Devi Chaudhurani: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1
Devi Chaudhurani: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1

Author: Shamik Dasgupta

Publisher: YALI DREAM CREATIONS

Published:

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13:

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Based on the famous novel 'Devi Choudhurani' by eminent Bengali author Bankim Chandra Chattyopadhyay (who wrote the song Vande Mataram). 1795, The age of Matsyanyaya in Colonial India, a state of lawlessness similar to the sea where the Big fish eats the small. The East India Company like a hungry great white shark devours the wealth of the nation. The smaller Native Kings and Landlords despotize the farmers and common folk for the mounting taxes imposed by the Raj. The common folk suffer relentlessly under this vicious cycle, but perhaps the ones who suffered most were the women of the country, abused by a corrupt and stringent patriarchal rule which encouraged malpractices like Polygamy, Child Marriage the loss of all social status of the widows and the heinous ritual of Sati, where a woman has to burn in the pyre of her dead husband.

DEVI CHAUDHURANI – DWAIRATH – ENGLISH
DEVI CHAUDHURANI – DWAIRATH – ENGLISH

Author: Shamik Dasgupta

Publisher: YALI DREAM CREATIONS

Published: 2024-07-05

Total Pages: 57

ISBN-13:

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Bengal 1795, the age of Matsanyaya during the dawn of the colonial rule of India. There is complete lawlessness as the golden land of Bengal is ravaged by raiders and Marauders both from within India and across the seas. The Zamindars oppress, the Arakan, Portuguese pirates loot and pillage, the Maratha Barghis capture hundreds of Bengali men women and children and sell them in slave markets. Women are the worst victims as they are attacked by the marauders and oppressed by a tyrannical patriarchal society. In these turbulent times Prafulya, a young woman, after losing her parents goes to her in-laws and husband for shelter. Her in laws were the rich Zamindars of a province called Bhootnath, but though she was welcomed by her mother in law, he farther in law Harballav Roy Chowdhury scorned her as she belonged to a poor family. Her husband Brajasundar however saw her for the first time after they were married when they were children and he is mesmerized by Prafulya’s beauty. Prafulya is insulted brutally by her father in law and runs away from the estate. She was expecting death in the depths of the forest when she befriends a tiger cub and together they set out to find shelter which they find in a small island in the estuary. On the island Prafulya meets Mir Madan Khan, the general of Nawab Siraj-Ud-Daula. He had been hoarding the treasures of the last Sultan of Bengal. Mir Madan breathed his last in a few days, making Prafulya the custodian of the treasure. Prafulya later is attacked by the dreaded bandit leader Bhavani Pathak and she fights him bravely. Bhavani is impressed with Prafulya’s bravado and offers her to join his crew. Bhavani runs a secret paramilitary force called the ‘Santaans’ in the guise of bandits. They loot the rich and feed the poor. Bhavani suffers from a strange genetic disorder for which he has a limited lifespan and albeit being a man in late forties he looks feeble and small like a teenager. Bhavani decides to make Prafulya the next leader of the Santaans and trains her likewise. Prafulya is renamed Devi Chaudhurani and she is given the task of fighting for the poor and oppressed, but for that they have to fight the marauding enemies and above all looms the threat of the British Empire. Devi sets out to find the dreaded pirate Albuquerque to defeat him and bring an end to the terror of the Portuguese pirates as her first mission.

The Many Worlds of Sarala Devi: A Diary & The Tagores and Sartorial Style: A Photo Essay
The Many Worlds of Sarala Devi: A Diary & The Tagores and Sartorial Style: A Photo Essay

Author: Sukhendu Ray

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-20

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 1351586475

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This charming book The Many Worlds of Sarala Devi and The Tagores and Sartorial Styles, as the titles suggest, contain two separate but related writings on the Tagores. The Tagores were a pre-eminent family which became synonymous with the cultural regeneration of India, specifically of Bengal, in the nineteenth century. The first writing is a sensitive translation of Sarala Devis memoirs from the Bengali, Jeevaner Jharapata, by Sukhendu Ray. It is the first autobiography written by a nationalist woman leader of India. Sarala Devi was Rabindranath Tagores niece and had an unusual life. The translation unfolds, among other things, what it was like to grow up in a big affluent house Jorasanko, that had more than 116 inmates and a dozen cooks! The second writing by Malavika Karlekar is a photo essay, creatively conceived, visually reflecting the social and cultural trends of the times, through styles of dress, jewellery and accoutrements. The modern style of wearing a sari was introduced by Jnanadanandini Devi, a member of the Tagore family. The introduction by the well-known historian, Bharati Ray, very perceptively captures the larger context of family, marriage, womens education and politics of the time which touched Sarala Devis life. She points out that if memoirs are a kind of social history then womens diaries record social influences not found in official accounts and are therefore, a rich source of documentation.

