My mother once told me about a long-ago female relative who was so obsessed with her jewellery that when she was on her deathbed, she simply lay there, undying, and began to decay. Ants crawled up the bed and her family were distraught, unable to understand what to do—until a wise old lady said, “Get her box of jewels and lay it on her chest. Her heart and soul is in her jewels.” So they did, and the dying lady, having clutched her beloved sandook to herself, finally breathed her last.
This is the sort of tale that makes the modern, science-loving sceptic in me roll my eyes. It’s a crazy story, it cannot have happened. But even I have to concede that it’s a fascinating tale. Fascinatingly macabre, but also, in its way, a moral tale, warning of the dangers of materialism. A story somewhat like Tanuja Chandra’s ‘Atta Chakki’, in which a horrific fate befalls the beautiful Gomti. Impossible to believe, but oh, so deliciously unforgettable at the same time.
The subtitle of Bijnis Woman—the collection of stories of which ‘Atta Chakki’ is one—is ‘Stories of Uttar Pradesh Told by My Mausis, Buas, Chachas’. And yes, filmmaker and author Tanuja Chandra’s stories, set as they are in Allahabad and Bulandshahr and Pilibhit, in the towns and villages of UP, are very evocative of the state, of its earthiness and its religiosity, its sugar and cattle and the Ganga. The people, the language, the society and culture of Uttar Pradesh are reflected in each of these stories. Yet, despite this distinctly UP-centric feel to the stories, however, these are stories, too, that are very universal. Stories that could take place just about anywhere, from Tiruchirapalli to Timbuktoo.
A lovely young girl with a crooked foot makes the mistake of falling in love with a young man who comes to deliver milk. A highly acclaimed and prosperous astrologer loses his greatest treasure—an ancient and valuable scripture—to a thief, who in turn becomes a successful astrologer. A man about town has an unexpected encounter at a brothel. A blind musician falls in love with a lonely woman who becomes the most devoted wife he could have imagined—until the tide turns. A wrestler enlists in the army and goes off to the front, coming back with a stock of tales, each taller than the last, which lasts him till his death.
What makes Chandra’s stories so memorable and so easy to relate to is that they offer a fine insight into people’s minds and hearts. There is pathos here, humour, romance, betrayal, envy, greed—just about every aspect there is to human nature. Who hasn’t known, or heard of someone illiterate and poor, who harbours dreams of making it big, and is actually doing something about it? Who has not known the sorrow of a doomed love? Who hasn’t come across that uncle or aunt who has a never-ending stock of riveting tales to tell? Each story has that feel of being utterly familiar, something you yourself could have heard recounted by an elderly relative.
Besides the plots of these stories, Chandra’s writing style too makes Bijnis Woman immensely readable. Her writing is chatty without being irritatingly informal, her descriptions are vivid and alive, and the colloquialisms she frequently uses bring Uttar Pradesh brilliantly alive. Bhola-bhalla, chatorapan, kaamchor bahu, paidaaishi, zindagi ki kamaayi… words straight from the sugar belt, tales straight from Uttar Pradesh.