Rajmohans wife, it seems, is the first published English novel by an Indian.

It has also the distinction of being Bankim Chandra Chatterjees debut novel as a writer. It is valuable in the sense that he never wrote in English again and turned to Bengali, to become one of the most influential Bengali writers with great works like Durgesh Nandini, Anandamath etc, which stirred nationalist feelings in the then public. They made him timeless and are still being read by lots of people all over India in various languages. The novel is first serialized in 1864, but did not appear as a book until 1935. The very story from revival of all the chapters of this book till its first appearance as a book is interesting in itself. I think I wrote about it in this post. It has the capability to become a small novella in itself!

Coming to the story, I am not very sure why it was particularly named after Matangini, Rajmohans wife. But, it is an interesting read, talking about the plot. Rajmohan is one of the aids of Mathur Ghose who plans to attack his cousin Madhav Ghose. Matangini overhears Rajmohan discussing his plans to attack Madhavs house with his friends Bhiku and Sardar. She is worried as she has a great deal of affection for Madhav and his wife Hema, who happens to be Matanginis own sister. Concerned, she ventures out to Madhavs home and informs him the situation, thus saving them from an attack planned at that very moment. She is welcomed by a furious Rajmohan as she returns home. Rajmohan rushes forward to kill her. At that very moment, Bhiku and Sardar arrive. In the brief interlude, Matangini escapes from the house. By the quirk of fate, she ends up taking shelter in Mathur Ghoses house, which is nearer to Rajmohans house. Dramatically, she disappears when she is sent back to her husband, on his request. Madhav is held captive by the person who eyes his property. I am tempted to write the full story here, but in case you want to read it sometime, I dont want you people to curse me for telling the story from beginning till the end. Better read a book than read about it.

Hmm I cant say the book is a very great book. But, yeah, it was a good read. It was gripping enough. However, the language appeared a bit archaic for me. Somehow, after around 150 years since its birth, I think bookish English changed a lot. The style of frequently trying to put on a conversation with the reader like my dear reader reminded me of my horrible experience with Kanthapura. However, this had such conversations only occasionally. Perhaps, that was why it was readable. The descriptions were greatly elaborate. Sometimes, this elaborate-ness bored me. Who will tolerate those descriptions which appear to be infinite, when one is thinking about whats going to happen in the next scene? My final verdict: It can be read for three reasons: 1. For its historical significance 2. For its considerably readable plot 3. A very well written preface and after word by Meenakshi Mukherjee

Thanks to the library, I read Indias first English novel! Thanks to IISc, at which I read this novel taken from my colleges library , for it gave me ample time to read and write about it. Thanks to Microsoft Research too, but for whom, I would have never found this solitude to read it peacefully!

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The Allegory of Rajmohan's Wife: National Culture and Colonialis

By reprinting Bankimchandra Chatterjees Rajmohans Wife, Ravi Dayal has made a renewed consideration, if not reinterpretation. Professor Meenakshi Mukherjee, the Afterword, highlights several important areas for debate and discussion. Of these, th and consequences of writing in English as opposed to Bangla; the realistic mode o entire question of Woman in the nineteenth century. The text is, as Mukherjee questions about language, culture, colonization, and representation. While this is tru within which these issues that she identifies may be read productively if problematical I believe the latter is possible if the novel is read as a sort of national allegory. Frederi All third-world texts are necessarily, I want to argue, allegorical, and in a very speci call national allegories, even when, or perhaps I should say, particularly when their f machineries of representation, such as the novel. (69). I would not like to engage with Aijaz Ahmads incisive and relentless interrogation Chapter 3 of In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures), except to say that we wou between the so called First and Third world, not to speak of singular and reducti having accepted that national allegories are common to both Western, canonical a would be useful to see if Rajmohans Wife can be read in this manner. Indeed, it is not at all unusual to read Bankim as one of the creators of Ind allegory and personification extensively to convey his ideas. Sri Aurobindo made wrote as early as 1894, the year of Bankims death, in Indu Prakash, arguing that wh short of a language, a literature and a nation (Our Hope in the Future: 102). T additions of pro-British statements in the second edition of 1883, inspired generations song and a battle cry, it influenced generations of revolutionaries as well as moderates Sri Aurobindo, writing in a nationalist newspaper also called Bande Mataram, said among the Makers of Modern India (345). Sri Aurobindo claimed that Bankim not o combine the strength, dignity or soft beauty of Sanskrit with the nerve and vigour of important, practically invented the religion of patriotism (346). Bankim was able to our Mother: It is not till the Motherland reveals herself to the eye of the mind as something individuals, it is not till she takes shape as a great Divine and Maternal Power in a

