Articles & Essays   Book Reviews

Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

 

Volume 17 Number 3, December 2016 ___________________________________________________________________

Reinventing the Intimate Voices: A Close Reading of Indian Women’s Autobiography in English

by

Priyanka Tripathi

IIT, Patna

Autobiografiction is ‘real’ autobiographical experience (the ‘spiritual experiences’) turned into fictional form. But it isn’t just the form that is fictionalized, but the autobiographical experience itself; either because it has been altered, or because it has been attributed to someone else; reinvented as another’s imaginary experience.

Stephen Reynolds, Autobiografiction

 

Creative imagination is a writers’ sheer privilege to construct a world of their own making, their own permutations and combinations to suit their liking as well as the likings of their reader. Contrary to the kind of events we are bound to follow in our normal course of life, writers have the advantage of escaping from the reality, whether good or bad. They have the ability to deconstruct it and then to reconstruct it to suit their emotional and intellectual set up. While exploring the genre of autobiography written especially by Indian women in English, this study came across several revisions or rather additions to the type of autobiographies written and the debates and discussions associated with them. Autofiction, Faction, Hagiography, Autobiografiction etc. are some of the recent trends that have touched upon the conventional genre of analysing an autobiography. These autobiographies primarily reflect their isolation, involvement and identity issues.

 

This article particularly deals with two very prominent autobiographies written in English by Indian women writers, Kamala Das’s My Story and Shobha De’s Selective Memory: Stories of My Life. These writers in their autobiographies have violated the parameters of the canonical autobiography and created testimonies of gender, caste, class and religion, providing the reader with an alternative source of history.  Narrated in the first person, their autobiographies deal mainly with the self vis-à-vis family, society and politics, however, never loosing the primary focus of communicating the subordinated predicament, oppression, suppression and struggle for emancipation. Generally, based on memory and experience, they have tried to reproduce the cultural modes of self narrating and simultaneously countering their devalued position in the patriarchal Indian set up.

 

Before proceeding further, it is important to briefly introduce the authors and their autobiographies. A bilingual (Malayalam[1] and English) writer, Kamala Das is also known as Kamala Surayya and Madhavikutty. Whether it is her poems, short stories or novels, they are based on the theme of love, romance, infidelity, marriage etc. Apart from My Story, The Sirens, Summer in Calcutta, The Old Playhouse and Other Poems, Alphabet of Lust and her other writings have not only won her recognition but also awards. My Story was published in the year 1988 by Sterling Publishers. The book has been published by Harper Collins India since 2009. A Hindi translation titled Meri Kahaani is being published by Hind Pocket Books. However, it was first published in a serialized form in the now defunct literary magazine called Malayalanadu weekly published by S.K. Nair in the year 1973. The autobiography was originally written in Malayalam and was titled Enthe Katha. The publication of this autobiography by Kamala Das created a literary sensation and attracted a great deal of furious outrage from her relatives and especially, her father, V. M Nair, who was then the managing director of the Mathrubhumi group. He had asked V. B. C. Nair, the Editor of Malayalanadu to suspend its publication but he couldn’t. He recalls, “Despite pressure from her influential relatives to stop the publication of the work, Kamala remained bold and it proved a roaring hit boosting the circulation of the weekly by 50,000 copies within a fortnight.”[1] The Malayalam edition has 27 chapters and the English translation has 50 chapters. In 2009 edition of Kamala Das’s My Story K. Satchidanandan in his introduction to the author and the autobiography entitled, “Relocating My Story” writes, “I cannot think of any other Indian autobiography that so honestly captures a woman’s inner life in all its sad solitude, its desperate longing for real love and its desire for transcendence, its tumult of colours and its turbulent poetry.”[2]

 

Born as Shobha Rajdhyaksha to the Saraswat Brahmin family in 1947, Shobha De is a writer, model, editor, columnist and script writer. She has written several novels, such as, Socialite Evenings, Starry Nights, Strange Obsessions, Sultry Days etc.  A candid confession of the events, people and places in her life, Selective Memory: Stories from my Life is Shobha De’s autobiography. The book was published in 1998 by Penguins Book India Pvt. Ltd. She received rave reviews for her signature style of openly capturing the essence of her interesting course of life. It is equally amazing to note the way in which she frankly reveals her true self behind being a public figure. She writes with an utmost clarity about the kind of choices-right or wrong, decisions she took and the influences that formed her sense and sensibilities.

