I finished
reading Antara Banerjee’s book ‘The Goddess in Flesh’ a few days back. I
usually allow myself some time before I write about my perspective on a book to
check how much of the book stays with me, to check if the book is still
relevant for me, and if there are images from the narrative that refuse to
leave me.
‘The Goddess in
Flesh’ scores on all fronts.
The book has
three stories - ‘Vama’, ‘Possessed’ and ‘The Forbidden Threshold’. The stories
are about women – women shunned by society, women made hapless victims of
archaic societal norms, women being treated dispassionately as objects of
physical and at times, spiritual gratification.
Antara is a
painter herself and as you turn the pages of this book, what strikes you
immediately are the visuals she weaves with her lucid storytelling. You walk
with a little girl along dusty, sun-baked roads in search of her sister who has
been brutally sacrificed at the altar of the goddess after having been abducted
from a fair, you cringe at the sight of gory rituals of human sacrifice in the
depths of forests, you gape in awe at the elaborate and extravagant rituals in
temples, your heart skips a few beats as you watch aghoris feast on human flesh through the eyes of a young,
vulnerable child, and even the potua-para
we are all familiar with, comes alive in the pages of this book. There is a
theatrical feel to the scenes unfolding before the reader, especially in the grand
climax of each story. As I spent the last few days with this book, the imagery
managed to completely detach me from busy Kolkata streets and the comfortable
familiarity of my bedroom, and the tranquillity of an aircraft packed with
dozing business travellers. The narrative transports you to its magnificent and
turbulent world - in time and in space.
In every story, as
the protagonist takes up cudgels against social norms and patriarchal
atrocities to protect a sister or a daughter or an innocent child she does not
know, the thin line between humanity and spirituality vanishes. You see the
divine power in the unlikeliest of women – the demure, submissive wife a high
priest, a woman exploited by yogis to attain
moksha through sexual gratification,
or a woman devoted to her married lover, and shunned by society as a
prostitute. The ‘goddess’ we seek in the idols we build and devoutly worship ,
lives in each one of the women we have fed, nurtured and showered our wealth
on, only for their ‘flesh’.
What also strikes
me is Antara’s deep knowledge of mythology and Hindu customs, which comes forth
in all the stories. The way she depicts rituals in minute details, the way she
draws parallels with mythology, and the way she then starkly portrays their
futility and contradictions leave indelible impressions in the minds of the
reader.
And finally, the
review will not be complete if I do not mention the wonderful romantic
interludes in the stories. The portrayal of the newly married Vama waiting in
anticipation for her husband on her wedding night, the whirlwind romance and
blissful domesticity of Sambhu and Vikata, the unbridled passion between
Shodashi and Ramakanto are seeped in passion and intense romanticism. The
goddess is, after all, a woman at heart ready to sacrifice herself at the altar
of love and all-consuming passion. For centuries, she has been made to pay a
heavy price for her pure, unadulterated feelings.
The stories in ‘The
Goddess in Flesh’ are from another world and another time, yet extremely
relevant in today’s context when atrocities against women continue unabated,
when women continue to be commodified, when religion and social norms are but
tools for exploiting a woman. Antara holds a mirror to us and makes us scurry
for cover.
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