works miracles and saves a doomed nation is born. To some men is given to have thirty-two years ago that Bankim wrote his great song and a few listened; but in a sud moment somebody sang Bande Mataram. The Mantra had been given in a singe day religion of patriotism. The Mother had revealed herself. A great nation which h neck in subjection to the yoke of a conqueror. (Rishi Bankim Chandra 347)

Sri Aurobindos panegyric written in the heady days of his revolutionary activism martyrs to the cause of Indias freedom went to the gallows with the cry Bande Mat was itself translated into all the major Indian languages and widely circulated for deca its impact is the fact that there are seven different translations of the book in Hindi alo I would like to suggest that though the pronounced nationalism of Ananda career, its beginnings may be found in Rajmohans Wife. This is because Bankims of imagining a nation into existence through his fictional and non-fictional writings. he strove to accomplish. As Sudipto Kaviraj puts it: An imaginary community can only have an imaginary history. The actual history o never capture what was wanted of it, a history of mobilized action. Only a fictional h or Indians, putting men of the future inside events of the past. That is why the task wa be accomplished by a discourse of facts, but by a discourse of truth, or poetry, of the i It is only in the mythic discourse of novels that such a task can be accomplished imaginary history, after Bhudev Mukhopadhyays famous phrase Swapnalab influential essay. The phrase is felicitous because of its multiple semantic possibiliti history of India as revealed or obtained in a dream, but it also suggests that the Bh revealed or obtained in a dreamand therefore imaginary. There are many other reasons to tempt us to read Rajmohans Wife as an im Rajmohans Wife has been considered the first Indian English novel. Subhendu Kum Khans The Revelations of an Orderly, possibly first published in Benares Recorder James Madden in 1849 is the first Indian English novel (9) cannot be taken seriously called a novel. This text is, moreover, as yet not widely available. It has not, therefor the glamour attached to initiatory texts. By setting itself up as a sort of originary ex novel seems to promise much. However, the only exemplary value that most critics h start, the road that should not have been taken. Sunil Kumar Banerjis and Kaviraj book. Mukherjee, in addition, cites Sri Aurobindo, Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Sisir Kumar of such a view and also shows how Bankim himself advised Romesh Chandra Dut argues that though Bankim accepted English as a valid medium for political and pol preferred language of imaginative literature. The parallel with Michael Madhusudan obvious to ignore. In the latters case, the repudiation of English was not just more (see Mukherjee 151). All this evidence supposedly goes to show that the only thing th cultural turn, which Bankim himself rectified when he switched to Bangla with Durge It is not my purpose to oppose the false start view merely on grounds that that they can write complex and satisfying novels in English. In fact, I would argue successful these English novels are, they cant accomplish what novels written in B do. The kind of Indian experience that can be represented in English is differe languages. That Bankim was well aware of these limitations is obvious; therefore his or fortuitous, but deliberate and felicitous both aesthetically and politically. And dismissed merely as a false start. It is much more than an indirect commentary on th in English. What the novel actually offers is a way of mapping the Indian society of t political, social, and cultural coordinates. The novel accomplishes this through richly a newly emergent society, which for the sake of convenience, we may call modern In Rajmohans Wife is really an allegory of modern India, of the kind of society that ca social order and of the new, albeit stunted, possibilities available to it under colonial hope and a more realistic closure of options towards the end.