 

Both these autobiographies are creative exercises in self exposure. Because of the space of light and the slant of vision, they are both controlled by the autobiographer; there remains a sense of autobiographical empowerment, that is, the idea of writing as a means of regaining control over one’s life. Octavio Paz aptly writes, “A human being is never what he is, but the self he seeks.”[3] This dichotomy led many to believe that it is difficult to distinguish between fiction and autobiography because both of them are narrative constructs. Therefore, a new term ‘Autobiografiction’ has been popularized by Stephen Reynolds. He came across this particular term at Goldsmiths’ College at a comparative literature conference. He writes that he was uneasy about using the term and its variants, however, he reconciled to its use when Laura Marcus suggested that auto/biographical writing appeared to attract a high degree of neologism.[4]This  is highly debatable situation because it hinders the creative imagination of the writer. According to the autobiographer, he/she is free to choose the events that suit his narrative or the narrative effect of his writing. Defining the major outlines of Autobiografiction, Reynolds writes, “Where the three converging lines – autobiography, fiction and the essay – meet, at that point lies Autobiografiction.”[5]

 

Both the writers wrote their autobiography on the persuasion of others. My Story by Kamala Das found its way when Kamala Das was hospitalized. The doctor advised her to write as he thought that writing would distract her mind from the fear of dying and would fetch her some money as well. However, Kamala Das writes that she had never obtained such gratification in the writing of any other book that she attained while she was writing My Story. According to her, “I have written several books in my lifetime, but none of them provided the pleasure, the writing of My Story has given me...I have nothing more to say I wanted to empty myself of all the secrets so that I could depart when the time came, with a scrubbed out conscience....”[6] Therefore, something that was initially thought of as an attempt to come to terms with the pains of her life became a kind of cathartic experience, finally proving as a catalyst to the process of self-rejuvenation. Shobha De’s autobiography, Selective Memory: Stories of My Life was written on persuasion of David Davidar of Penguins Book India Pvt. Ltd. According to him, she was nearing the age of fifty and it was essentially the time for ‘stock-taking’ and ‘flashback’.

 

The attitude of these women writers towards life is general and particularly to their writing is quite bohemian and therefore they have chosen issues/events/concerns in such a way that the entire discourse of autobiography has been a revolt against the pre-established prototypes and their narrative construct, a way of realizing their subjectivity. In her prologue to Selective Memory Shobha De writes about how the entire process of writing her autobiography has been a kind of a mental make over. This is true for Das too who took up writing as a vengeance to combat the conventional norms of the contemporary society. De writes,

 

If nothing else, Selective Memory aided and abetted the transformation. Kick-started the process, as it were. Forced me to glance over my shoulder. Look back, sift, discard, reinforce, assess, re-assess, come to terms, recognize, accept – above all, accept.  It was not easy. Not easy at all. But having endured the experience, I feel that much stronger. It wasn’t as painful as I’d imagined. I didn’t ‘suffer’. It’s the exhilaration of forced remembering that I’ll cherish. In my preoccupation with the present I’d lost touch with my past. The book served as an excuse, an alibi and a prod. There was no escape. The makeover isn’t over yet. (Selective Memory: Stories from my Life, 11)

 

It is interesting to note that they have more or less chosen to write on the same subject. Overall, their writing is intrepid and self-assertive. Theyboth  -- are conscious of their feminine identity and they are ready to vindicate it against patriarchal supremacy. They have tried to use memory as a matter and medium to construct their selfhood in an otherwise deep rooted patriarchal India. However, critical researches on both these autobiographies corroborate Reynolds’s argument which claims to have the put of the fictional constructs in a non fictional portrayal of a writer’s life.

 

Both the writers write about their childhood experiences  in detail. My Story’s initial- chapters titled, “Rule Britannia”, “The Bougainvillea”, “Park Street Home”, “The Nalapat House” and “The Village School” describe her life as a child. According to her she did not face much gender discrimination, owing to the Gandhinian ethos that the family had adopted. But she does mention that, “We must have disappointed our parents a great deal. They did not tell us so, but in every gesture and in every word it was evident (My Story, 5)”. She also writes about how her grandmother was extremely worried about the colour of her skin. She writes,

 

My grandmother was worried about the duskiness of my skin and rubbed raw turmeric on Tuesdays and Fridays all over my body before the oil bath. She oiled my hair and washed it carefully with a viscid shampoo made out the tender leaves of hibiscus. (My Story, 36)

 

Selective Memory: Stories of My Life also begins with the narration of childhood experience. Shobha De claims not being a very wanted child in the family. Not just then, but even now gender discrimination is at its peak and therefore birth of a girl is generally not a matter of celebration. She poignantly writes,

