Professor of Delhi University Nandini Sen’s new book is an anthology about women and their little acts of freedom that permeates the thick layer of patriarchy in our society. The author of Second Wife and Other Stories (OM Books; Rs 299) was in conversation with Julie Banerjee Mehta at the increasingly popular The Bengal Club Book Club’s meet that saw participation from across India and Toronto on May 24.
In a fantastic session of two hours that well exceeded the initial schedule, much to everyone’s delight, the author spoke about her own lived experiences that she copiously sprinkled throughout her tales. She writes about her Didun, her maternal grandmother whose world was the kitchen and her paternal grandfather who discovered his world in his book case –– two of the strongest influences in the author’s life. “My grandmother would cook and I would be the only one hanging around throughout her hierarchical serving process with my Enid Blyton in hand,” she said.
“We believe that you realised pretty early on that matriarchy was a kind of patriarchy that was perpetuated,” Mehta said to the author on many of her stories that involved characters like Nabanita and Mrs. Roy. “You are aware that women are in cahoots, they are collaborators and the stories resonate across social stratifications and cultures,” she added.
The author spoke about memories and its relation to fiction. “A lot of work on Partition or memories that you would want to keep –– it becomes storytelling with more erasure than telling. That I think is true for all of us,” the author said. Mehta recounted a few more characters from Sen’s book like Neeta from The Performer, Vinay in Lipstick or Geeta in The Sapphire Ring, who are looking to talk back to the centre. What spoke to her in Sen’s stories is the willingness of the texts to speak to feminist theorists. Her stories also have thrown light on issues of sexual orientation.
The highlight of this fantastic evening was the focus that was put on women who have internalised patriarchy. The author who has spent major part of her adult life in the capital city spoke about the stereotypes that surround Bengali women –– too dominating, too forthright and too outspoken. “I wear these comments as badges of pride now,” the author laughed and said. The matriarchs that we encounter in our lives are a lot of times the ones who carry on with age-old traditions, which is extremely disturbing. “In each of my stories there is one character that I know or know of and the rest is fictitious,” the author said of her influence in creating these characters. She spoke of writing about a queer character and his struggles with coming out, with the focus of the story being the journey of the mother and her inability to understand her child’s predicament.
The author also threw light on her writing process. She admitted to not being a disciplined and systematic writer with a consistent writing process and also spoke about aspiring towards it. However, it was her storytelling nature that pushed her towards completing this anthology. “I am able to make a story out of the most mundane events. My college roommate and dear friend used to complain that after watching a film, I would spend a major part of my evening narrating the tale to the best of my abilities,” she laughingly added.
The author was initially reluctant to share her stories citing her discipline as the reason which coaxes one to be critics. “Everything that I write, I am reading 500 times and constantly feeling like it’s not up to the mark. Only now I have learnt to not delete what I write and feel confident enough to share it with anybody,” she said. Thus it was no surprise that for this author, the biggest challenge of the entire process was sharing her tales, not the creation of it. Her words and the subsequent dissection of it by The Bengal Club Book Club was encouragement for readers everywhere to pick up their copies of Second Wife and Other Stories.