In order to read the novel in this manner, we shall have to agree that each c representation of an individual. That the characters are individuals cannot be dispute mind, their typical and collective features will be more important. Viewed in this li social conditions and ideological configurations. They are not merely individual cultural thematic baggage. Such a reading will not seem implausible when we bear in was a period of intense cultural reformation during which nothing short of what Fra emerge. As Fanon put it in The Wretched of the Earth: A national culture is the whole body of efforts made by a people in the sphere of thou through which that people has created itself and keeps itself in existence. (188). For Fanon, this struggle for the creation of a national culture mobilizes what is the bes It is the fight for national existence which sets culture moving and opens to it the which will ensure the conditions and framework necessary to culture. The nation elements necessary for the creation of a culture, those elements which alone can g power. (197) That much of Bankims life and certainly most of his writing was employed in the cre to dispute. To read Rajmohans Wife as a part of this larger project is therefore to acce so clearly extend to us. At the heart of such a culturalist-allegorical reading of the novel is, of cou Wife. We see her first in opening pages of the novel as an eighteen-year old perfect fl The dainty limbs of the woman of eighteen were not burdened with such an abundan any trace of the East Bengal accent, which clearly showed that this perfect flower of Madhumati, but was born and brought up on the Bhagirathi in some place near the dimmed the lustre of her fair complexion. Yet her bloom was as full of charm as th radiant under the noonday sun. Her long locks were tied up in a careless knot on her away that bondage and were straying over her forehead and cheeks. Her faultlessly d bashfulness under a full and wide forehead. The eyes were often only half-seen und raised for a glance, lightening seemed to play in a summer cloud. Yet even those k betrayed anxiety. The small lips indicated the sorrow nursed in her heart. The beau spoilt by her physical or mental suffering. Yet no sculptor had ever created anything by the neat sari she wore. (3) This carefully drawn portrait is a unique contribution of the traditional and the radical several elements from both classical and folk forms. For instance, the heroine is alw highlight the formers beauty; besides, several of the images used are taken from lo Bankims dissatisfaction with literary conventions was well known: It is characteri venture an original composition (Mishra 5). The description of Matangini may be ty not. Shes an entirely new kind of heroine, someone who is not timid and weak, b forward with her own kinetic energy and though thwarted, does not end up entirely de Matangini, I contend, is not just Rajmohans wife, but the spirit or personification o hesitant, yet strong-willed and attractive India. It is not the India of villages or the old born near the capital, Calcutta, and is full of new possibilities. But, this beautiful an shown as burdened by sorrow and anxiety. It is neither free nor happy, but its energ unworthy husband. No wonder, the very first chapter begins with a temptation and forbidden from going to fetch water from the river, is cajoled by Kanak into doing thereby exposing herself to Madhav, her brother-in-law, and setting the plot in motion threshold, thus, seems to operate in the very first Indian English novel. Once Mat never return to her designated first world but must make the irretrievable choice home (Lal 12). The defining features of modern India are thus its energy, its adven by tradition, and its desire to break free. The restlessness, vitality, charm, and drive o Matangini. The next chapter is symmetrical to the first in that it introduces us to two ma to the other. The older man, Mathur, is crude, vulgar, and corpulent. Tall, stout, dark

