Far away from the ‘centre’ of academic and creative excellence, a well-known literary writer has been working quietly in the field of Maithili and Hindi literature. This is none other than Usha Kiran Khan who got the prestigious Sahitya Academy Prize for her novel, Bhamati, written in Maithili. She writes a blazing prose entertaining and engaging to the extent that you take her book any morning or leisurely afternoon and forget the surroundings, only to derive tremendous aesthetic pleasure to soothe your mind. The native speakers and readers of Maithili language will you about inimitable beauty of the metaphors she creates and the web she weaves and the narrative she builds out of the historical figures and events keenly observed and intensely experienced.
Bhamati offers us an unforgettable and unbelievable love story between an extraordinarily outstanding scholar husband and almost equally caring and loving wife who willingly sacrifices all her emotional needs in order to help her husband Vachaspati Mishra successfully pursue his scholarly pursuits. Bhamati, the person is a legend in the region of Mithila, Bihar. She is very fondly remembered and revered as a cultural icon whose strength of character and sense of selfless love was so strong and powerful that her husband Vachaspati Mishra who had abandoned worldly pleasures and was completely engrossed with the pursuit of knowledge surrendered the fruits of his scholarly endeavours to honour his wife’s amazing perception and equally amazing practice of unconditional love. One of the best minds who wrote one of finest commentaries on Brahma Sutra Bhasya of Adi Shankara who himself requested the scholar to do so, dedicated the entire book to his wife. The naming of the commentary on Brahma Sutra as Bhamati by Vachaspati Mishra who juxtaposes the sanctity of human love with the authority of philosophical scholarship is a classic example of two different traditions of Indian way of life coming together in such a way that her love is not only reciprocated but also valorised over the unflinching commitment of her husband to the pursuit of knowledge. Those who harbour misgivings about the reciprocity of love are naive and know little of the complexities of human relationships and the power of true emotional attachments to move not only the most reluctant minds but also those whose knowledge and understanding have led them completely detach themselves from the material world which they have decided to renounce once they are free from their academic commitments.
Khan’s Hasina Manzil is another fabulous novel in Maithili that tells us a moving account of a forlorn father resolutely in search of his daughter with whom he accidentally ends up living for a long time without any inkling of the identity of his host who also holds an ardent desire to see her father whom she does not recognise. Khan has contributed a number of literary gems to the domains of both Hindi and Maithili literatures, and given us some perceptive and provocative interpretations of historical and cultural interface from a literary point of view as it in her opinion unfolded during the distinct phases of precolonial Mithila.
Her novel Sirjanhar has been written in Hindi and published by the prestigious Bhartiya Jnanpeeth publications. It primarily revolves around the medieval poet, dramatist and travelogue writer Vidyapati who is often considered the fountainhead of Maithilli literature. Though Maithili literature began with Jyotirishwar Thakur’s Varna Ratnakara in the 12th century, it was Vidyapati who made it popular with his Padavalis among the masses during the late 14th and early 15th centuries. He was intimately associated with the ruler of the land. The most generous patron he had was the king, Shiva Singh, who awarded him the title of Abhinav Jayadev, placing him alongside Jayadev, the author of Gita Govinda (1205). He also gifted him his native village, Bisphi, on the occasion of his coronation in 1412. Vidyapati wrote in three languages such as Sanskrit, Avahatta and Maithili but his claim to fame today rests largely on his contribution to Maithilli literature, particularly for the love songs of Radha and Krishna which are still extremely popular in that region.
The trajectory which these novels, Bhamati and Sirjanhar, especially have charted appears to underline two perceptive and rather provocative points. The first is that it is erroneous and fallacious to suggest that those women like Bhamati and Radha who have given up the road of material aggrandisement on their own and seek to sacrifice their self interest for their loved ones are week in strength and character. Their sacrifice makes them totally subservient to male predominance and their exploitation is an inevitable consequence of such an independent but unwise choice. The novel makes it very categorical drawing on Gandhian values which seem to have made a lasting impact on the psyche of the novelist during her childhood and shaped her consciousness in an enduring manner, that only powerful women can afford to make sacrifices for those they love and deeply care for. Many have utterly failed to understand these empowered and emancipated women who accomplished what they wished through selfless love. Gandhian vision of an independent and strong woman appeared to them a conservative version of feminine self. Usha Kiran Khan has demolished such perception of female subjectivity. Bhamati is a fiercely independent and strong woman, no way submissive at all. Her sacrifice is her own choice which Western styled tendencies under the influence of colonial modernity find impossibly difficult to digest. One of the highly notable strengths of this novel is that it has explicitly revisited Indian tradition in order to foreground the emancipatory hallmark of unconditional love while it has implicitly rethought the nature of colonial modernity to redefine the idea of feminine subjectivity.
The second is that these literary works unfailingly highlight the cultural pride which goes into the making of a Maithil identity. Both Bhamati and Vidyapati have emerged as the representative figures of Maithil cultural identity, and the novelist shows some kind of evident desire to glorify the culture of the region. This in my assessment is one of the drawbacks of an otherwise creatively satisfying engagement with extremely distinguished historical characters. Bhamati and Vidyapati are indisputably the best of what Maithili identity stands for. But the kind of circumstances which define Maithil cultural identity in our times have lost sight of those values and principles which made them genuinely enlightened human beings who had nothing to do with casteist and patriarchal practices.
A certain kind of new and extremely innovative thinking emerged in fifth century India when Bhatrahari says in Vakyapadiya that “the human mind attains a much better and greater insight and acumen after interacting with other traditions. What does he know who does not know his own traditionIJ What does he know who knows only his own traditionIJ” This is precisely what the Bhamati and Vachaspati Mishra story tells us. A great philosophical mind who sought spiritual liberation through vidya (knowledge) of soul as ultimate a reality as God himself comes to develop tremendous respect for his wife’s way of attaining salvation through selfless love. He was absolutely awed by the path of undying and unconditional love his wife, Bhamati has chosen to achieve emancipation. The legend has it that he could never forget her love despite the fact that he left home and went to the Himalayas as he had decided even before he knew about his wife’s unbelievably fulfilling love for him.
The reviewer is an Assistant Professor of English at Rajdhani College, DU