Indian Women's Short Fiction
Indian Women's Short Fiction

Author: Joel Kuortti

Publisher: Atlantic Publishers & Dist

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9788126905799

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Although Indian Women S Short Fiction Has Always Enjoyed Equal Importance And Popularity As Their Novels, Very Little Critical Attention Has Been Paid To It So Far. Indian Women S Short Fiction Seeks To Fulfil This Long Felt Need. It Puts Together Fifteen Perceptive And Analytical Articles By Scholars Across The World. The Articles, Which Are Focussed On Native Indian Writing As Well As Diasporic Short Fiction, Deal With Such Interesting Literary Issues As Construction Of Femininity, Disablement And Enablement, Bengali Heritage, Hybrid Identities, Nostalgia, Representation Of The Partition Violence, Tradition And Modernity, And Cultural Perspectivism.It Is Hoped That The Book Will Prove Useful To Scholars Interested In Short Fiction Studies In General And Indian Women S Short Fiction In Particular.

En-Gendering India
En-Gendering India

Author: Sangeeta Ray

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2000-06-20

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 0822382806

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En-Gendering India offers an innovative interpretation of the role that gender played in defining the Indian state during both the colonial and postcolonial eras. Focusing on both British and Indian literary texts—primarily novels—produced between 1857 and 1947, Sangeeta Ray examines representations of "native" Indian women and shows how these representations were deployed to advance notions of Indian self-rule as well as to defend British imperialism. Through her readings of works by writers including Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Harriet Martineau, Flora Annie Steel, Anita Desai, and Bapsi Sidhaa, Ray demonstrates that Indian women were presented as upper class and Hindu, an idealization that paradoxically served the needs of both colonial and nationalist discourses. The Indian nation’s goal of self-rule was expected to enable women’s full participation in private and public life. On the other hand, British colonial officials rendered themselves the protectors of passive Indian women against their “savage” male countrymen. Ray shows how the native woman thus became a symbol for both an incipient Indian nation and a fading British Empire. In addition, she reveals how the figure of the upper-class Hindu woman created divisions with the nationalist movement itself by underscoring caste, communal, and religious differences within the newly emerging state. As such, Ray’s study has important implications for discussions about nationalism, particularly those that address the concepts of identity and nationalism. Building on recent scholarship in feminism and postcolonial studies, En-Gendering India will be of interest to scholars in those fields as well as to specialists in nationalism and nation-building and in Victorian, colonial, and postcolonial literature and culture.

Many Threads of Hinduism
Many Threads of Hinduism

Author: Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2015-10-16

Total Pages: 199

ISBN-13: 9351365484

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Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya is well-known as the creator of India's national song, 'Bande Mataram', and as a novelist who pioneered the art form in India with acclaimed classics like Ananda Math, Bishabrikha and Devi Chaudhurani. As critics have recognized, few writers in world literature have been so accomplished in both philosophy and art. So extensive was his output on religion and Hinduism, and so erudite his articulation, that Aurobindo Ghosh called him a rishi, while Nirad C. Chaudhuri believed that Bankim had 'one of the greatest Hindu minds, perhaps equalled in the past - whole of the Hindu past - only by the great Samkara'. Many Threads of Hinduism brings together some of Bankim's important writings on religion, Hinduism in particular, and includes his thoughts on the Vedas, nationalism, the origins of religion, the conflict between one god and many gods, and the need for mass education. There are also pieces comparing the Brahmins of yore to India's colonial masters at the time, the British, and excerpts from his translation of and commentary on the Bhagavadgita, which remained incomplete when he died. Beautifully translated by Alo Shome, this is an introduction to a different facet of a celebrated novelist and an important addition to the corpus of books on religion.

A History of Modern India
A History of Modern India

Author: Ishita Banerjee-Dube

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-10-27

Total Pages: 522

ISBN-13: 1316165175

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This book provides an interpretive and comprehensive account of the history of India between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, a crucial epoch characterized by colonialism, nationalism and the emergence of the independent Indian Union. It explores significant historiographical debates concerning the period while highlighting important new issues, especially those of gender, ecology, caste, and labour. The work combines an analysis of colonial and independent India in order to underscore ideologies, policies, and processes that shaped the colonial state and continue to mould the Indian nation.