Unfortunately for my mother I was not a second son she’d prayed for. My birth could not possibly have been a day of celebration for the family especially since my maternal grandmother was around to remind everybody that a third daughter had arrived as an additional liability and it had been rather reckless of my parents to have gone in for a fourth child with no guarantee that it would be male. (Selective Memory: Stories from my Life, 12)

 

However, she does mention how her father rejoiced at her birth. According to her, his reasons for the celebration were purely aesthetic. She writes, “I had never seen such a perfectly formed infant, with regular features, a clear skin, and tapering fingers. You were a joy to behold... Look at her. Just look. Isn’t she a beauty? God has been so kind to us (Selective Memory: Stories from my Life, 12)”. According to her, he also thought of her to be a lucky child because various good things happened in his life after Shobha’s birth, such as he applied for a job at the Centre in Delhi and got it. He became the assistant solicitor to the government of India.

 

Marriage is another most important event in their life that they explicitly detail about. They do not forget to attach importance to marriage. Why do women attach a lot of importance to marriage? Maybe, because it slightly liberates them! At least, to move around a little freely than they could when they were child. Boys are never imposed restrictions regarding their entry-exit in the house, but the girls are always made to understand that they are not to roam around freely alone and that they should not go out once the sun has set. Not just about their movements, they are not free to choose the kind of clothes they wear, the sports they play, the career they choose....the list is endless. They always have somebody in their lives to play the role of a decision maker, turning them into mute decision seekers. De notes that she wanted to become a model and her father highly disapproved of modelling as a career, at least for his daughter. Even then, she continued being a model for twin benefits of receiving some pocket and sense of independence. But, one day when her father came to know of her modelling, “all hell broke loose” (Selective Memory, 40). Much to his disapproval, Shobha De continued being a model and appeared on the cover of Femina and Eve’s weekly. Kamala Das also writes significantly tinted episodes that deal with the aftershocks of her marriage. She was married to K. Madhava Das, an elderly man at the tender age of fifteen. Even her friends had thought that she was just a child then and that she should rather complete her education than getting married. However, she hardly had any command over her course of her life then. She writes, “My life had been planned and its course charted by my parents and relatives (My Story, 81).”  An arranged marriage soon followed, leaving her frustrated and depressed for she had been unable to cope up with sexual congress (My Story, 84) as she put its with her husband. She writes that probably she was not prepared for the same. She had ideas of love which she found getting shattered in her marriage. She writes,

 

I had expected him to take me in his arms and stroke my face, my hair, my hands and whisper loving words. I had expected him to be all that I wanted my father to be and my mother. Sex was far away from my thoughts. I had hoped that he would remove with one sweep of his benign arms, the loneliness of my life. (My Story, 80)

 

She expected a soulmate in marriage; she wanted the companionship, warmth, camaraderie, comfort and communication but in real, she confronts brutality, rudeness and manhandling of her physical, emotional and mental self.  By the time she is 20, she has had two children and a nervous breakdown. Later in the book, in one of the chapters entitled, “The Blood Stained Moonlight” she expresses her failure in marriage. She writes that she abhorred her life as a woman and was dejected to such an extent that she even thought of committing suicide. But then she finds another man to love. Indian society is not one of those which permit the passion of life over everything. In fact many a times one comes across self-declared protectors of the sham of Indian heritage. In such a state of mind where an individual grows up instilling a lot of faith and glory to the institution of marriage, it is not easy to uproot it easily. Kamala Das finds love in this new man but after some times she starts considering herself a subject of pity instead of love. This leads to the end of her relationship with this new man. She writes,

 

Years after it all ended, I asked myself why I took him on as my lover, fully aware of his incapacity to love and I groped in my mind for the right answers. Love has a beginning and an end, but lust has no such faults. I needed security, I needed permanence, I needed two strong arms thrown around my shoulders and a soft voice in my ear. Physical integrity must carry with it a certain pride that is a burden to the soul. Perhaps it was necessary for my body to defile itself in many ways, so that the soul turned humble for a change. (My Story, 178)

 

In spite of having full faith in the institution of marriage, both the writes had a failed marriage, what went wrong, what was the right thing to have been done is not something they ponder upon. If Kamala Das primary alleges the rude sexual encounters to be one of the primary reasons for her failed marriage, Shobha De is not sure as to why her marriage with her ex husband Sudhir failed. Deliberating upon the institution of marriage, she writes,

 

