Essay: The triumph and tragedy of Bang Mahila

The first woman Hindi short story writer was a Bengali, Rajbala Ghosh, who wrote under the nom de plume Bang Mahila. I came across her name when I was researching the earliest published Hindi short stories and found that her story Dulaiwala (1907), is widely regarded as the first published by a woman. I was curious. Who was she? How come someone whose mother tongue was Bengali, wrote in Hindi? There wasn’t much information available on her online, barring some bare – and rather tragic -- details about her life. But then I discovered Bang Mahila: Nari Mukti ka Sanghursh by Bhavdev Pandey, a book on her by a former professor of Hindi in Mirzapur (where Bang Mahila was from). Pandey’s book has a wealth of detail and provides an enthralling glimpse into the life and times of this remarkable woman.

Bang Mahila’s family had migrated to Mirzapur in the late 18th century. Her grandfather Ram Ram Ghosh’s two elder brothers worked for the East India Company, and had been transferred there from Chandernagore. The brothers bought large tracts of land in Mirzapur and Ram Ram Ghosh became a zamindar. He also started working as a vakil, one of the few professions available to Indian men at the time. Ghosh’s son, Ram Prasann Ghosh, was Bang Mahila’s father, and worked as a head clerk in the English firm Jardine and Skinner.

This background explains in large measure why Bang Mahila wrote in Hindi – her family had moved to a Hindi-speaking area almost a century before she was born in 1882. It was an extremely traditional household. She was not allowed to meet boys and girls her age, or to go out of her house because the street was usually crowded with people on their way for a dip in the Ganga, wearing little else but their gamchas. (The house was near a ghat and surrounded by temples.) But at the same time, her father, a scholarly man, taught her Sanskrit, English and Bangla at home. There was a library near their house, and Babu Ram Prasann Ghosh made sure Bang Mahila had access to contemporary journals, novels, poetry, plays. But it was Pandit Kedarnath Pathak, owner of the house where they lived, who taught her Hindi and proved to be a lifelong mentor, guiding her on her literary journey. If it hadn’t been for these two men, Bang Mahila would have certainly remained illiterate, like a majority of women of her generation.

Most of her writing took place after her marriage: this was hardly surprising since she was married in 1893 at the age of 11 (her husband Purnachandra De was16). He became a ghar jamai and Ghosh babu got him employed at Jardine Skinner as well. And so, Bang Mahila, much beloved of her parents, continued to stay at home with her parents, husband and younger brothers.

Within the framework of this traditional but loving family, Bang Mahila, already reared in a literary milieu and encouraged to read, began her writing, which eventually encompassed magazine articles, translations from Bangla to Hindi as well as some short fiction in Hindi. This was a time of great debate around women’s education and there was a wall of traditional opinion against the notion. Bang Mahila wrote passionately in favour of it, saying that education wouldn’t make women “shameless.” But resistance to the idea was so strong that she couldn’t come out openly in favour of higher education for women; she had to be content with saying that women should be educated enough to be able to write their own letters, make the home budget, read, and have a good relationship with their husbands (“For the wife of a BA to be illiterate is a matter of great shame and anguish.”)

Overall, her views on women were extraordinarily outspoken and forward-looking for her time. She pointed out that Western women had the freedom to marry for love, terminate their marriages if they couldn’t get along with their husbands, whereas the illiterate Hindu woman was still steeped in devotion to her husband, observed purdah, was imprisoned within the four walls of her house. Her views created a stir but she defended them stoutly.

In 1894, her mentor, Pandit Kedarnath Pathak moved to Varanasi and was appointed the head of the library at the Nagari Pracharini Sabha, which had been set up for the propagation of Hindi. Through him, Bang Mahila was introduced to Varanasi’s literary elite. This process became easier in 1903, when Ram Prasann babu bought a house in Varanasi’s Kodai Chowki and the family began spending time there too.

Most of Bang Mahila’s writing took place from 1902 to 1915. Apart from her articles in contemporary journals on issues such as women’s education and purdah, she translated Bangla stories, particularly those which dealt with social problems (though initially she was inclined towards jasoosi stories and in 1902 she translated Bengali writer Dinendra Kumar’s detective fiction). But her interest gradually veered towards more realistic stories.

Among her own stories, the best known is Dulaiwala, an interesting, light-hearted story about a trick played by one friend on another. She also published Chandradev se Meri Baatein, which is not really a story, but in the format of a conversation that the writer has with Chandradev, in which she takes on no less a personage than Lord Curzon, and thereby British rule itself.

But just as everything was going smoothly in her life, tragedy struck. In 1909, Bang Mahila’s 51-year-old father died. Soon after, her own son, a little over two years old, passed away. The two deaths almost broke her. To help her recover and get back on her feet, Pandit Kedarnath Pathak made a plan to bring out a collection of her stories and articles.

The publication of Kusum Sangrah from Allahabad’s prestigious Indian Press was an important milestone of her life. She began dividing her time between Kashi and Mirzapur, and attending literary events in Kashi. But life had far deeper sorrows in store for her. On 13 August, 1917, her husband suddenly died of a fall down a staircase. He was just 40. Bang Mahila was devastated. She gave up everything and retreated into the austere life of a sanyasini. She cut her waist-length hair into a four-inch close crop. She gave up wearing coloured clothes, and dressed instead in a simple dhoti and kurti. She ate one meal a day and went to bathe in the Ganga at five in the morning every day, regardless of the weather. And she stopped writing altogether. Pandit Kedarnath Pathak mourned what had become of his shining literary star, and tried to counsel her but to no avail. Four years passed by. But Pathak didn’t give up. He knew if anything could free her from the fog of grief that had enveloped her, it would be sahitya. It so happened that the first edition of Kusum Sangrah had sold out and Pathak came to Mirzapur in early 1922 to talk to Bang Mahila about a second edition. His attempt to rekindle her interest in her work bore fruit -- she came to Kashi and read the proofs of her book. The second edition was ready by Diwali of 1922. But her active writing years were behind her.

She lived to see the country become independent, but wasn’t destined to breathe the air of a free nation for too long. In 1947, she came to Kashi and, as was her habit, went to bathe in the Ganga early one morning, when she was attacked by a bull. She fell down and broke her leg. She was taken to the hospital where she stayed for two months. But her leg did not heal. Her brother brought her home to Mirzapur, where she lingered for two years, before she died on 24 February 1949.

Bang Mahila is a forgotten name today. But she deserves to be remembered.

Poonam Saxena is a journalist, writer, and translator. She has selected and translated the stories in the new collection The Greatest Hindi Stories Ever Told . She lives in Delhi.