about him (7). Almost bald, his fat body oozes out of his Dacca muslin shirt; he ha his shirt, and wears rings on all the fingers of his hands. This is the picture of a corru novel. He is described as an exceedingly apt scholar in the science of chicane, fraud is he who wishes to steal the will from Madhav and who later imprisons Matangini both revenge and lust (119). The other man, the hero of the novel, is Madhav, a remarkably handso Madhav is from Calcutta, an English educated, progressive zamindar, in total contrast Matanginis energy and vitality: His clear placid complexion had turned a little dull comfort (8). We will remember that Mathurs complexion has been described as du dull, a quality which signifies tamas or lethargy, ignorance, sloth. Matangini, in con Clearly, the shakti or the energy that both men wish to possess, she is seen as the direction to the lives of these indolent men. Both Mathur and Madhav represent diff Bankim is implying that unless the privileged are yoked in the service of society, the wasted in idle self-indulgence, or worse, in wickedness and fraud. Yet, Bankim is cousins to Matangini. While Mathur regards her merely as a sexual object, a potential prattling about a respectable woman passing along the road (10). Sexual mores ar chaste, the respectable, the self-regulating are seen as virtuous, while those who are forgiven. This is in keeping with Bankims larger view of Dharma (see Haldar 55desired and the forbidden. It is clear that Matangini is the object of desire; whoever wins her affection struggle is for modern Indiato whom will it belong? The contenders are not just th or angelic Madhav, but the man who is her husband, Rajmohan. The latter is describ he is first seen in the novel. By now, we already know that the marriage is a failure. two do not seem to have any sexual relations, though Rajmohan is the very embodi cruel, brutish man of enormous strength but of a warped moral sense. In chapter th death (13). His utter lack of consideration for Matangini is one aspect of his person own benefactor. Perhaps, it is that ingratitude that decisively turns Matangini away fr Rajmohan is frequently angry and abusive with Matangini; there is a deep frustration right is his. He is the unhappy husband who chafes bitterly at not being worthy of his who or what does Rajmohan represent? We have seen that Mathur and Madhav res progressive elites who are vying for the control of the emerging nation. If so, the Rajmohan stands for the lumpenised proletariat under colonialism, alienated from its o alienation from Matangini is symbolic of proletariat being unable to man the nation the underclass cannot shepherd the delicate and precious blossom of the new nation i is often a struggle between the colonial and the national elites, with the national prole to bear fruit, the proletariat needs to line up behind the worthy elite in the latters novel, the elite is symbolically split into the worthy and the unworthy, while the prole alienated. Matangini is the spirit of the nation, a type of Mother India, whom Ban Bande Mataram, in Anandamath. Bangshibadan Ghose, the progenitor of clan to which Mathur and Madhav be rise signifies the destruction of the old order of pre-colonial India and the rise of an manner of Bangshibadans elevation is typical of Bankims narrative strategy. W Karunamayee, takes the servant as her lover. Again, the woman becomes the embo Karunamayee, Bangshibadan comes to possess the fortune, which is now in content earlier is evident in the contrary dispositions of two of Bangshibadans sons. Ra hardworking, but closed to English education and modernity. His son, Mathur, th tradition. The other son, Ramkanai, though indolent and extravagant, educates his s that the rightful heir to the e/state that is India ought to be someone who combines t of Madhav; only such a person can be the worthy partner of Matangini and hus Rajgopal, dying childless, has bequeathed his property to Madhav, the worthier o legalises the bequeath, that Mathur is after. If Matangini represents the future of Indi

