By Mandakini Pachauri
Cassandra is a series of reflections on international women writers whose work has proven prophetic, ingenious, or courageous enough to remain relevant in other regions of the world and to our times.
What would history and the world be like if they were heard?
I plan to continue this monthly series via this medium, to amplify voices heard too seldom and to inspire women to speak their truth – above all, to draw a personal global genealogy of women’s thought by reading, reflecting, and sharing.
On Reading Malika Amar Shaikh’s I Want to Destroy Myself, translated from Marathi by Jerry Pinto
Until the age of 14 years, Malika Amar Shaikh’s family was advised to make sure that she did not cry to preserve her delicate health. Married at 17 to Namdeo Dhasal, a fellow Communist, poet and Dalit Panther leader, she was subjected to marital betrayal, domestic violence, sexually transmitted disease, and social isolation.
Written after 10 years of marriage, at the age of 27, her autobiography is an intense account of the Dalit Panther movement and its leadership, social activism, and gender issues. Beyond mere reportage, the book is an incisive examination of the author’s mind and values in conflicting circumstances during an era of socio-political change in Bombay.
What was true? What was real? The twisted and poisoned society around me? The women who bore rape and abuse at the hands of their husbands while concealing the evidence of being brutalized? The buying and selling of ideals in the political marketplace? The leaders who wore the badge of revolution to cover their price tags? The artists who wanted to live off their art but were ignored and eked out a half-starved life? Or was reality the outsider I had become? Was my incomplete, neglected existence a reality? Was my personal sorrow to be my jail? What could I do for myself? And what could I do for those around me?
Throughout the book, the acuity of Shaikh’s observation is that of a far-sighted seer beyond her years of experience. She examines both, her motivations and those of people around her to call them out, clear-eyed and unembarrassed.
I had one advantage. Because I had not been brought up with any caste or religious influences, because my family had not observed the rites and rituals of any faith, I could observe them all in a dispassionate manner. The man-woman relationship in the entire community seemed to be terribly unjust and unfair to women.
In both, her birth family and her marriage, Malika Amar Shaikh, lived in a milieu ostensibly dedicated to equality and social justice. However, she experienced that the necessary understanding and prevailing social dynamics did not extend those ideals to women’s lives.
My dream: that the much-vaunted patience and endurance of my nation’s women should die as quick and clean a death as possible.
Searching on the Net, I was surprised to find an excerpt from the book that presents a single large image of her late husband across the entire page before the text. Stubbornly, I clicked on her highlighted name, only to return to a smaller image of the man and a quote from the book with his name. I thought of Malika Amar Shaikh’s words.
The world of men fills me with curiosity…and jealousy. How different their world is. They can live anywhere, they can go anywhere. And regardless of what they have done, in their declining years, they command respect and good will from the community.
The autobiography details her efforts toward marital harmony and economic balance, to run a home and care for herself and others – above all, to contribute to humanity as part of the Dalit Panther movement. Gripping and overwhelming as those themes are, a stream of self-reflection and creative effort runs through the book. In the tradition of women writers everywhere, Malika Amar Shaikh reports at each stage of her life not only her circumstances and emotions but also the creative choices she explores as well as her joy in writing.
This strikes me as taking possession of oneself, to be the main character in one’s life to literally, write one’s own story. This account was written when she was 27, an age that has often seen the end of many talents, women, and others – from being silenced, mental illness and self-destruction. The autobiography provides proof of the redemptive power of writing itself, despite failure and disappointment.
Too often, women’s autobiographies delineate their struggle in the context of their familial and social relationships – to then be read as their road to triumph. Malika Amar Shaikh, however, writes in the book’s last lines:
This is the story of a lonely defeat. In the time I have been speaking to all of you, I could put down my mask for a while. That’s all…
Her struggle, disappointment and self-transformation, I speculate, correlates to The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdoch where the defeat that Malika Amar Shaikh announces at the end of the book is the beginning of her self-discovery.
Drawn into her narrative, I went on to read the few poems available in English translation online
“She doesn’t have arms
Like me”
– Venus, translated from Marathi by Sachin Ketkar
Malika Amar Shaikh begins an iconic poem with a figure from Roman mythology and its desecration. She bridges cultures and eras, to express oppression and objectification in very few words. She speaks for a “disarmed” figure left defenceless. Reading this poem and others, I was struck by the poetic compression and apt metaphors.
The arc of her development as a writer and a woman is discernible in a recent well-guided and insightful interview with Mihir Chitre.
Chitre: You are one of the strongest women I know. You have fought for your rights, for your existence, for a place in the world. What is your idea of feminism?
Shaikh: I do not subscribe to any school of thought. I do not believe in any “ism”. I think, being a staunch follower of any school of thought limits our objectivity. That said, a mother-in-law who sets her daughter on fire is doubtlessly a person I hate. Also, I am sure that women are subjected to more injustice than men and that’s why I have written more about women. But that doesn’t mean I write only about women. I write about birds, trees – whatever I think is not spoken about as much as it should be. I write about anyone or anything that nobody writes about.
I cannot lose my objectivity when it comes to injustice. My responsibility as a writer is doing exactly that. This is my position, the position of my soul and I don’t need any party or group or “ism” to limit me. It is me and my unabashed individuality, it’s the agreement I signed with life. And all this cannot be decided in advance. When you live with a sense of individuality and rational thought, these things happen automatically, if you have compassion, if you care about humanity.
Malika Amar Shaikh has an extensive body of work that includes several poetry collections, short story collections as well as a biography of her father – apart from the autobiography that has drawn the most public attention, in particular around her marriage and the person of her late husband.
Her discerning and practical understanding of social and political movements, the role of personal discipline, and shortcomings is a source for anyone seeking to change the world or change minds. I would want to see more of her work translated so that the development of her thought and creative oeuvre is made available for others as she intended. For now, I will give Malika Amar Shaikh the last word.
‘The woman who knows where to stop is a woman of independent mind.’
Freedom is an elastic word. It grows as much as you stretch it. If you relax the tension, it snaps back into smallness. You must insist on your freedom while still retaining your humanity.
***
Links:
https://scroll.in/article/817331/my-life-cannot-be-made-over-to-anyone-not-even-namdeo-dhasal
https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/interview-malika-amar-shaikh/story-mFFW3ttjiykate3wR49tIM.html
Usawa Literary Review © 2018 . All Rights Reserved | Developed By HMI TECH
