the narration of pain in Binodini Dasi’s autobiography.

Write a short paper response on the narration of pain in Binodini Dasi’s autobiography.

Ø Introduction:

                Here we are going to discuss Binodini Dasi’s two literary works which are My Story and My life As an Actress. Through these works we try to see narration of pain in her autobiographical work. Moreover there are some incidents in her life which are quiet joyful, then why she continuously describes the pain of her life. The purpose of the present paper is to show how and why she mainly focuses on the sadness of her life and also try to see wither it is applicable to all the actresses of her time. Or does she try to show the real condition of female actors within the Bengali theatre and culture.

Ø The Narration of Pain:

                Binodini Dasi is a well known name in the history of Bengal theatre. She was such an exceptional actress that within the short period of twelve years of her professional life, she performed more than eighty main roles on the theatre. Though she was a fabulous star, her life was full of hard ship, struggle and pain. That can be seen in her autobiographical work Amar Katha (My Story, 1912) and Amar Abhinetri Jiban (My Life as an Actress, 1924/25). There are some reasons why she faced so much despair i.e. economical problems, sudden death of her family members, and betrayal by trusted people. The most important was her social status.

During the colonial time most of the female roles were played by the aristocrat (bhadra) men. It could not be so much impressive, that is why the organizers wanted the women for the female characters. For that reason they recruited women. Most of the female actresses generally came from the prostitution, abandoned women or widows generally they were belonged to the lower class. They were either prostitutes or their children. Being borne as a woman is a cursed in Indian society. Moreover being a woman and a prostitute then there is no way out. It does not matter that the woman is a big star like Binodini; society will never give them respect or never accept them.

Most of them were recruited from the prostitute quarters (since no bhadramahila could be found to perform with the bhdralok), the stage actress was already read as a ‘fallen woman’ and outside of the nineteenth century projects being constructed for woman. (Introduction, 5)

It creates the lack of cultural identity. And this lack generally causes the pain. In these two books also, we constantly can see the binary aspects like inner reality of soul and outer reality of body. No one knows what Binodini really feels inside. Sometimes she also asks questions like where is her choice, who is responsible for her condition. That’s why she consistently describes her ‘story’ as a (bedona-gatha) a narrative of pain, despair or melancholy. It is her desire to see her pain in ink and in print.  From the very begging of the book one can find the outburst of pain look at these lines.

There is no one in this world before whom I can lay bare my pain, for the world sees me as a sinner – a fallen woman. I have no kith or kin, no society, no friend – no one is this world whom I may call my own. (Preface, 51)

Her life was full of despair from her childhood itself. They did not have enough money to survive. Her younger brother was the only male in her family. And the sudden death of her brother created major gap in her family. Then her mother also became mad for few days. She did not get much education but it was her desire to educate her daughter because she knew that only through education her daughter would get social acceptance and herself too. The book My Story is full of worst adjectives used for her like a fallen woman (patita), unfortunate (abhagini), despised and despicable (ghrinita), a sinner (papi), and repeatedly calls herself as a prostitute (barnari). If we compare both the books we find both as the brilliant actress as well as the wretched fallen woman. She lived as the mistress of Gurumukh Rai after took leave from the stage. And after his death she lived in isolation no one knew what happen to her after that.

When she entered onto the stage, she was treated well but betrayed by trusted persons. First incident the preface was not written by Girish babu even after her request. Second she was also betrayed by a young rich man who was her protector. Gurumukh-babu and Dasu-babu had promised her to give her name to the new theatre the ‘B theatre’ but surprisingly they fixed name under the title ‘The Star’. They betrayed her in spite of she had spend lots of money and labor to establish this new theatre. Means she came across such a pathetic experience of her life. In both of the books we can see the continuous narration of pain of the fallen woman.

Reference:

1)     Dasi. Binodini., My Story and My Life as an Actress, trans. Rimli Bhattacharya.,

Kali for Women, New Delhi. 1998. Print.

Prepared by

Manoj Dalsaniya