Rajmohanswife

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Rajmohan's Wife

Bankimchandra Chatterjee

With a Foreword, Notes and an Afterword
by
Meenakshi Mukherjee

ISBN 81 7530 009 4, 1996, Pages 155, Ravi Dayal Publisher, Delhi

Rajmohan's Wife by Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838-94) is acknowledged to be the first Indian novel in English. Bankimchandra Chaterjee's maiden work, it was serialised more than 130 years ago, in 1864, in Indian Field, a weekly magazine published in Calcutta, and did not appear in the book form during the author's life time. Bankimchandra went on to write fourteen more novels, amongst them Durgeshnandini (1865), Anandamath (1882), and Rajsingha (1893), all in his mother tongue, Bengali. Bankimchandra had started to translate his novel into Bengali but that the work had not gone beyond the seventh chapter. Brajendra Nath Banerjee translated the first three chapters from this Bengali version when he located parts of the serialised version, and published Rajmohan's Wife in the book form for the first time in 1935. In the preface to that edition of the novel, Brajendra Nath Banerjee writes, 'Strangely enough, Bengal's first great novelist, like Bengal's first great modern poet, made his debut in the field of literature in the English language.'

The story:
The protagonist of the novel is the young and brave Matangini but she is mentioned here only as Rajmohan's Wife. Matangini is just eighteen years old. Her beauty is beyond description. But she is married to a crude man of bad character. Rajmohan's cruelty does not end in forbidding his wife all freedom; she cannot even go out of the house to fetch water, a common enough work done by women in those days. 30 year old Kanak, a Kulin girl is the only friend Matangini has.

Rajmohan teams up with robbers and plans to rob Madhav, his brother-in-law. The aim is to rob them of their possessions, and to steal a will. As luck would have it, Matangini listens to the plans forged by her husband and the two other robbers. As Madhav is none other than the husband of her sister, Hemangini, Matangini decides to go and inform them what is about to befall them. She sets out alone in the dark night, arrives at her sister's house, wakes them up, and informs Madhav of the robbers' plans without mentioning her husband's involvement. At that time, she also declares her love for Madhav, but finds no solace when she discovers that her love is returned. Madhav gets his men together, and all of them succeed in scaring the robbers away. When Matangini returns home, her husband is waiting for her, ready to kill her but his robber friends come at that time. During the argument that ensues, Matangini escapes.

With the help of her friend, Kanak, she finds shelter in the house of Mathur, who was Madhav's cousin. Though very wealthy, Mathur is a bad character, and it was he who was behind the attempted robbery. Madhav is kidnapped and imprisoned in Mathur's house. Of course, he does not know where he is. In a room upstairs Matangini is also held imprisoned by Mathur who lusts after her. She is being starved so as to break her resistance. It is Mathur's eldest wife, Tara, who noticing her husband's restlessness, steals his keys when he is asleep, opens the forbidden rooms, and discovers Madhav. Both of them are attracted by the cries of a human being in distress. Going after the voice, they find and rescue Matangini. Soon afterwards, one of the robbers is caught, and he confesses. On getting this news, Mathur kills himself. Rajmohan is banished from the country. Matangini is sent back to her parents' house, and dies shortly afterwards. Thus the novel is mainly about the travails and sufferings of women, and of the intrigues, greed and cruelty that was part and parcel of every day life. Even the title of the book speaks volume about the status of women.

A passage from the novel:
" The dainty limbs of the woman of eighteen were not burdened with such abundance of ornaments, nor did her speech betray any trace of the East Bengal accent, which clearly showed that this perfect flower of beauty was no daughter of the banks of the Madhumathi, but was born and brought up on the Bhagirathi is some place near the capital. Some sorrow or deep anxiety had dimmed the lustre of her fair complexion. Yet her bloom was as full of charm as that of the land-lotus half-scorched and half-radiant under the noonday sun. Her long locks were tied up in a careless knot on her shoulder; but some loose tresses had thrown away that bondage and were straying over her forehead and cheeks. Her faultlessly drawn arched eyebrows were quivering with bashfulness under a full and wide forehead. The eyes were often only half-seen under their drooping lids. But when they were raised for a glance, lightning seemed to play in a summer cloud. Yet even those keen glances charged with the fire of youth betrayed anxiety. The small lips indicated the sorrow nursed in her heart. The beauty of her figure and limbs had been greatly spoilt by her physical and mental suffering. Yet no sculptor had ever created anything nearly as perfect as the form half revealed by the neat sari she wore. the well-shaped limbs were almost entirely bare of ornaments. there were only churis on the wrists an a small amulet on her arm. These too were elegant in shape."

Kulin girl:
In the 19th century Bengal there was a big shortage of Kulin (high caste brahmin) men. Thus polygamy was well spread. A Kulin brahmin made a profession of marriage. He would marry many women, and these women - Kulin women/girls - were married only in name, and stayed with their parents.

About this edition:
This edition is especially valuable because of the foreword and afterword provided by Meenakshi Mukherjee, Professor of English Literature at the University of Hyderabad. Mukherjee writes in detail about the plot of the novel, the consequences of his using the English language, and comments on the importance of the novel in understanding the social life of the 19th century Bengal. She analyses Bankimchandra's style of writing in this novel, and shows its connection to both the indigenous Sanskrit literature and the Victorian English novel tradition. The afterword is a must for all those who are interested in the history of the English literature in India. Mukherjee has also provided a very useful bibliography.

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