The Matchbox By Ashapurna Devi

First a little background information about Ashapurna Devi. She was born in Calcutta 1909. It was a time women were seldom allowed to read. They were not even supposed to go out unattended. She grew up in a conservative household and then got married into another conservative family. In one of her later interviews, she claimed that after her marriage nothing had changed in her life – as far as the treatment of women was concerned. In both households women played an important role, but only inside the house; and in every sphere of domestic life, their roles were subservient to men. In such a setting, it was expected of women to be expert in household related things, while men were encouraged to do other things. The roles were rigidly demarcated.

The writing was doubtless for men. Ashapurna Devi had always access to magazines and books at her home, although those were primarily meant for men. Even though she was never really encouraged to pursue reading and writing, she was drawn to reading stories. After her marriage, she began writing short stories under a male pseudonym. Her stories became very popular. Consequently, she had to come out and reveal her true identity, but many male writers of the time were stunned to find out that the writer was a woman. Some of them blatantly dismissed her saying that a woman could not produce such a powerful and compelling work.

In her later years, she would often say that she had seen life only through a window. It was a intriguing statement because her work did not give that impression at all. Personally, I believe that had she written in any of the European Languages, her work would have been known and celebrated in western literature. It is a pity that her work was primarily read and locked in Bengali literature.

I never read anything by her that was frivolous, her stories were exceptionally beautiful and realistic, and sometimes too dark. For instance, in one of her stories, she writes about a woman who becomes a widow at a very young age. She raises her only son single-handedly. At some point, the son gets married. Now he lives with his wife and mother and the dynamics of their relationship changes. She resents her son for giving his wife too much attention. The wife finds her husband's mother too cloying and wants her mother-in-law to observe all the rituals that are expected of a widow. She would always remind her mother-in-law of her widowhood. (Society, family members, siblings all impose restrictions on widows: they must live simply, eat only once a day, wear only white, no makeup and so forth, just work and wait for death).

Just a few months after her son's marriage, he dies in an accident. Now instead of one widow, there are two. The mother is devastated by the death of her son, but soon afterwards, instead of mourning him, she is fully occupied in telling her daughter-in-law what she should do. She repeats everything that her daughter-in-law has ever said to her concerning the role of a widow. She tells her daughter- in-law that now she has to live an unfortunate life. She savors as she lists all the deadly restrictions to her daughter-in-law. She forgets her son, she forgets to mourn him; she only reminds her daughter-in-law of her transition to widowhood and how to accept it.

For days I was lost in this story; its hideousness was appalling, but unfortunately real, and often go unremarked in Indian society. Sometimes when I think of her work, I feel amazed by the kind of sensibility she carried within herself because her work seemed so relevant even today. (After all human nature has not much changed). And in some ways, it has also surfaced in unexpected ways such as in the short stories of Jhumpa Lahiri – one recognizes the legacy of Ashapurna Devi.