironies. So, a woman named Gaya who has lost her “caste” on account of her association with the British saheb tries to revive a starving and ill Vedic doctor, Kobiraj, who, it just so happens, has been brought to this stage by the same saheb’s cronies who want him to give false testimony in a case involving indigo plantation violence. Except, Kobiraj cannot accept the sustenance without Gaya coming up with a theological loophole, because of the gulf between their statuses as Hindus. Even Bhabani, who is the closest we come to a hero-householder whose ambit personifies domestic bliss and a policy of renunciation and nobility, is not without taint. He has three wives in tow, the women he “saved” from spinsterhood, is living on the “five bighas of the brahmottar land” that are exempt from taxes and represent a dowry gift of the most corrupt character in the novel, Rajaram. 

Bhabani is considered both insider and outsider by the villagers. He is a kulin brahmin protagonist from another region, who we are first introduced to, by hearsay, as an “eligible man”. His act of polygamy is preferable to kulin girls marrying down in caste, or remaining unwed. 

Bhabani as a marriage prospect is eminently desirable, as his uncle advises the guardian of the three sisters, in a pitch-perfect reflection of the unselfconscious naturalness of the world of the caste system and patriarchy for the speaker. “You go ahead with the marriage without any qualms…. They are from a family of baruri brahmans from Katad Bandhigati; a break in their kulin lineage only in one generation. I’ll have the matchmaker recite the entire family genealogy for you. Real-to-goodness kulins they are every one knows them… (he is) close to 50 I would say. But then your sisters aren’t young either. If Bhabani hadn’t turned sansyasi he would have fathered seven sons by now. Have a look at him first — you’ll find him by the river every evening absorbed in his meditation for an hour or so, and then wandering around at will. Impressive build the biceps on his arms are quite something!”

Over time, the narrative filters down through Bhabani who provides the sharpest critique on his own avaricious brahman caste as an idle landowner whose life revolves around smoking and gossiping 

in the same chandimandap or square that his marriage was fixed in. The first chapter of the novel is a near-perfect part of the whole: it strikes an opening note on themes that are developed through the course of the novel the caste and culturally-dictated marriage of Bhabani and the three sisters, the worries of young Nalu Pal, a penniless but an up and coming modern trader, and the simmering build-up of dramatic events that would lead to the violence of the Indigo Revolt. 

Bandyopadhyay’s approach to women is striking for both, its sentimentality and its appraisal of the difficulties they face a ferocious, murderous bandit Hala bows to the virtue of Tilu and her innocent son, and she is the epitome of a mother goddess who is capable of saving her husband’s life when necessary. 

Other fiercer goddesses also make their presence felt like the pilgrim guide Kumudini, the sanyasani Chaitanyabharati, Gaya or Nistarani. 

On the other hand, Bhabani is continually aware of the circumscribed limits and frustrations of village women’s lives outside of their mythological and domestic deification. 

This is Rimli Bhattacharya’s third translation of a Bandyopadhyay novel; it is an evocatively and sensitively handled interpretation. 

The prose maintains its regional charm and lilt with enough local terms thrown in without distracting explanation, and there is verve and subtle hilarity in Bhattacharya’s handling of the terrifying Burra Sahib and his lisping Bengali translated back into English to read as a comedy of errors. “Answer! Cried the saheb. The loath belongs to which individual?... I know…all hite when they see me…” 

This is a novel that suggests a writer cut-off in his prime, whose voice reflects a forgotten India with a Chekovian naturalness and sympathy for the individual voices of the populace,

adheres to the outlines of history. It addresses broad themes setting up myriad vignettes that show the currents and intermingling of rural life in a way that suspends authorial judgement even as it invites the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.

Karishma Attari is author of  I See You, and Don’t Look Down, and runs Shakespeare for Dummies workshops. Twitter: @karishmawrites