should inherit the legacy of the past and direct the future of the countrythis is the q offer to help Rajmohan is yet another instance of the responsible elite trying to fulfil it is Rajmohan who rejects Madhavs offer. Matangini intervenes to insure that the Madhav, but cannot consummate her love for him. The ideal combination of the past, the experiment fails, it does highlight some choices before the nation. At the end of the book, after many adventures, Madhav is saved, Mathur Tara, Mathurs faithful and long suffering first wife, plays an important role in sav residual culture, those vestiges that though soon to be eclipsed, will serve a construc Matangini, whose boldness makes her risk her life to save her love, Madhav, is, howev is sent back to her fathers house and the novelist tells us that she died an early deat she represents cannot find fruition in this novel. Her union with Madhav is impossibl they constitute the basis of the new India that is to come. That is, for Bankim, Indias educated elite, but somehow this cannot be affected easily. There are insurmounta India. Perhaps, the real hitch was the hidden but dominant and all pervasive colonia smooth, but badly distorted. There is no easy or happy end in sight to Matanginis pro What is interesting is that in this novel, the colonial power is seen as b Irishman who is the Magistrate, ensures that justice is done, that Mathur cannot esca seen as paternalistic and providential, an interlude when India can recover her strengt both colonial authorities and their Indian collaborators often cited these supposed fea are, apparently, endorsed in this novel as characteristic of British rule. What we there in which though the colonial authority is not directly criticised, the heroine, Matangi Her love is thwarted, her aspirations crushed, her life threatened. What is more, she her survival against all odds is itself almost a miracle. But Matanginis life is not a su Her courage, fearlessness, loyalty, in fact, her loveliness, is itself wasted. That Bankim personally confronted this dilemma is clear in an essay Paradhinata (Indias Independence and Dependence): All work of governance is now in the hands of the Englishmenwe are unable to dependent on others. Because of this we are not learning how to protect our cou national qualities are not getting any scope for their fulfilment. Hence it must be a impediment to progress. But we are learning European literature and science. If we we would not have been fortunate enough to enjoy this bliss. So on the one had our de other hand we are making progress. (Quoted in Haldar 100) Bankim, then, found himself in an impossible situation, somewhat like Matangini. other pairs of doomed lovers in Bankimsuffer from two forms of contradictory de Raj. It is this contradictory consciousness that Kaviraj has called unhappy. On the o desire within marriage, but, on the other hand, is the more powerful, socially unsanc mapping and the whole architecture of the social world (Kaviraj 6). In Bankims ow the politically sanctioned approval of British rule and the prohibited desire to be eman I have been suggesting that the tragedy of Matangini, a tragedy of unfulfilled po heroism is also, allegorically, the tragedy of a newly emergent India. This India, who of tradition, modernity, and colonialism is, in the end, a broken if not defeated India from all sides, an India whose coming into its own is frustrated. Perhaps, at a more required to guide its destiny might emerge; as far as the novel is concerned, t transgressions are thus only partially successful. The dream of creating a new soci order is thus a failed experiment in this novel. Like Hester Prynne, Matangini wil before she or someone like her can live happily with her chosen mate. In the mean mark on society. In Rajmohans Wife, Bankim was trying not just discover the right formula t formula to create a new India. The project of inscribing a new India continues in man 19th and early 20th centuries. In Rabindranath Tagores Gora (1909), for example union of Gora and Suchorita on the one hand, and of Binoy and Lolita on the othe

