The Women Question in Tagore's Writing- A Case Study of Rituparno Ghosh's Chokher Bali

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About the Book The Women Question in Tagore's writing-A Case Study of Rituparno Ghosh's Chokher Bali attempts to understand the issues concerning the relationship between women and nation. The book discusses Rabindranath Tagore's views on women and society through his works, particularly the novel Chokher Bali, and also analyses how Rituparno Ghosh, as a director, responded to these issues via Tagore. The discussion that the book engages with primarily concerns the 'Women Question' that was dominant during the late 19th and early 20th century discourse in Bengal. Tagore and Ghosh have represented a realistic picture of the predicament of women, particularly widows, in a radically chang ing society and nation. Both the writer and the director has chal lenged the predetermined notions of the society by creating a representational space for the oppressed women and offered them a powerful role which was quite ahead of their times.

About the Author Ananya Bhattacharjee is a Ph.D research scholar in the Department of English, Gauhati University. Her current area of research is American Drama. She has completed her M.Phil from the same department having worked on film studies. She has worked as a guest lecturer in Guwahati college in Guwahati. She has published various articles in scholarly journals.

Foreword Nineteenth century Bengal has always fascinated writers, historians, cultural theorists and film makers alike. The tremendous traffic of knowledge both to and from Bengal, the nascent (and soon to be burgeoning) sense of nationalism, the social reform movements, the consistently changing landscapes of politics and history, and above all, the radical changes that were coming about in the lives of women: these are the contexts of Chokher Ball by Rabindranath that Ananya Bhattacharjee examines in this book. While Tagore's period is fascinating in itself, it is doubly interesting to analyze how a postcolonial/post-independence filmmaker like Rituparno Ghosh enters into the area and presents it to modern spectatorship. Like all adaptation studies, this book has to keep in view two different timelines and the complexities involved in the process of retelling a well-known text from an iconic author and presenting it on celluloid. Additionally, there are questions of genre that must be addressed. These are some of the challenges that Ananya faces, and she enthusiastically manages to grapple with the tricky issues that are thrown up. Her writing is lucid and her engagement with her subject places this book as an honest and very readable work in the area.

Introduction Rabindranath Tagore is a major presence when one thinks of Bengal and its culture, a paramount figure in Bengali literature. A collection of poems, Gitanjali (Song Offerings), secured for him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He excelled in various genres of art and culture and became renowned as a poet, dramatist, novelist, composer, actor, singer, editor of the Bengali literary journal Sadhana). He composed more than 2000 poems and 3000 songs. As a literary she had deep knowledge of the society of his days and was a staunch lover of nature. Tagore founded Shantiniketan in a natural surrounding thereby giving vent to his passion for nature and a new education system. It is common knowledge that Tagore was absorbed in the world of words and his imaginative world resulted in the production of a great number of novellas, songs, poetry and plays. It is interesting to know how Tagore got associated with cinema. During pre-independence times, Tagore travelled to various places to perform and collect funds for the establishment of his university (Vishvabharati). It was during those days that his troupe staged a dance-drama, Notir Puja, based on a story he had written. In 1932, on the occasion of Tagore's 70th birth anniversary, New Theatres, one of the prominent filmmaking studios, arranged the filming of Notir Puja which the poet had staged in 1927. This was the only time that Tagore was so closely associated with cinema with the screenplay being written under his guidance by his nephew Dinendranath Tagore while he himself composed the background music, with students of Santiniketan acting in the film. Tagore not only directed but also played a significant role in the film.

**Contents and Sample Pages**