By Ratan Bhattacharjee
Nowadays women are boldly coming out to confess their untold tragic stories. In the context of #MeToo movement, such confession stories are written by many women globally. But Parvin Sultana’s book was published much earlier than this movement gained currency. She wrote this book not to describe any sexual assault but to reveal how in India, a woman’s life becomes a tale of intolerable suffering only for her maniac husband and how horrible is the sad helplessness.
Egoraki Mohilar Chancolyakar Swikarokti is not a book but a valuable social document recording the pangs, anguish and incredible torture on a woman who in spite of all her brilliance, talents and abilities has to suffer from the patriarchal domination and dirty people around her who turned her life into an inferno by their wiles, gimmicks and purposive humiliation taking advantage of her mentally sick husband.
She had two daughters, one at that time, the year 2011, was preparing for IIT entrance. The tortures of the quarelsome father were unbearable for her. The house was a hell of fire with the noisy blitzkreig cracked on her by her mentally sick husband. A suspicious husband can even kill his wife and patriarchal domination crosses all limits of decency and social decorum.
Sultana writes her story as an autobiography. But it can be true for any woman whose husband is a maniac and suspicious about his beautiful wife. Slangs, tortures and even beating are normal incidents. Even some educated men are not exceptions. Sultana herself is highly educated and has a poetic mind. She hails from a decent family that loves culture and literature and a girl from such a family can never engage herself in any indecent affair.
The two grown-up daughters see each event in front of their eyes. The husband is not that maniac from the beginning of their conjugal life. But suddenly it starts and the family is in a dilemma. He is highly educated, good by nature and has a good job. The change is mysterious even if it is psychological.
The book beautifully crafts the plot of the story. Sultana knows the art of writing and the story gradually progresses towards the climax.
She narrates how a tortured woman and mother of two daughters gets helpless by the unkind treatment of her husband and the indigestible humiliation. She narrates in lucid language and brings out each aspect of the situation how the wife tries unto her last to cure the husband of his insanity. She has appealed to all the people in position and administrative authority. Even the social media turns to be a villain as they wanted to exploit the situation for publicity without being generous enough for showing any helping attitude till DY-365 channel does some neutral broadcast of the news.
The state administration does not take care of any such events. The book boldly focuses on the indifference of people in power in Assam to this painful event of a female suffering. The birth of the second child is also one event where Sultana showed the typical male-oriented attitude of the society. They do not show any happiness when the second child is a girl. The husband even doubts the doctors who made her check up.
The overall impression of loneliness and the ordeal of a woman are so realistically described in this book that one cannnot but give kudos to this bold female writer.
Maya Angelou did such a bold thing by exposing the face of the villains who spoiled her life in her childhood and did not fear to tell the ugly truth to the world in her poem, ‘I know why the caged bird sings’.
Reading the book by Sultana, I recalled Toni Morrison’s ‘Be Your Own Story’ as in this book each line tells her own story. She raises a big question why the word ‘characterless’ is used only in the case of a woman.
Among many factors she highlights some like grabbing property, jealousy of relatives, revenge and genetic mental sickness in the family which cause a rift between two happy persons. Out of prejudice and ego men do not like to go to medical consultants for getting cured though Parvin says she herself had no such hesitation to go to a doctor to know the reasons of her insomnia.
Her husband, in spite of being a diabetic and for all these maniac activities, does not want to consult a doctor. The pain that she feels to see her tensed husband and even having a stroke leading to paralysis is so poignantly described in this book. She is the ideal wife in the eyes of many but her life is a tale of agonies.
Chandra Prakash deserves commendation for boldly publishing this odyssey of a female loneliness and intense pain. The translation of the book in English can reach more people and it could be a new genre of female autobiography like Anne Frank’s Diary.
Book: Egoraki Mohilar Chancolyakar Swikarokti; Author: Parvin Sultana; Publisher: Chandra Prakash, Guwahati; Price: Rs 250; Pages: 282
(The author is an academician and columnist. He can be reached at [email protected])