Poresh babu, the younger generation is offered a fresh opportunity to refashion a n Matanginis efforts are not rewarded with success. Yet, her survival is in itself a kind but the experiment to recreate the nation will have to be conducted again, with differe stories with happy unions between the heroes and heroines; but these tales lacked the as Rajmohans Wife, Durgeshnandini, Kapalakundala, Bishbriksha, Krishnakanter Will Before I end, I would like to return to the symbolic significance of Rajmohan As in the murky beginnings of any genre, the commencement of Indian English f Chunder Dutts A Journal of 48 Hours of the Year 1945 (1835), Shoshee Chunder Dut Pages of the Twentieth Century (1845), or Panchkouree Khans The Revelations of an O Toru Dutts Bianca or A Young Spanish Maiden (1878) is incomplete. Even Rajmoha the book that Bankim wrote, but is a reprint of a reconstruction that Brajendra Nath chapters of the novel, which was originally serialised in the weekly, Indian Field, are complete text of the novel except the first three chapters. Banerji used Bankims Ban translating them back into English. So the text that we have today is made up of thre Bakims Bangla translation of the English original, plus the remaining chapters as Ban This inaccessibility of the original text is a part of the mystery of Rajm exactly what Bankim really wrote in the first three chapters, we shall also never be originary text. The text is thus an emblem not just of a false start or of failed experim in a sense, of an unfinished project, both artistically and ideologically. It is not inc original form; it is also incomplete in the sense that its completion is indicated else meaning can therefore only be conjectured at or reconstructed. This reconstitution of fanciful or irresponsible exercise. For the serious student of Indian English literature pregnant with possibilities, a moment of creation, when not just a genre but a nation w in that beginning need to be harnessed when we look at the numerous trajectories Rajmohans Wife, when read allegorically, illustrates one such possibility for bot evasive, the text nevertheless leaves a valuable trace, which we may construe as an nation building. The importance of Rajmohans Wife only increases when we realise that it is India, but in all of Asia. Its dramatic location at the cusp of history only adds to its just a new India, but an emerging Asia seeks to find its voice in an alien tongue. In th sky in the form of a new beautiful, spirited, and romantic heroine, Matangini. There before. Created from an amalgam of classical, medieval, and European sources and a what might constitute a new female subjectivity, Matangini is a memorable characte few women who have her capacity to move the narrative. She, moreover, embodies selfhood and dignity. Her courage, independence, and passion are not just personal This subtle superimposition of the national upon the personal is Bankims gift to his making novel like Midnights Children (1981) can thus be traced back to Bankims mo Though we may no longer subscribe to the idea that certain master narrative we can still appreciate the interconnectedness of stories, their multiple and entang tangled endings. That the story of Rajmohans Wife is connected with other stories is be reductive and self-defeating to see it as an isolated and unsuccessful attempt at wri the story of Bangla vs. English as the medium of creative writing in India. Rajmohan see it as a part of the story of modern India itself. This is a story that is still being w which is exactly how Id like to see Rajmohans Wife too. As a work in progress, rat for Indias future growth and development. In this path, the English-educated eli bondage and exploitation. While the Rajmohans and Mathurs must be defeated, M natural mate, Madhav. However, the latter is not possible just yet; Matangini has the idea ahead of its time, she must wait till she can gain what is her due. But not rendezvous with her paramour and smoulders across the narrativescape of the nov novelty in Bankims novel is precisely the irruption, the explosion that Rajmohans causes in the narrative of modern India. Like a gash or a slash, the novel breaks

subcontinent, leaving a teasing trace that later sprouts many new fictive offshoots. Even at the risk of an anti-climactic conclusion, I must end with a disclaime not be misconstrued as an attempt to prove that it is a great novel or a highly signif rather modest, even slight effort compared to Bankims mature masterpieces. Yet, I b allegorical importance ought to be recognized. It is how we read this text, the sorts that makes it possible for us to see the role it played in the shaping of modern In Bankims own project, and the larger project of imagining a nation, becomes lu unavailable when we regard it either as a false start in the wrong language or an emine

Note

I am grateful to Professor Meenakshi Mukherjee for taking the trouble to comments were not only useful but saved me from one or two errors. I also thank m this paper carefully and offering his useful responses.

Works Cited Ahmad, Aijaz. In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures. London: Verso, 1992.

Aurobindo, Sri. Our Hope in the Future 1894. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Libr Aurobindo Ashram, 1972.

-----. Rishi Bankim Chandra. 1907. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library. Vol 1 1972.

Banerji, Sunil Kumar. Bankim Chandra: A Study of His Craft. Calcutta: Firma K. L

Bose, S. K. Bankim Chandra Chatterji. New Delhi: Govt. of India Publications Divis

Chatterji, Bankimchandra. Rajmohans Wife: A Novel. Ed. Meenakshi Mukherjee. 18

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Tr. Constance Farrington. 1967; rpt.Harmo

Haldar, M. K. Foundations of Nationalism in India: (A Study of Bankimchandra Chatte 1989.

Jameson, Frederic. Third World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capital. Soc

Kaviraj, Sudipto. The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and th Discourse in India. Delhi: Oxford UP, 1995. Lal, Malashri. The Law of the Threshold. Shimla: IIAS, 1995.

Mishra, Ganeswar. How Indian is the Indian Novel in English. Bhubaneswar: Departm

Mund, Subhendu Kumar. The Indian Novel in English: Its Birth and Development. N
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