The need for ‘space’ makes marriage sound like a tenancy in a crowded block. Marriage means being together, even at times when the sight, smell and sound of the ‘other’ drives you crazy. ‘Space’ connotes escape, but maybe I’m wrong. Space also obliquely refers to a strong desire for privacy, for expressing one’s individuality, for putting up invisible barriers around oneself. It’s a modern day invention I don’t fully appreciate or understand. Marriage to me connotes commitment and surrender. Merging with, blending, overlapping, combining. It is a symbiotic relationship where one feeds on the other, depends on the other, needs the other. There is no room or requirement for ‘space’. It’s a misleading and mischievous concept that has led to several modern-day marriages breaking up –perhaps because the two people have misconstrued its true interpretation (whatever that is). Individuals in search of vast and unlimited space are better off single – they can have any amount of it staying on their own. (Selective Memory: Stories from my Life, 481)

 

In both the cases, broken marriage gave them an experience that helped them in the process of self-discovery. They refuse to be the victim of their situations and tried to reinvent themselves. Kamala Das took up the religious rather spiritual discourse. “Free from the last of human bondage, I turned to Krishna” (My Story, 179). She started praying and visiting the temple of Krishna, imagining herself to be establishing an endless relationship with him. It made her let go the bitter experiences of her life and maintain the mental composure. In fact many of her poems are also written on this theme where she sees herself as Radha, “Your body is my prison, Krishna, I cannot see beyond it.”[7] Commenting upon her desire to find true love O.J Thomas writes, “Kamala Das’s story is the story of a woman who denied love, when she valued nothing but love all her life. Love and affection remained a craze, a longing and a dream for her. She got almost everything in life-name and fame, a degree of wealth but she could never get love, as she saw it. It is in this background that she writes about love in all her writings.”[8]

 

Another concern that they both take up in their autobiographies is their searchdwrote . identity, one of the most popularA and crucial themeof  with ,,Indian women,ves writersmore ren.  The language they choose to narrate their experience is candid and suit their ves, feminist concerns without waving the feminist flag. In her phase of life, when she was associated with Stardust, she met several film stars. She discusses in great detail about their personal life.ves From Kabir Bedi to Amitabh Bachchan and from Rekha to Urmila Matondkar, all of them find a placetheir s in her autobiography. She extensively discusses the life of Indian film industry couple celebrities like Rajesh Khanna-Dimple Kapadia, Sarika-Kamal Hassan, Rekha-Vinod Khanna, and Jeenat Aman-Sanjay Khan. At one point, one doesn’t really get the feeling of reading an autobiography, rather a filmy memoir. And then, when one feels that this story about others will go on endlessly, Shobha De brings in almost towards the end, her own marriages. In the chapter entitled, “Getting Personal” she mentions her present husband, Dilip De and in the chapter, “Feeling Great” she discusses her divorce from her ex husband,Sudhir and remarriage. What is noteworthy in this segment is that while she does this extensive detailing of the personal life of other celebrities, she doesn’t write much about her own break-up with Sudhir. Mallika Sarabhai, a noted critic reviewed Shobha De’s Selective Memory: Stories from my Life for India today and she is also of the opinion that in spite of being a very remarkable piece that speaks of Shobha’s journey, the book highlights very less from Shobha’s life. She comments, “The book is very long. A good quarter of it is De talking of her Stardust days and the peccadilloes of film stars and their hangers-on. This might be the section that most people want to read but it left me saying, "Yes, but what about you?"”[9] Another critic Annu Kumar also writes,

 

‘Selective Memory’ is a simply written account of a very eventful life. But when she was asked that, “Why did a writer who is known for her forthrightness choose to be ‘selective’ when it came to herself?”she responded, “I don’t have to tell everything. It is not obligatory for a writer to do a full monty in public.”[10]

 

Generally, an autobiography largely depends upon the author’s conviction and capacity to arrange the past and the present as an organic whole. The analysis of both the autobiographies only strengthens the claims made my Reynolds wherein he advocates the autobiographies to be a merge of fact and fantasy. Both the writers do not mention specific dates while narrating the events; they refer to the time frame. They keep oscillating between the past and the present, largely categorizing the occasions as something that happened in their childhood, or when they were young or when they were writing these autobiographies. For example, Shobha De discussed her first pregnancy in the last chapter of her autobiography and her marriage almost towards the end. However, what is remarkable in both the autobiographies is the fact that these narratives are not just incidents that found their way ontoonto the pages written by its authors, they are also their quest for identity and selfhood. The process of writing enabled them to confront the challenges that the phallocentric set-up bestows upon them. It helped them to liberate their constrained self and express their concerns without any mental and emotional barriers. It; is striking  to read about their protest and justify their position as an individual in society. It is also noteworthy to see evidence of a unique courage while describing the emotional self but at the same time maintaining what can be referred as the social interaction with the self. to

Notes